ronnie wrote:What did you think of the ability of the Cloud to generate apparent wind?
ronnie wrote:How did you find the bar pressure and 'feel' of flying the kite without looking at it?
Here is a professional answer from Dimitri to the solution of strutless, so his experience is not clouding our judgementDimitri M wrote:Hello Aummm.
Momi and I have been working on strutless kite just before we introduce the INFINITY V1 kite which was 3 years ago.
Our first INFINITY V1 prototype kite was a "strut less" kite, but after few tests we decided to add just a middle strut,
and after few more test decided to go with 3 struts, because of the better performance the kite was giving us by having more struts on the canopy.
This is when we introduce the INFINITY V1 kite. I did ask Momi to work on having the INFINITY V4 kite "struless" since it has become a fad for light wind and he almost killed me.
So to answer your question, having a strutless kite is a good idea but again some of the issues are that the kite is not as smooth flying through the air.
The kite has too much grunt because of its deep pocket and some times won't depower as well as having a kite with 3 or 6 struts.
The kite will give you a heavier bar pressure compare to other kites. The kite won't be as responsive as other kites with struts (only on the big sizes because on smaller size a 10 m strutless kite will respond almost as fast as a kite with 3 to 6 struts). The kite won't be as easy to relaunch in very light conditions (8 to 10 knots) compare to a kite with struts. Plus the canopy tends to get distort much faster and makes a lot of noise when turning compare to having 3 to 6 struts on your canopy.
So in few words, the performance of a "strutless" kite is not as good as having struts, but it does work or else we would not have this conversation.
On the other hand, a "strutless" kite weighs less then having 3 to 6 struts, has more grunt power and packs very well if you plan to travel.
Plus you don't have to worry about pumping your struts or having to replace the bladders on the struts.
So if you are looking for a performance kite, you best bet will be to go with a kite that has 3 struts and more.
But if you are not looking for a performance kite and travels a lot then having a "strutless" kite might not be a bad idea.
We are working on a new model that will have "NO STRUTS" and this kite will be more for the snow and the "Average Joe".
But once again, I think you need to test both of them to understand what I am trying to explain, because both of these kites are good kites,
it just depends what you are in the market for.
I hope that answers your question
ronnie wrote: What did you think of the ability of the Cloud to generate apparent wind? The 17m doesn't seem to be particularly suited to twintips and a lot of the Cloud customers seem to use the 17 with directionals, foils or on snow, which would tend to need less power to ride.
Because it is so much lighter than any of the other kites, I was expecting one of its strong points to be staying up longer as the wind dropped?
Randahl mentioned the bar pressure feeling heavy when on a twintip in stronger wind but didn't notice it in lighter wind on a foil.
How did you find the bar pressure and 'feel' of flying the kite without looking at it?
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