Wipikas New Snowkite

[Toby]

here the first pictures of this softkite:

[Matt.Woods]

What a good idea! A white kite for snowkiting that will really help during those overcast days.

[murdoc]

but look how good you can see it on the green snow!
hehe, these americans - here in europe, the snow is still white...


but - it's a bit strange - but the color's not a problem ...
i used my flysurfer kite (a prototype, white only with the flysurfer logo) on snow and it worked well ...

i think, that this foil might be a prototype, too ?

[murdoc]

funny fact:
it's 'just' a snowkite.
but these valves - hmmmmmm, strange.....
an opencell kite would have a better handling on land than a closed foil ---
are they up to something ?

[Guest]

That is not true about open-celled foils. Open celled foils luff very easily. Valved foils are much less likely to luff - when you overfly them the stay inflated and just drift back in the wind window.

[Guest]

luffing has nothing to do with open or closed cells its purely a function of the angle of attack.

blades are virtually impossible to luff on handles and they are open cell.

[Guest]

I haven't flown a blade, but the open-cell foils I have tried, including a concept-air, fexifoil competition, and others could all overfly the window if not fown with some care, especially in gusty winds. You said your blade was "virtually impossible to luff," which to me implies that you have luffed it a few times.

My experience has been that when that happens with an open-cell foil, it nearly always collapses and sometimes opens and powers up abruptly as it falls towards the center of the window.

When a closed-cell foil overflys (I have used fysurfer warriors and windtools mosquitos) it stays inflated, holds its shape and just drifts back to the edge of the wind window.

That is my personal experience.

Trent Hink

[Guest]

no. I'm going to let you know on a little secret. Closed cell foils are two efficient and aerodynamic thus they go further into the wind and collapse. Open cell foils take the gusts and sit in one place.


The Truth.

[Guest]

I like the way you capitalized truth. Your statement contradicts my experience so it can not be "The Truth". Which kites have you used to base this statement? Which aeronautical engineering degrees do you hold?

None of the foils I have _actually used_ (see previous my post) would "take the gusts and stay in one place." Any kite can be made to overfly the window if it is gusty enough or if you try hard enough i.e., jumping incorrectly and flying the kite way too far back.

If you overfly the wind window with an open-celled foil it will collapse and fall- there is nothing holding the air in the kite so there is no way around it. The mosquito falls sometimes but usually it recovers without falling. The Flysurfer warrior always just hangs there waiting for you to turn it back. The warrior is the closest I have seen to an "unluffable" foil, but I think that is due to design charateristics in addition to the valved leading edge.

Closed-cell foils simply can't collapse the way an open-celled foil can. On closed-cell foils the valves hold the air inside the kite forcing it into shape. You have to open up velcro or zippers or turn the valves inside out just to get the air out of the kite so you can pack it away.

Open-cell foils collapse instantly when there is no air-pressure on the leading edge holding the kite together. As soon as the airfoil shape is lost the kite falls quickly and it may or may not quickly reinflate and power up in the middle of the window.

I'm not saying that all open-celled foils are junk and not worth using, Quite the opposite, there are many that have very good to exellent performance. The good ones i have tried are much less likely to luff than some of the others and I'm sure the kites you are using are great.

I'm just saying that closed-celled foils have advantages other than easy relaunchability on water.

Have you ever tried to relaunch a 2-line open foil on land? I can do it sometimes but it is not easy without any brake lines to flip the kite over. 2-lined closed-cell foils can be relaunched easily - it is not diffiult to get the kite to flip over onto its trailing edge when the kite holds its shape all the time.

Trent Hink

On 2002-10-30 05:42, Anonymous wrote:
no. I'm going to let you know on a little secret. Closed cell foils are two efficient and aerodynamic thus they go further into the wind and collapse. Open cell foils take the gusts and sit in one place.


The Truth.

[Guest]

Trent,

Your experience with the Warriors sounds pretty nice. I've flown the Windtools Mosquito 5.5 and 9.4 and unfortunately my experience wasn't as good as yours. When they would overfly, they'd collapse in the center, nose-dive into the center of the powerzone and reopen with enough force to lengthen my arms a bit (I haven't always been a knuckle-dragger). Aside from that and the lack of a good depower system, GREAT kites though. Did you modify your Mossies to prevent luffing or just ride them with tight brake lines?

John

When a closed-cell foil overflys (I have used fysurfer warriors and windtools mosquitos) it stays inflated, holds its shape and just drifts back to the edge of the wind window.

That is my personal experience.

Trent Hink