Postby boardriding maui » Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:16 am
Tautologies - Thanks for the stoke.
dafish - Thanks for the stoke. "Old school" makes me think of doing a deadman on an AR5. Alaias and the papio - that's ancient school, right?
Math behind the science? Yeah, maybe. I use clean, simple curves any where I can for everything I design. So, outside of all the measuring and thinking, the actual design part is elegantly simple and easy in principle. If I had 3-D cloth to work with, would be a no-brainer. However, making a 2-D design file, for 2-D material, to make a 3-D kite; that nearly killed me at first. There does exist some killer software for that, but the way it turned out, I'm glad I did it without any shortcuts. Labor of love style.
WildDuke - Thanks for your willingness to support!!!!! That's a huge help.
Sorry about the website registration!!! Short story on that is that I posted the site, one of my close family members saw it and expressed to me that it didn't reflect the spirit of the brand as they thought I wanted it to, so I pulled it down for a second look. The good news is that I put it back up (to stay) just before midnight on New Year's Eve - made the deadline. The bad news is that, since I changed the registration form, I lost all the info from everyone that had submitted already.
ANYBODY THAT SUBMITTED ON THAT FORM IN 2012, PLEASE DO IT AGAIN IF YOU WANT ME TO EMAIL YOU WHEN THE GEAR IS GOING ONLINE (sorry)
Westozzy - Thanks for the compliment. Will work on the video footage. I've got some, but need more. Yeah, before going deep into the project I wouldn't have assumed that it would handle load, but can say now for sure it does. Wouldn't seem struts have anything to do with canopy stability under load. Some people have asked about LE arch. Its clear struts don't support the LE either (all proper design and bridling in my opinion).
Coloradokiter - Thanks for your interest. Colorado has got to be pretty sweet this time of year - Powder?
Europ2 - Test of production kites? Production will be exactly same as development - same design file, materials and process. But, maybe you mean testing by more/different riders? I'll add a page soon to the website to post testimonials as I get them.
My feeling is that light wind relaunch is better because its easier to get a lighter weight wingtip to roll over - also the LE sweeps back which encourages the kite to roll over.
I'm not sure the lightweight give it better usable low end power. I think being lightweight helps is stay in the sky, but that's maybe different than useable low end power? However, it does have good low end lift, but I think this is because the profile fills easier/cleaner without struts (not a weight thing).
As for the windrange table - I totally agree that this would be an awesome tool, but I feel like its problematic due to so many variables, so it tends to be at best not accurate, and at worst misleading. Individual riding technique, and differences between boards make so much difference that I don't see a way to set a standard. But I'm open to any system that can be objective. Without that, everyone will make different claims. Car manufacturers can't seem to nail down mileage stats, so I'm not optimistic for such a guide in a sport such as ours. (Feel like this opens a whole new discussion thread? Yikes.)
Tautologies - Drift? Heck yeah!
xray - Thanks. Excellent. The 6 and the 8 was where it started before taking on each of the other sizes, so we've got a ton of time in strong wind. I think the bigger the size of kite, the more critical twist is for fun steering, but it still matters on all sizes, even the small ones. Some people have wondered about stability into higher loads, which is a good question. In my comment above to Westozzy I describe some of what we found regarding stability. From my experience, bridling is a key component of arch stability, and that struts don't play any role, at least in the designs I've made. I would be shocked if other brands don't work in this direction now that the lid has been cracked.