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Small kites jump higher? Nope!

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plummet
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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby plummet » Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:57 pm

Lets face it. Ultimately Toby is right. Regardless of what the maths state. All other factors being equal. The reality is that a bigger kite will take you higher on any given day if you can still hold an edge, load and pop effectively

Once you can't load your edge any more the a smaller kite will take you higher.

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby edt » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:12 pm

plummet wrote:Lets face it. Ultimately Toby is right. Regardless of what the maths state. All other factors being equal. The reality is that a bigger kite will take you higher on any given day if you can still hold an edge, load and pop effectively

Once you can't load your edge any more the a smaller kite will take you higher.

Well it's clear to me you need a certain size kite, if a kite is too small when you sweep it to boost you can't extract all the kinetic energy. But once you have a big enough kite to extract all the kinetic energy then the larger the kite the more drag you introduce.

It's not clear to me that the kites we hold down are so small that it is always better to have a bigger kite. It's possible some kiters, like for instance toby have already passed the point of diminishing returns and would boost higher on say a 16 instead of an 18 because of the decreased drag. Assuming of course you are holding a proper edge with the 18 in the first place instead of just plowing the water.

But sure at the low end in 25 knots, going from 9m to 10m will let you boost higher because you can extract more of the kinetic energy.

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby romkite » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:29 pm

plummet wrote:Lets face it. Ultimately Toby is right. Regardless of what the maths state. All other factors being equal. The reality is that a bigger kite will take you higher on any given day if you can still hold an edge, load and pop effectively

Once you can't load your edge any more the a smaller kite will take you higher.
Do you know of a video showing a truly high jump with a big kite ?

edt, you got my attention with your kinetic energy within an apparent wind frame of reference ! any pointer that would explain that in more details ?

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby edt » Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:42 pm

romkite wrote:
plummet wrote:Lets face it. Ultimately Toby is right. Regardless of what the maths state. All other factors being equal. The reality is that a bigger kite will take you higher on any given day if you can still hold an edge, load and pop effectively

Once you can't load your edge any more the a smaller kite will take you higher.
Do you know of a video showing a truly high jump with a big kite ?

edt, you got my attention with your kinetic energy within an apparent wind frame of reference ! any pointer that would explain that in more details ?
that's the best I can do, maybe someone else can explain it better?

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby hightimes » Mon Nov 11, 2013 3:05 pm

Dimitri would jump higher even with a 5m kite hehehe

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby Toby » Mon Nov 11, 2013 3:21 pm

challenge accepted ;-)

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby s1buell_wl » Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:18 pm

Dimitri, will have to eat a ton of tacos to get the extra lift needed with the 5m kite

Poor guy the Tacos in Brazil are F'n bad too.

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby TheJoe » Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:16 pm

How about you get his son or a small ripping grom to go up against Toby. Probably the closest you could to actually substantiate your claim. Only problem is a child or undeveloped teen will not have the strength you do so still would be an unfair test.

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby Rando1994 » Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:27 pm

Bigger wing = More lift

The only way a smaller kite would outboost would be if it could be moved significantly faster creating significantly more apparent wind.

And only then

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Re: Small kites jump higher? Nope!

Postby edt » Mon Nov 11, 2013 8:02 pm

Rando1994 wrote:Bigger wing = More lift

The only way a smaller kite would outboost would be if it could be moved significantly faster creating significantly more apparent wind.

And only then

That's not how it works. There is a certain amount of kinetic energy available this is caused by the difference in speed between the rider and the wind. You can do whatever you want with that energy, if you loop the kite, you will extract all the energy at once and get a big downwind yank. Or you can use it to boost.

Now if you do not have a sufficiently large kite you can't extract all the energy. But if you do have a large enough kite, then you can convert all the energy to lift and lose some of it in drag. The way you can tell you have done this successfully is that at the top of the jump you will be moving at the wind speed downwind. At that point there is no more energy to extract from the wind, and you will have to use the potential energy (your height) in order to load up the lines. If your kite is too small you will feel a breeze even at the top of the jump because you haven't extracted all the energy.

If you use a kite which is larger than is large enough to extract all the kinetic energy all that happens is that the extra wind size will create drag and make your jump lower.

Most kiters like to kite inside a comfort zone. So they don't really experience this problem where the wing is not only large enough to extract all the kinetic energy but is also too large so that it creates drag and results in a lower jump.

Think about it like you are building a paper airplane.

You want to create a paper airplane that can land on your roof. One of the rules is that you can't launch like a baseball aiming straight up on the roof, you must aim it horizontally (this launch is like the horizontal kinetic energy we experience as kiters).

If you make the wings too small then the paper airplane will act like a baseball and just go curve downward like a projectile.

But if you make the wings incredibly large, no matter how hard you push the paper airplane, the big wings will eat up all of the energy and it will flutter down like a butterfly.

What you want is an arrowhead shape for the airplane a good shape to decrease drag, with the wings not too big, not too small. You also want to make some elevators on the back so it has the correct angle of attack. And now when you push the paper airplane straight forward, it will climb up and land on the roof.

This example shows the exact same forces we experience as kiters. Except instead of a hand pushing a paper airplane forward, instead we experience the kinetic energy as apparent wind.


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