Postby Dan-at-Duotone » Thu Jan 30, 2014 6:58 pm
Just for those looking for some explanations on North's front line "Y" and why we choose to use the system that we do...
Ken has actually given some thoughts on this before... viewtopic.php?t=2381966&p=809545...
Just to save you the click, he said this about front Y length... "The high V makes the kite slightly more stable and gives it a more compact feel. Lower V, slightly less stable but slightly more consistent tension on back lines."
That was in September. More recently, Ralf tells me that we continue to learn more about the differences between Y heights and at this point we're getting conflicting results from different designs and we don't have anything specific or simple to declare about how the different line setups affect different kites.
As far as our safety... When we last redesigned our 4-line bar we were looking for the safest method available, and we found that our kites, and those of other brands, were often going into "death spirals" when released to a single front line. Therefore we found the dual-front line with the mini-5th to be the best system available at the time. Before people start jumping all over me, I'm aware that there are many kites now that work perfectly well with a single front line release. This includes some North kites.
We have been testing both single front line and alternate styles of release for years and will continue to do so. However, if we move to a single front line or other system that is not compatible with our current system it will cause significant confusion. At this point, all of our 4-line kites from 2006 through 2014 are compatible with all of our 4-line bars from the same time period. Same with our 5-line kites/bars. As much as some of you may think a single front line system would be safer/easier, there are many many people, customers and schools, who love our 2-front line system and who will be furious if we switch, as it will require buying all new bars with any new kites and vice versa. If we made that move I can almost guarantee there will be someone on this forum who will ask about reverse-compatibility, and someone else who will respond with some comment about how North just wants to milk the customer by requiring the purchase of a new bar with the new kite instead of keeping it simple stupid.
On top of that, many of our spare parts are compatible between many years. Some small changes in our designs over the years means that not all spares work on all bars, but there is a lot of overlap making it easier for distributors, shops, and customers to mix and match. Moving that Y will change all of that.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we are constantly analyzing our safety system and experimenting with alternate options, and we're not going to change the system that we've been using for 8 years on a whim or without thinking that there is a very significant improvement in safety that warrants all the confusion, chaos, and cost associated with making such a change. At this point, though, we think our safety system is the best that we've found and I have no problem using it to self-rescue in the 40mph winds we regularly get in the gorge.
-Dan