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Postby Guest » Tue Sep 03, 2002 7:24 am

Check out a Warrior 16.5, easy relaunch from 5-6 knots upwards and really good in the
lulls because it can not overfly.

Compared it to a friends X2 20m last week,
he couldn't hold his kite in the air and
I was cruising and holding my ground upwind.!

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Postby BLOWN AWAY » Thu Sep 05, 2002 8:08 am

aklbob it depends what you mean by "light wind". If it's 10 knots you mean then I'd still go for the X2... the 16m,18m or 20m X2 should perform great in these winds.

However if your talking about 7-8 knots with lulls... I wouldn't use the X2. My 8.5m C Quad can fly in nearly no wind at all and I can still sine it fast in 5 knots.... besides I wouldn't fancy my chances at relaunching an X2 in 4 knots... :smile:

In anything over 10 knots though... I wouldn't use anything else but my X2....

X2 from solid 10 knots...

flukey 8 knots to 10 knots... C Quad or ideally a superfoil like a flysurfer.

RUST IN PEACE :smile:

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Postby mmunzer » Thu Sep 05, 2002 11:43 am

Check out my article at
http://www.foilfest.com/article1/Foil_Article1.html

I hope that people will give comments on the article. If I get good comments I will include them in the article.

Best regards,

Marc
GoExtreme.dk
Foilfest.com

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Postby NIKS » Thu Sep 05, 2002 12:38 pm

Of course none of us flying inflatable kites is free of problems like exploded bladders, delamination, punched tubs and so on.
Foil are much better for those matters and it is not a small advantage lasting much much longer.
For Manfred I agree about almost all points but so far there is not one single foil that has the lift of tube ones.
The lift and so the jumping ability is given 70% by the speed of the kite, that is how fast it moves back and pulls you up. I tried few foil kites and althoug being great and stable with much more constant traction, those are slower, and the lift is lower as well.
I hope I will have soon a foil kite that lift as much as a tube kite. The research is going in that direction and FLYSURFER.DE annouced new interesting release.
So far tube have still better performance for jumps and depowering, at least to me.
Cheers
Niks

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Postby Andres_Santacruz » Thu Sep 05, 2002 8:50 pm

Just wait a little for the new flysurfer psycho, you will be amazed! Foils will have NO disadvantages with tubes with these new kites.
October...
Andres

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Postby gaffer » Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:55 am

for Royce all I can say is baaaah, just keep folowing the rest of the flock at it will be OK.

:smile:

the blade produces awesome amounts of lift in the right hands and conditions, it's far easier and cheaper for a manufacturer to jump on the LEI bandwagon than to pump lots of time and money into foil R&D, it simple economics that drive the market not performance.

There are a few foil makers (mostly with paraglider links) out there doing serious R&D and having good results, but with that level of R&D there is little money left over for marketing I guess so thats why you dont see the pro's on these kites.

A question to Royce and the others out there who think LEI's are the mutts nuts, if the LEI design is so damn good efficient and produces so much lift why have we not seen it put to use in other areas other than kitesurfing. Some examples would be a LEI paraglider or a LEI microlight, but so far it has not happened. Just imagine soaring a couple of hundred feet up and realising you got a slow puncture, mind you I dont suppose that pumped up bladder would cope to well with big changes in altitude and air pressure.

I know this is nothing to do with kitesurfing but what I'm trying to say is that the LEI is unlikey to see any more major improvements (except maybe in the durability area) whilst foil designs still have a lot of undiscovered potential.

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Postby Royce » Fri Sep 06, 2002 12:15 pm

Again, fair enough comments. I have done my fair share of parragliding and the reason that there are no lei's is because you don't have to relaunch your wing. Once you hit the water Bummer Your flight is over. The reason that there won't be any major developments in Foil kites...more lift = more drag...less lift = more speed but less flight time. That is the formular that everyone is working with. On a foil you either make the shape of the wing more efficient...maybee small changes or you reduce the drag. Only way to do that is by making a thinner aerofoil. LEI's will have more major development. Look for a kite that adjusts the angle of attack radically in the air. Pull the bar instead of increasing it 3 or 4 degrees it'll be 15..right to the edge of a stall. Change is a commin. As for RnD on foil kites...there are no more calculations to be done. Go get a parraglider formula program and voila theres you kite. One more point... a kite that is very efficient is not necessarily a good thing. Create a very efficient kite and you will not have much hang time nor height but a kite that is fast and flies well. Doubt it? Try shortenning your lines to 10 m lines to simulate a fast aerodynamic kite. AS for the too much spent on R+D, those companies are dedicated foil developers and have been doing it for 20 years. They will not be pulling anything new out of their computer programs. The biggest problem..high performance and instability go hand in hand.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Royce on 2002-09-06 13:19 ]</font>

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Postby Henry » Fri Sep 06, 2002 1:03 pm

On 2002-09-06 13:15, Royce wrote:
Again, fair enough comments. I have done my fair share of parragliding and the reason that there are no lei's is because you don't have to relaunch your wing. Once you hit the water Bummer Your flight is over. The reason that there won't be any major developments in Foil kites...more lift = more drag...less lift = more speed but less flight time. That is the formular that everyone is working with. On a foil you either make the shape of the wing more efficient...maybee small changes or you reduce the drag. Only way to do that is by making a thinner aerofoil. LEI's will have more major development. Look for a kite that adjusts the angle of attack radically in the air. Pull the bar instead of increasing it 3 or 4 degrees it'll be 15..right to the edge of a stall. Change is a commin. As for RnD on foil kites...there are no more calculations to be done. Go get a parraglider formula program and voila theres you kite.
May i point at the fact that both the "LEI" and "FOIL" are airfoils ? both have a certain profile[airfoil] that gives a great deal of the aerodynamic properties to the kite, and the aerodynamic laws don't change. This means that it's also treu for LEI's that more lift=more drag :wink:

The difference is the construction, a LEI is far stiffer than a ram airfoil design, so its likely that it can withstand a bigger AoA variation than a ram airfoil. In that point it's easyer to design and build a LEI with enough depower...

BUT a ram airfoil design is theoretical more efficient than a LEI, because it doesn't create turbulent airflow after the tube.

It takes a lot more R&D to make an ram airfoil design suitable for kitesurfing. (mainly depower and stability)

Just the last 2 years or so the foils become suitable for k-surf, and it takes a LOT of R&D to make it so.

It's ridiculous to think that foildesign has come to a stilstand and that everything that can be done with foils is done, the same is true for LEI's.

By the way, programs that calculate LEI's do also exist so designing a good LEI is also just a simple calculation on the computer ? Don't think so...


So please, choose the kite that fits your best, just don't ignore new devolepment at both the LEI and the Ram airfoil :wink:

Imho, the best properties of ram airfoils and LEI's combined will be the better kites in the future...

Have fun, Henry
(Who don't want to flame)

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Postby Guest » Fri Sep 06, 2002 1:33 pm

Flysurfer and a couple of other brands have been making huge inroads into kiting. Larger wind ranges than most of the LEI's, easier relauching etc.

I wouldn't put them out of the picture completely. I ride LEI's and I started on foils, but the recent foils I have tested are really turned heads and making me think...this psycho kite looks like it could be a big change, but I guess we have to wait and see.

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Postby gaffer » Fri Sep 06, 2002 3:46 pm

Royce, what you say may be true who knows what the future will bring?

There are already LEI's that allow you to change the AOA to the point of stalling, so I'm a bit confused to the point you are making about change a coming! The only benefit I can think of when stalling a kite is to be able to reverse it off the water (relaunch) or to back it down (good for landing)???


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