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Pulsion 18m

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Regis-de-giens
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby Regis-de-giens » Tue May 29, 2018 1:01 pm

Thanks omg; for the 12m and your weight, the 32 gris ok. My actual P12m is 32gr , and even with my 61 kg, it works well in my own lower end (even if I must say I am in love with my former 27gr, more rigid, easier to loop upward but less watertight and maybe robust); 32gr is now the frequent cloth used for the 12m from the user feedback I was able to gather. But do not worry too much, I know a 85 kg guy who owns the P15 in 40gr and makes it fly better than average foilkites.

Now low end P12 vs P18. Not straight answer , but for a hydrofoil application, I would say:

a- below 55/60 kg, I would say it is the same in term of planning and stay upwind (=5/6 knots, it correspond to hear the sound of the wind in both ears). However once foiling up P18 will go faster and accept lower lulls like glassy local areas. On the other side, if wind is irregular like on lakes, P12 will be more efficient and 'workable'. Needless to say that to me the P18 has to be in 27gr.

b- between 60 kg and 70/75 kg: P18 will start a bit sooner (=5/6 knots) vs P12 (6/7 knots); 27 gr cloth recommended for the P18. In may personal case ( regular wind and large foil wing), the optimum planning seems P15m but with less speed than P18 when launched. I am currently trying new waterstart methods with the P18 to try to push the limit further down.

c- above 70/75 kg, a significant gain in low end with the P18 (=6 knots, as it has a ton of power that will be necessary for a heavy rider) vs P12 ( 7 knots minimum); you seem in this category ; however in irregular winds or tricky launch areas, P12 will be easier to manage . A good compromise may be the P15m that I liked a lot and sold it by mistake ...

(*) I put knots values just to illustrate my thoughts ; to be use in relative comparision, not as absolute values too hard to measure accurately.

Generally speaking for foilkite users, P12 is more powerfull than similar size foilkites (and less comfortable in high wind); For example, a good friend, very skilled in light wind, had the same low end as his S4 Lotus 15m which was a reference.

kitexpert
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby kitexpert » Wed May 30, 2018 1:17 am

How much camber or how efficient airfoil "average-well-developed" kite has? You don't know Regis if Pulsion is good for low winds because it has relatively high camber airfoil or because it is so light weight kite. Because you admit P12 is "less comfortable in high wind" it suggest it has quite a lot camber. Excessive line drag may prevent kite to overfly, but it doesn't mean this kind of combination is good because it makes kite slower and compromises upper end of wind range.

In my opinion this "staying in the air" discussion has gone too far, for 99.5% of kiters it has not been a problem at all for many years. Now there is even some LEI's which are very good in that respect, like Airush Ultra.

I don't know if Tremblay needs my advice but I do know I could improve these kites to make them lighter and having less drag. They are not "complete" designs like for example FS Soul or most race kites in which it is very difficult to suggest improvements without complete redesign (and even then it can be questionable).

Regis-de-giens
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby Regis-de-giens » Wed May 30, 2018 5:47 am

If you start from Airush Ultra as being your lower wind kite reference we are not speaking of the same thing, sorry. I wish you could REALLY test one. Or read again the testers feedbacks.

I am "surprised" by your arguments. Less comfort in high wind is regular feature due to lower apect ratio kites that go deeper in the window. Camber can be set "on demand" so you can set it in line with your needs (Low vs high wind).

If you can make kites lighter than the lightest closed cell kite in the world , what are you waiting to sell your own kite, it should be the kite of the year.

By the way how much do you weight and on which hydrofoil model do you ride ?

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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby kitexpert » Wed May 30, 2018 3:41 pm

Regis-de-giens wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 5:47 am
If you start from Airush Ultra as being your lower wind kite reference we are not speaking of the same thing, sorry. I wish you could REALLY test one. Or read again the testers feedbacks.

I am "surprised" by your arguments. Less comfort in high wind is regular feature due to lower apect ratio kites that go deeper in the window. Camber can be set "on demand" so you can set it in line with your needs (Low vs high wind).

If you can make kites lighter than the lightest closed cell kite in the world , what are you waiting to sell your own kite, it should be the kite of the year.

By the way how much do you weight and on which hydrofoil model do you ride ?
My high wind kites are low aspect LEI's, wave kites. They are low aspect kites with low camber and high stability. In foil kites Ozone Access is an example of low aspect and low camber kite which is very near as comfortable as foil kite in high winds can be.

Camber adjustment has its limits, actually I'm quite suspicious of FS's new system which alters camber by distorting airfoil. Like I've wrote earlier low camber kite and high camber kite has different shapes in panels, if you try to make one from the other there is considerable shape deviations. These are not at all small, it can be 1cm/cell, which is 30-40cm total error for the wingspan of a big kite.

Most kiters and hydrofoilers do very well with kite like 12m Ultra. You are correct it is not like very light weight 12m (or bigger) foil kite with 61kg hydrofoiler like you, but why should it be? I've seen very low wind hf sessions with big Chronos, in 8kn they were doing fine but when 5-6kn lull became kite dropped and it was game over, resulting long swims with wet spaghetti mess of a kite, once even a boat rescue was needed. No thanks.

Pictures of Soul show how cross vents are done, these additional vents would make Pulsion 18m slightly lighter. The bridles I've seen so far in ConceptAir kites are not very optimized, I'm sure some weight and even more drag could be cut there. Ditching double air intake in the center would make kite lighter as well and having odd 37 cells would make kite bridle simpler, again less weight and drag.

The main reason why Pulsion is so light weight kite is simple, it is made of light weight fabric. Improvements above would make 18m kite perhaps 100g lighter - of course it is not much but anyway it is a saving.

My weight is about 80kg and I use custom hf's. The most extreme light wind sessions I've done are on snow or ice.

Regis-de-giens
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby Regis-de-giens » Wed May 30, 2018 8:28 pm

kitexpert wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 3:41 pm
low camber kite and high camber kite has different shapes in panels, if you try to make one from the other there is considerable shape deviations. These are not at all small, it can be 1cm/cell, which is 30-40cm total error for the wingspan of a big kite.
Nope. It is true for the arc of the kite, not the camber.
kitexpert wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 3:41 pm
Pictures of Soul show how cross vents are done, these additional vents would make Pulsion 18m slightly lighter.
Not sure. Because cross vents will lead to more stress concentration , hence you may have to use heavier inter-Cell cloth on the whole area. For exemple my 18m pulsion has 27gr inter-cells. Vents may lead to inter-cell breaking in this case.

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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby foilholio » Thu May 31, 2018 1:16 am

Did Regis just school the "kite maker extraordinaire" on kite construction? :lol: Good job Regis!

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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby aTi » Thu May 31, 2018 4:52 pm

Since you are comparing internal construction of pulsion vs soul: did someone already had the opportunity to fly both kites? I would be curious to hear about that since both kites seems to be aimed at a pretty similar audience (people looking for a more "mid" aspect ratio kite, with less perf but more stability, relaunch and ease of use).

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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby kitexpert » Thu May 31, 2018 8:28 pm

Regis-de-giens wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 8:28 pm
kitexpert wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 3:41 pm
low camber kite and high camber kite has different shapes in panels, if you try to make one from the other there is considerable shape deviations. These are not at all small, it can be 1cm/cell, which is 30-40cm total error for the wingspan of a big kite.
Nope. It is true for the arc of the kite, not the camber.
kitexpert wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 3:41 pm
Pictures of Soul show how cross vents are done, these additional vents would make Pulsion 18m slightly lighter.
Not sure. Because cross vents will lead to more stress concentration , hence you may have to use heavier inter-Cell cloth on the whole area. For exemple my 18m pulsion has 27gr inter-cells. Vents may lead to inter-cell breaking in this case.
No Regis. You forget I've designed, made and studied carefully many kites with different camber airfoils and different kind of canopy curves. I've compared different panel shapes stacked on each other so there is no question about what I wrote. And of course if you think double curvature objects ( foil kites) and how they are constructed from flat panels it is of course clear that different camber airfoil for same canopy curve means different shaped panels.

If kite is flat (no canopy curve) length of the panels vary with camber. Again this deviation is significant for different airfoils, easily many cm's along the chord.

There is already many holes near TE in Pulsion. As we know mesh ribs do brake there, so your argument is not very strong for how vents are used in Pulsion because of stresses. It is true weight saving is marginal from vents, but together with other improvements I suggested Pulsion would be lighter and it would have less drag.
foilholio wrote:Did Regis just school
8) Nonsense.

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Nem0
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby Nem0 » Thu May 31, 2018 9:27 pm

aTi wrote:
Thu May 31, 2018 4:52 pm
Since you are comparing internal construction of pulsion vs soul: did someone already had the opportunity to fly both kites? I would be curious to hear about that since both kites seems to be aimed at a pretty similar audience (people looking for a more "mid" aspect ratio kite, with less perf but more stability, relaunch and ease of use).
Beginning at 07.07. I can start testing 18m pulsion and 12m Soul on the water! 3 weeks ago I tested 18m Soul.
I'm curious what will be the differences! ;-)

Regis-de-giens
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Gear: Conceptair pulsion 18&15&12S, OR Flite 10m , Airush One 9&6, peak 5M , Rally 6, Elf 11 &7, 19m2 single skin proto.
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Re: Pulsion 18m

Postby Regis-de-giens » Thu May 31, 2018 10:56 pm

Kitexpert please ... read my message again and carrefuly. You are replying ot of topic of my arguments. Nobody said that panels are flat, obviously. We speak of setting the camber (in the range of 4-5 cm it is enough on a kite) and you say it will impact a lot more panel design at wingspan . Not at all , it is evident (while arc could but totally out of topic)

There is NOT A SINGLE HOLE at the TE of the Pulsion. you are mixing kites. And it is obvious that a hole in the middle of the chord is a weaker point.

I promised I 'll stop replying general kite design here. So last one for me here. No offense, Nothing against you personnally. Just not here.

Back to Pulsion. A lot of people are discovering medium AR kite and promotting the first one they try like soul or hyperlink from major companies. Kitech frs is also good , not as expznsive as Ozone or FS, and the closest to LEI. Each has pro and cons. Pansh a15 (older) is a bit below these others but does a more than suitable job on HF and snow.

About Soul vs Pulsion I would conclude from my analysis and current temporary feedbacksincluding one kite teacher on foimkites: Soul is watertight longer when laid a long time in the water. Pulsion better in very low wind (loop boost and stays in the air in lightest breeze).


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