Kiteforum.com

Has anyone tried to measure the flat surface area of their kite? I tried it this weekend making an effort to be as accurate as I could. I sort of divided half a wing into segments according to where the struts were and measured the height and width and then took off a bit of triangle and my rrd 11.9 came out as 9.54 metres squared this seems a big difference so maybe how I measure it was inaccurate has anyone els tried?

put it on a raster (street) and count the tiles that r couvered by the kite...

also remember that the "flat" area isn't really flat. there is a curve to the wing, so the area of the wing is greater than the area it covers on the ground when laid flat.

Yes I know that there is more area made up in the curvature but I thought that when a kite is measured flat that is strictly what is measured,the are that it covers when it is layed out on the floor. If it includes the curved area then that becomes very complicated and different manufactures are going measure slightly differently. Even so 9.54 still seems a bit small even when you add in the curve.

flat area is generally calculated through projected size from a notional point at the centre of curvature of the kite.