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Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

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flying grandpa
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Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby flying grandpa » Fri Jan 12, 2018 6:27 am

I saw a clip showing a kiter in Egypt hitting his foil kite many times into water with full speed, to show resistance of the kite, as well as how easy it is to relounch. Don't remember the name on it. But the size was above 10m.
I am curious, what is your experience in that matter.

Two days ago in gusty winds of Boa Vista my 12m HP tangled candy-like 1m from left tip.
I managed to lift it up into the air with the tangle, but after few sec kite hit the drink with quite a speed.
In effect the tangle has gone. I suspect increased pressure during hit pushed candy tangle out.

12m Hyperlink is pretty slow.
First question is, if smaller foils are resistant as well, as they are usually faster?
second- is there anything we can do in kite construction, to improve this resistace?

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby jakemoore » Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:04 am

You can break pretty much any kite if you try hard enough. Foil kites are pretty resilient in my experience but I'm more interested in how they fly compared to how they crash. I would guess a 4 kg 12 m tube kite is not quite twice as durable as a 2 kg 12 m hyperlink.

I blew a cell on a FS voodoo. I flew the hexk out of that kite and once crashed it hard. I repaired it myself and back in business. I also exploded an open cell trainer kite when my kid flew it straight into the ground. Not worth fixing for me as every rib split in half.

There were some attempts at blow out valves in the pulse psycho3 era. The slo-mo blow out valve video was cool. I think The smallest speeds had elastic in The ribs to prevent blow out.

The Flysurfer "standard cloth" up to speed 3 was much more durable (and heavier ). Speed 4-5 and Sonic with Lotus and Deluxe+ are light weight as is the Hyperlink.

The idea for a bomber foil kite seems to have faded away in favor of light and airtight and for me these newer kites are more fun to fly.

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby joriws » Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:29 am

If we are talking about the same video the kite was 10m Flysurfer Speed4 lotus. The lotus fabric was new back then and he wanted to test durability and show that to market to remove doubts about light fabric. Lukas Vogeltanz from Kite4fun was the author.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hZ8csCNMJw

My experience is that a lot of water inside the kite and flying it hard without letting it to drain could rip cell walls. Because too high force to accelerate water's mass inside the kite.

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby flying grandpa » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:24 am

Thank you, jorivs, that was this vid I saw.

Jakemore, what is the hexk, that you flew out?
You give us very wide and historical answer. Thank you

I wonder, whether FS on the crash test had full ribs, or the elipses were cutted out of it, to reduce weight and improve air flow inside as well as crash rsistance?

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby joriws » Fri Jan 12, 2018 12:21 pm

flying grandpa wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:24 am
Thank you, jorivs, that was this vid I saw.

Jakemore, what is the hexk, that you flew out?
You give us very wide and historical answer. Thank you

I wonder, whether FS on the crash test had full ribs, or the elipses were cutted out of it, to reduce weight and improve air flow inside as well as crash rsistance?
hexk - x is close to c on keyboard => heck

Speed 4 lotus on the video does not have ribs / leading edge stiffeners.. Older Speed 4 dlx/std (aka "Psycho 5" available only sizes 8m and 10m) does have them.

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby jakemoore » Fri Jan 12, 2018 4:23 pm

Pardon my monkey thumbs

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby Mossy 757 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 5:24 pm

I think if you're going to destroy a foil it's by taking it flying full of sand or water and putting too much stress on the stitching. Tomahawking a kite LE side down is never good, but I think the forces are much greater when trying to relaunch a drenched kite versus just overpressurizing it internally by crashing.

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby foilonfoil » Fri Jan 12, 2018 5:38 pm

Smacking any of the ribbed leading edge race kites into the sand will tear the fabric in contact with the rib. Buddy has a bunch of patches along the leading edge after he made this mistake.

I would say that with experience flying foil kites, your kite skills get insanely better and smacking the kite into the ground just does not happen.

When purchasing a second hand race kite, important to check the fabric over the ribs for wear.

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Re: Foil kite resistance against hitting the water

Postby mgs » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:10 pm

Not sure as to what additional design improvements could be introduced to prevent damage from occurring, but keeping the kite in the air is the way to go despite being "water relaunchable"
There is only so many hard landings a kite can take before something breaks. Have seen many kites damaged and in one case destroyed that could have been prevented if more experienced.


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