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Ram Airs Crash in San Diego

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Pump me up
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Ram Airs Crash in San Diego

Postby Pump me up » Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:33 am

Well, boys, the verdict is in.

Despite the ridiculous over-hyped claims from Flysurfer reps like Ted Bautista (aka Bullshitsa - thanks mad mick), Flysurfer ram air kites crashed and burned in Kiteboarder Mag's light-wind showdown in San Diego.

The overall consensus was that Flysurfer ram air kites are ok in light wind, but they turn VERY SLOWLY. The overall impression was that there are much better inflatables, in particular, the Rhino.

It's interesting that a lot of the ram air guys who were getting excited about this showdown are now remarkably SILENT, in particular, Ted Bautista. His rants in the lead up to this showdown almost defied belief. He reminded me of that insane guy in "Seven", bouncing up and down on the back seat of the car, rubbing his hands together, muttering to himself "I can hardly wait. Can hardly wait."

Ram lovers keep circulating their lies. We know ram lovers are prone to exaggeration and just plain misinformation eg see the following threads:
1 Ram airs jump 8m in 8 knots ("The future is bright, the future is foil")
2 Ram airs are better light wind kites than inflatables

Ram airs are inferior light wind kites because they:
1 Have excessive drag, compromising the Lift/Drag ratio
2 Turn VERY slowly
3 Have incredible inertia. The Speed 17 contains over 7kg of air in its pockets, compared to about 3kg in the Rhino5 20m.

And let's not forget the nightmarish problems associated with dealing with bridles on ram air kites of this size. Also, it's important to keep in mind the problems with wind dropouts in light conditions. If you choose to go out in light winds, you will occasionally experience full dropouts. No kite, inflato or ram, will stay up in these conditions. It is better to have an inflatable in drop-outs because at least you can support your weight and try to get back to the beach. All ram airs become hopelessly waterlogged and unwieldy after about 45mins and absolutely impossible to water relaunch. Ram airs are just plain dangerous in wind dropouts.

As confirmed in the lightwind showdown, and despite lies from ram lovers, you won't really have fun on any kite (ram air OR inflatable) unless the wind is over about 7-8 knots. This is the starting point for BOTH ram airs and inflatables, but because of the reasons I've outlined above, inflatables are vastly superior. And this is just the starting point. You won't really be having fun until it hits about 10 knots on an inflatable OR a ram air.

If you are going to buy a light wind kite, buy an inflatable: They are easier to use, much more fun, and safer by a loooong way.

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Postby vaguelyswami » Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:03 am

Image

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Postby Nico » Sun Aug 28, 2005 4:32 am

Pump me up,
this is long post to make your point, and using the rhino5 as example makes me think that there is a funny smell to the whole thing.
This kite is known to be one of the less powerfull inflatos out there.
So what's up ?
Nico

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Postby jakemoore » Sun Aug 28, 2005 5:27 am

What, no copy and paste? No lift drag ration? No luff curve?

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Re: Ram Airs Crash in San Diego

Postby Pedro Ferraz » Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:38 am

Pump me up wrote: 1 Have excessive drag, compromising the Lift/Drag ratio
:o :sleeping:
Pump me up wrote: All ram airs become hopelessly waterlogged and unwieldy after about 45mins and absolutely impossible to water relaunch.
Some improvement! Use to be 5 or 10mins! :thumb:

Thanks for the laugh PMU! :lol2:

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Postby Tone » Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:20 am

"it jumped and i can't belived i jumped as high as i did with it in the light conditions"

"in low wind conditions, i was still able to stay upwind"

"the flysurfer shoots upwind - best of all so far for me"

upwind " Very good! one of the best i have flown due to its efficent use of apparent wind"

"i think this kite has a high fun factor potential, but i think it takes at least and hour to get used to for expreienced riders. It was one of the easiest kites to keep flying, save and relaunch"

all of the above are quotes from the san diego kite test in the kiteboarder mag.

i hardly think that says anywhere that the kite "crashed"

PMU your a jackass![/b]

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Re: Ram Airs Crash in San Diego

Postby bondo » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:04 am

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Postby Rockstar » Sun Aug 28, 2005 11:08 am

Yes,some care !!

Why do they get aggressive and post deroggatary pictures ?

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Postby uncleneil » Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:12 pm

Tone, Although I would love to see some shit with PMU, just think about your quotes.

The same exact quotes from KB mag that were stated by the testers were also stated for evey single kite. They were all the best, went upwind great(in 15 knots) and all had the same statements.

Why was the light wind test on the windiest day? Most of the test statements were on the windiest day and none on the 3rd day which was light also.

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Re: Ram Airs Crash in San Diego

Postby the_lone_wolf » Sun Aug 28, 2005 1:24 pm

Pump me up wrote:It's interesting that a lot of the ram air guys who were getting excited about this showdown are now remarkably SILENT, in particular, Ted Bautista.
he's probably too busy trying to keep up with the number of orders for new SPEEDs to respond to you :thumb:
Ram airs are inferior light wind kites because they:
1 Have excessive drag, compromising the Lift/Drag ratio
how do you explain that the tests conducted by a kite magazine showed that the SPEED has a L/D ratio of 6.6, much higher than the high AR tube kites which started at around 6.1? (search feature is broken and i can't find the thread, will post exact numbers when it's working again)


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