Hi Bille.
Firstly you cannot be crazy if you can admit the fact of being crazy. Does that make sense ?
Nice idea.
By the feedback you looks like lots of tweaking to be done.
Welcome to the world of R&D. Once youre hooked you'll be screwed for life.
I know as I am hooked already since my childhood.
Greetings
Nico

catch 22 right?

Something like this was done back in 2003 by Faction Kites :


For more info open http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=1156 and scroll down two-thirds of the way through this long post, until you get to the Faction Kites section. From what I heard about it, the performance improvements weren't worth the cost to add the tapered LE profile, so it never caught on.

I think Billie's looking to prove a point to himself (and others), rather than put something into production...

Look at the picture from the bottom of the Go fast inflatable :
Ya know how they got that stepped bottom ?
Different sized inflatable tubes !!

More Drag than most can imagine ...
Reduce the lift at the tip & Ya reduce the difference in High pressure on the
bottom of the wing and the Low pressure on Top.
Making the wing Totally symmetrical at the tip, with (O) angle of attack
then Ya just dun away with the tip vortex !

The tip on most of our kites is Vertical to the lift curve thus adding NO lift
and Only stability. So the airfoil that i imagine is the same on Both sides.
Twin Skin !!

Yea -- a while back,i tried to Bate --PMU-- into betting me that a twin skin would be taking
the fastest speed record on the water. Didn't tell him that the twin-skin was gonna
be an LEI !!
I just burned $200 on material to turn my Ozone Edge into a Twin Skin to 70% cord. It's WHY i needed the Mylar on my TE !!!

--knot_moving--
YEA Good point and Yes it Will Move with that suggestion !!

I went with what "WILL" be at 80% of my cord AFTER i chop the Trailing Edge of my
13M edge down to a 12M; Thus increasing my AR. I need 20% cord from the TE to be Mylar,
That's about what they use on a HG.
Really surprised You caught that !!

YEP -- & the Catch 22 that --swim82-- mentioned ...
The puzzle "IS" worth the Prize !
The Prize being a :" better Kite" ; if Ya can figure it out !!

Unreal how close that tip design is to a modern state of the art HG !
& Yea it Works !!




Bille

i wait with baited breath. hurry up and tweek. then you need to upload a video of the madness.

Sweet!
Thanks for the link to the faction kite! Exaclty what I wanted to have a go at.

Circa 2003 though,
Kinda like dismissing the value of a a spoiler cause it didn't make a noticable difference on your mom's civic. Would love to revisit this on on a modern efficient kite like a rebel, dyno, crossbow or edge.

Gotta go check kijiji for a sewing machine

Back to your Find --GregK--
Looking at the underside and compare to a HG, it Is similar, however with
the double surfacing on the bottom side going to 25%, it represents a Larger
and slower HG. Something used for a Tandem machine. They found that bringing
the bottom back to 100% made a Big difference in the speed range but made the
machine stiffer in handling. My glider is !00% on the bottom but I have Spoilers
to turn it.

The Rogallo wings turn with weight shift so they back off the underside a bit, and
add the Mylar TE . 80% is a good place to terminate the double surface, that
is where mine will go to, then the final single surfacing will be the Mylar. I've flown
lots of HG's with those proportions and they had Really Good performance.

SO --Johnny Rotten-- you said this :
"(The top side will no longer have wind pressure maintaining the shape.)"

There is a few ways to reintroduce the pressure to the underside after Ya double surface it.
There's a LEI tube in the way,so doing it like a PL is out, but Ya could place a scoop
underneath, to suck air in.
It would be Way easier to pressurize it than add a defined airfoil with battens, however
that is the way i wanna do it cause i'm good at composites.

Bille
================================================================
Edit :
Didn't wanna bring this thread back till After the Mods get test-flown at the lake
in March.

Well -- yesterday, (Feb 15) i flew my 2008- 13m Ozone Edge for the Last time !

I looked at Every stretched spot & wrinkle on the sail, and noted what the fabric
looked like just before it's doubled over on the TE, (looked cupped).

Sure Hope i'm NOT screwing up a Perfectly Good kite that someone else Could enjoy ?
Because Today i take scissors to it -- and dive-into my Mods.

Let Ya know if it's Better or if it's Garbage when done, in about Two weeks, (after i test-fly it).
The Mylar TE and the carbon battens are First-Up.
Won't bring this Thread back till i take it boarding again -- with the new Mods. --------promise