Regis-de-giens wrote: ↑Mon May 28, 2018 8:07 pm
... and say that I agree with Nem0 that the main parameter to kept foil kite in the air in low wind is weight per square meter (more precisely weight by projected area) ;
I must say no. Because if kite has very low or even negative camber it does not produce lift at all at low AoA's and will not keep in the air, almost no matter how light weight it is constructed. Airfoil has a significant role how kite behaves in low winds.
Compared to Soul Pulsion is lighter but if Soul does not stay in the air conditions for kitesurfing are hopeless for 99.5% of kiters, even for hydrofoilers.
When snow kiting I can keep a LEI in the air perhaps to 4-5kn, but then using it for moving it is very difficult. In 6 kn most kites will stay in the air but it is too lame to be useful. 6-8kn snow kite sessions are sometimes nice if weather and surface are great, if not just waste of time.
Because kites have to be usable - meaning to have depower and stability - there is unavoidable compromises to be made. Airfoils are not very efficient and also if structures are simplified for light weight and lower costs it means added drag.
I very much doubt if there is much practical advantage with Pulsion 18m compared to Soul 15m kite. For normal weight kiters foil kites above 15m are too slow, anything but moving the lawn is difficult and risk to be overpowered is big. FS kites have had very good high ends though, I'm sure Soul is not an exception.
It is not at all difficult to design very efficient low wind kite. What is difficult is to design a kite with good usability and wide wind range.
Regis-de-giens wrote: ↑Mon May 28, 2018 8:07 pm
... sorry for the out-of-topic, we should stick to Pulsion feed-back for readability of the post
Not at all. Pulsion 18 is a kite in which light weight is of highest priority, so discussion of the subject is not OT. Else Pulsion is a kind of "antidesign", it ignores much of the development achieved in last 15 years in foil kites (and PG's).