Home Made Foil Kite

[stefmoris]

Hello all, just wanted to share the stoke of my winter project with you. I like to make things, and this year I made a kite.

[Denisesewa]

Hello all, just wanted to share the stoke of my winter project with you. I like to make things, and this year I made a kite.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/135665987[/vimeo]

Thats very cool, having built a small open cell I know the work and dedication involved.
Awesome !!!

[FLandOBX]

Very cool, Stef. I am totally impressed. Must feel awesome when you ride that kite!!

[darippah]

Amazing work. Very impressive

[Tfcm]

Some serious skill and dedication.. Awesome work

[kitexpert]

Well done.

I have too used MH91 profile, my question is: how did you modified it? I can see your kite is not stable (required quite a lot tuning). I know too well those high-AR kite problems ...

Fortunately foilkites have a bridle you can adjust and get over some unstability problems. It's however too bad when you have to increase AoA to get stability, it decreases high-end and makes kite slower.

So how much camber, in what % is the thickest point and what is a profile depth? Did you morph profile parameters in different part of a wing?

And is there d-ribs? And how is the primary bridle, is it on every second or every third profile? And the speedsystem, 1:2:4 a la FS Speed, I presume?

I think your kite is one of the most remarkable diy-kites I have seen. It's big, it has meny cells, it must be powerful and it works. Congrats!

[stefmoris]

Thanks everyone for the wonderful comments

Kitexpert: This was my first foil kite ever. Having never tried a flysurfer, chrono... Etc. I was kind of shooting in the dark in some ways. Though I did design and build a ram air parachute almost 20 years ago so I'm familiar with the design and construction process.

I modified the MH91 by thinning it (non proportionally) to account for material billow and that was just freehand, no science. I also added more reflex, again freehand because I was worried about having too much bar pressure. That was a mistake, it is way too light in the bar! Not enough pressure.

There is no cross bracing so lines attach every second cell.

Mixer system is standard as you say.

I adjusted the bridle by adding negative camber (shortening b and c) not by adding angle of attack, though on my next kite I will move the tow point back a bit. I haven't measured the final amount yet relative to my original CAD spec yet so not sure, but a lot!

-stef

[Bletti]

Nice job with the video editing too!

[d21d3q]

which CAD are you using for design?

[stefmoris]

I used the sheet metal tools in Solidworks then added billow manually.
FXLR5 for analyzing the profiles (just for stagnation point and 0 lift AOA)
Lightwave for visual candy and such -stef