Flysurfer Soul

[omg]

so, any real world tests on Soul 10m and 12m; namely the low end for foiling (7knots or so), would a 78kg rider need bigger than 12m, and looking at the 8m video and some feedback on it, would even 10m do for it by having higher turning speed and peak power than 12m?

[Skywalker7]

Today I managed to try my Soul 12M on a smaller lake. Wind was 12-20 knots. I was using it with the 50 cm Infitity 3.0 bar with ca. 2M extension so all in all on 23 M lines. Yesterday I was riding the Speed 5 12M so I had some good comparison with that. The Soul is super stable and super easy to use. Definitely more stable than the Speed 5.
Higher bar pressure for sure but not as high as on my Sonic 1 15m. Actually it feels like flying a tube kite. Soul is going upwind very well and jumps well. Today I jumped 8.9m per my Woo and I was just nicely powered up so for the max jump I should have some 6-8 knots more. Soul could have just a tiny bit less performance then the Speed 5 but the stability is 2X. Once I managed to jump under the kite so all my lines went slack and the kite just started to drift backwards with the wind untill my lines got the tension which was takeing 1.5 second and I was riding further. Managed to make some backroll kiteloops. The kite likes to make a wide powerfull turn in the loop and no matter where is the bar the kite stays in one piece as a rock. No flapping what so ever. The loops are wider than on the Psycho 4 and for sure more powerfull. Relaunching the kite is a piece of cake, it is really only a one line relaunch.
The low end is very good. my 92 friend was riding a Speed 3 12M CE on a Flydoor 5L(160x44cm) and I (98 kg) was flying the Soul 12M on a Radical 5 L (138x42cm) and we seemed to have a similar lowend. When I was moderately powered up I even managed to have a better upwind ability than him. (The 2m extensions was used because of the lightwind considerations but they are slowing down the turns and the timing of the jumping is also slows down so I would not reccomend in general just in the case of some super lightwind.)

[Skywalker7]

so, any real world tests on Soul 10m and 12m; namely the low end for foiling (7knots or so), would a 78kg rider need bigger than 12m, and looking at the 8m video and some feedback on it, would even 10m do for it by having higher turning speed and peak power than 12m?

Definitely no need for bigger kite for foiling than a 12M. The kite is super light and super stable even in 7 knots.

[Mossy 757]

That relaunch looks amazing!

Yes, unfortunately just tested it once seriously, in the midle of this video, but looked great, did not even need to stop for it until it was coming up again ...
.. and this in not more than 10 knts of wind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad449f3 ... e=youtu.be

Is that the 10m you're flying there?

[Kitemanmuc]

Today I managed to try my Soul 12M on a smaller lake. Wind was 12-20 knots. I was using it with the 50 cm Infitity 3.0 bar with ca. 2M extension so all in all on 23 M lines. Yesterday I was riding the Speed 5 12M so I had some good comparison with that. The Soul is super stable and super easy to use. Definitely more stable than the Speed 5.
Higher bar pressure for sure but not as high as on my Sonic 1 15m. Actually it feels like flying a tube kite. Soul is going upwind very well and jumps well. Today I jumped 8.9m per my Woo and I was just nicely powered up so for the max jump I should have some 6-8 knots more. Soul could have just a tiny bit less performance then the Speed 5 but the stability is 2X. Once I managed to jump under the kite so all my lines went slack and the kite just started to drift backwards with the wind untill my lines got the tension which was takeing 1.5 second and I was riding further. Managed to make some backroll kiteloops. The kite likes to make a wide powerfull turn in the loop and no matter where is the bar the kite stays in one piece as a rock. No flapping what so ever. The loops are wider than on the Psycho 4 and for sure more powerfull. Relaunching the kite is a piece of cake, it is really only a one line relaunch.
The low end is very good. my 92 friend was riding a Speed 3 12M CE on a Flydoor 5L(160x44cm) and I (98 kg) was flying the Soul 12M on a Radical 5 L (138x42cm) and we seemed to have a similar lowend. When I was moderately powered up I even managed to have a better upwind ability than him. (The 2m extensions was used because of the lightwind considerations but they are slowing down the turns and the timing of the jumping is also slows down so I would not reccomend in general just in the case of some super lightwind.)

Did you get a chance to compare to Kitech FRS?

[Skywalker7]

Did you get a chance to compare to Kitech FRS?
[/quote]

The FRS 12m I was only flying the last november in light winds so it was definitely not a thourough test in light, medium and high wind. The Soul has very high stability just as the FRS and both kites are turns wide powerfull loops but Soul has more perfomance.
Actually I wanted to do the back and forth tests with the FRS but today was no wind on lake Balaton so I went to lake Velence. Yesterday I had a last chance to fly with my Speed 5 (as I sold it) and actually I kitesurfed head to head with my friend flying the FRS 12M and he has the same weight and same board size as well. He is just as good kiter as me if not better. All my jumps was 30-40% higher than him. Also my upwind was significantly better than him. I dont want to say how much but I was also surprised. However the Speed 5 is a way higher aspect kites with higher cell count, plastic rods, double cell at the trailing edge so it is a total different catergory of kite. Even though the 12m FRS is the best kite so far from Kitetech and I think it is a good kite but the Soul has all the stability of one might need and tons of performance. The Soul is is made from 32g/square meter material which is also very important when you are in lightwind. Somebody just managed today a half an hour swim (due to his line tangling) with his North Rebel while I was kiteing the Soul today. Also two days ago we had a hidden drop of wind in Neusidel See from 13knot to 5 knots under 5 minutes and 80% of the tube kites fell on the water and most of the guys are swimming or walking out while I managed to body drag myself to the beach with my 15 M Sonic 1.

[Adventure Logs]

Thank you foilholio for your specifying comment. Sonic 15 has I guess at least three cubic meters of air inside of it, it weighs additional 3.7kg.

What comes to thinner airfoils it is true volume and inertia of the kite decreases, but I don't think there is very much room to go downwards. And now this new FS kite looks thick and airfoil on the table confirms it. In fact I had hard time to believe my eyes, it looked so thick.

Reviews and reports are saying that the Soul is thinner than the S5

[kitexpert]

Thank you foilholio for your specifying comment. Sonic 15 has I guess at least three cubic meters of air inside of it, it weighs additional 3.7kg.

What comes to thinner airfoils it is true volume and inertia of the kite decreases, but I don't think there is very much room to go downwards. And now this new FS kite looks thick and airfoil on the table confirms it. In fact I had hard time to believe my eyes, it looked so thick.

Reviews and reports are saying that the Soul is thinner than the S5

Really? If you look that german video at 7.18 airfoil on the table does not look thin, even though it is viewed from the angle. I've measured Speed4 airfoil (from center of the wing) and it was "average", not thin or thick.

Compared to S5 which has shorter chord at the center it is very probably thinner kite than Soul (for same kite size of course). More interesting than absolute value is relative airfoil thickness because it defines what kind of shape airfoil has. Soul has slightly better cell shape (narrower cells) decreasing billow, which makes it a bit thinner between ribs compared to kites with wider cells.

[Armin Harich]

As a developer, i can tell you the airfoil thickness is overestimated.

In paragliding- and also kiting wings, the most performant wings use the thicker airfoills. It just performe better as it stays better in shape and less balloning is needed.
The mass inside of the Kite as negative effect for acceleration is also over estimated. BTW: The SIngelskin also have air behind the fron tube, that also need to be accelerated in turns. This airmass can be even more that on a double skin.

But double skin foils and inflatables fly still different in aerodynamic details. When you depower a foil, you open the break and it accelerate until it reach the windwindow. A LEI Kite is directly flapping. That feels more direct. But the foil gets a bigger windwindow and get the windrange more from that.

We develope a lot, to try to combine the best of all worlds into the soul. But it is a foil and has kept its this advantages.

Soon, there will be more feedbacks from customers and i hope, they will share it here too.

Cheers, Armin

[kitexpert]

Yes, cell shape is better with thicker airfoils, also thicker structure is always more rigid. One thicker (or more cell height) cell advantage is how diagonal ribs are better angled than in thinner wings. To compensate thinner wing should have more cells, which increases complexity, weight, costs and labor. In most cases it is true that thicker wing has higher lift and it takes gusts more gently and is more stable.

I don't now if total mass of a foil kite is over estimated for slower reaction and slower turning of foil kites, but it is a fact foil kites are considerably slower than LEI's in that respect. In last three weeks I've been on FS, Ozone and HQ foil kites and I can't say anything else that they all are slow, even in sizes 9m to 12m. But this feel of slowness is a lot of a question of what I'm used to.

It is a fact big foil kites are more affected by their size than big LEI kites when it comes to slowness. I don't see much other reason for that than increased inertia due to increased volume. As we know volume increases by cube to length, this means if kite size is doubled volume of it is almost tripled. This increasing volume is of course true for LEI struts but because they are that much smaller it doesn't have that big effect. If you are a strong heavy weight kiter it helps for big slow kites, then you can make kite accelerate faster by taking more power from it.