That's what I thought as well, wtf, do you really use this kite above 13 knots? Don't you have a Vegas 9 ?

Me? Hell yeah! S3 drives so far up wind that when you're very over-powered, it turns into a paraglider you diddle around slowly going upwind, send the kite, sheet in and WOOOSH up you go!

i'll use the my 15m speed upto 17ish knots (i'll hold it for longer once out). once over 17 i usually jump straight to my 10c4...... but on a 14-20 knots day jum[p on the 13m edge... ahhh i like my quiver. just need an 8m to sit inbetween my 10 and 6!.

With the 12m Speed3 in 20 - 25 mph
30 - 40 feet is Supa EZ
My opinion to the question it's a high boosting kite

DrLW

L/D affects everything. L/D affects hangtime, more L/D means more time in the air, more L/D means when you are in the air you have more speed, L/D will also tell you what the top speed of the kite is that is how many times the windspeed you can go, L/D tells you how good the kite goes upwind.

Now, L/D is not just a number but a function. Most C kites will sit deeper in the wind window and because of this they have a higher angle of attack and this gives them more drag than a bridled kite, which presents a smaller angle of attack to the wind and goes upwind better. But this does not mean that if you forced that bridled kite deep into the power zone it would have a better L/D ratio for that angle of attack, and this is why even though it seems like C kites have more drag than bow kites, what you are measuring is not the same thing you are measuring the L/D at different angles. And when you jump, you will put both the C and the bow kite at about the same angle of attack.

Here's a chart of a propeller airplane, it's not a kite but it shows you how as the angle of attack changes the drag keeps increasing, until at 90 degrees drag is 100%



So yeah, I think L/D is key to the highest jumping kites, but not a static L/D for the kite overhead at 0 degrees as it is usually measured, but the entire L/D function, from 0 to 90 degrees.

As to which kites have this particular characteristic of a great L/D through the entire range of angle of attack used in a typical jump, hard to say, but the most efficient kite will waste the least energy and jump the highest.

Talking about wasted energy . . . If you megaloop your kite, to get that great sideways yank you have to start looping the kite before you are all the way at the top of the jump. Then when the kite goes through the power zone, you get 100% drag, and a big yank, that's the megaloop, then the kite goes overhead and catches you. But this big fat megaloop also means you jump lower. If instead of megalooping on the way up, you wait until after you are all the way at the apex of your jump and then try to kiteloop, you will have already converted most of the energy of the wind into height and instead of a big sideways yank, you will get a gentle kiteloop on the way down, more of a helicopter than a slamming sideways yank. This is also why a kiteloop on the way down is so much more gentle than a kiteloop on the way up. On the way down you have already used up the energy of the wind.

You can either use the energy of the wind for height or you can waste the energy on a kiteloop for a sideways yank, or you can split the difference and put some into height and some into a big sideways yank, but you can't do both there is only so much energy in the wind. Any energy of the wind you waste on drag can't be used for height.

once airborne for a given airspeed find difficult to belief that max height would be achieved by targeting for max L/D.

think the best height would be targeting for max CL ( i.e. - max vertical pull)



(not sure if it was your point?)

No I meant L/D but the coefficient of lift, the CL could be more important, not sure.

Theoretically, the ultimate kite for jumping (height and hang time) would have the slowest possible sink rate, which is a function of maximum L/D ratio AND maximum lift coefficient AND maximum area.

A massive kite of several hundred square meter area and ultra high L/D ratio would have you blowing up into the sky as near as possible to maximum theoretical jump height (function of energy conservation), and then floating back down to the surface like a big feather.

But there are two main problems with this ultimate theoretical scenario. First, you have to be able to manage the power of the kite before jumping. Second, your kite must be maneouverable enough to turn in a hurry to initiate and maximize the jump. Therefore, a massive kite wouldn't be so great after all.

So there you have it. In the real world the best kite will be an optimal compromise of competing attributes. Furthermore, none of that is worth $!@# if your technique isn't stellar.

Cheers,
James

Welcome to the world of speed polars which tells sink rates for different airspeeds which I've been talking since message #3 on this thread. Unfortunately no kite company releases them and I suspect that many of them does not even know about it.

but the angle of attack for L/Dmax is not the same as the angle of attack for CLmax

I can´t be in 2 different angles of attack at the same time

so if I want max height I should target for the angle of attack for CLmax

if I want max glide (guess this somehow translate into hang time?) i should target for the angle of attack for L/Dmax

or is this logic somehow wrong?