Kitesurfing with a diy foil kite

[Rein de Vries]

Hey!

Quite some years ago I made a so called Junkie s50, 5m2 foil kite mainly designed for buggying by a dutch designer who also released some nice Arc designs. The fixed bridle tractor like kite was quite advanced with d ribs and sewed needly. Had some fun with it over the years but was not to satisfied with the performance however. It tends to backstall and had some collapsing tips now and then. Furthermore it doensnt fly to quickly i think. Have not given up on it however

Actually I would want to upgrade it a bit, perhaps using a pulleyed bridle as on nowadays foils. To make it suitable for say 5 to 7 bft TT or hydrofoiling. No idea however whether this would anyhow make sense on this kite or how to start.

Anyone any ideas on this? Thanks in anvance for sharing!

[foilholio]

Buy a Pansh and mod it instead. I think you will learn more that way and have a better kite.

[Rein de Vries]

Thanks! Would be an option yes. Why do you think this would be the better way to go, would the 5m2 be to outdated?

[MartinO]

Buy is not as fun as build. I would definately give my kite a second chance if I made it myself.

I would recommend to take a close look on a modern foil in about the same size and take a look on how they made the bridle. Then try to transfer that into your design.

[elguapo]

Buy is not as fun as build. I would definately give my kite a second chance if I made it myself.

I would recommend to take a close look on a modern foil in about the same size and take a look on how they made the bridle. Then try to transfer that into your design.

kinda depends how we are defining "fun"

it would be much more fun being on the water than in the shop stitching a kite.

[Rein de Vries]

Copying the bridle concepts from a new foil would be something i could try yes. Is there any sw around calculating line lengths given a certain kite design? This would be very helpfull also in diy land I think.

[foilholio]

Thanks! Would be an option yes. Why do you think this would be the better way to go, would the 5m2 be to outdated?

It should work fine to start with. You can try things but always have the original state to go back too.

[kitejumping]

I made the same kite years ago, started converting it from a fixed bridle to a depower system for snowkiting, I think the plans were from wingine.nl but that site seems gone now. When snowkiting season ended I never got around to finishing the new bridle. I was just going to eyeball the speed system loosely based off other similar sized foil kites.

[kitexpert]

Those kites were primitive traction kites for some fixed AoA. It is quite hopeless to try to convert such to a depowerable kite with a mixer because airfoil inside is very different in shape than what it should be. It is a bit same if you had a granny bike and you asked if it can be modified to a mtb - yes you can drive a granny bike in the mountains but it would suck no matter what you do it.

I repeat, it is not a bridle issue but a kite shape issue. In this case every part is wrong shaped.

[Rein de Vries]

After fixing my Arc on front stall and clapping behaviour I am thinking about actually do converting the bridle of this junkie s50 to a depower pully based bridle. If the airfoil needs changes i can always use skin tucks where needed. The kite is simply to nice not to give it a try.

My difficulty lies in how to convert the bridle. I know the original lenths and have the kite but not the full plans on canopy shape etc. Studying surfplan and foilmaker a bit i understand mostly how it was done. But an easy change to the depower bridle i dont see yet. In the original plan ABC lines meet at the intermediate primary bridle point, but in the new system they individially go to the mixer. Anyone an easy conversion suggestion?

I do know the cords and ABCD points on the profiles as I still have the paper cuts.