BWD wrote: ↑Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:21 am
GraemeF wrote: ↑Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:42 pm
In my daydreaming and pencil on back of serviette scribblings I've often pondered on a sort of twin skin foil lei hybrid, to give the foil platform more protection against wind sheer and shifts. Probably be a bit too expensive for mainstream use but could possibly find favour in race foiling.
I nearly ran over something like that in about 1999 or 2000 whilst windsurfing.
It didn’t seem to work really well.
All these years later I still think the 2 skin foil + bladder = too heavy/stiff to be a good foil kite & too slow/mushy to fly like an LEI.
A related idea that’s interesting to me is something like a single skin foil a la FS peak but with a thin bladder filling or partly filling
(with drains) the pocket behind the LE to
let it relaunch from water. Perhaps that could be the way to make a good hybrid.
?
* Peter Lynn , made some good relaunch-able, closed-cell stops ,to keep air in the
bladders ,for up to 8 to 10min, when wet . My first water kite, was a 2003 Guerilla
13m and i could relaunch her if it didn't go over 9-min between cycles of wind.I don't
think Ya need drains, if you keep the water out, and air in the cells, to start with ?
And also, the less stuff Ya sew on the skins ; the lighter the kite gets. OH YEA --
and now it's not a single-skin ; so less aerodynamic drag.
** More efficient can also infer, that a 15m kite could keep up with a 10m, if
it had the correct airfoil, with low parasitic drag at speed. My near 16m (168sq/ft)
rigid wing HG has a VNE, (top speed in turbulence) of 52knots, (60mph) ; i've had
her rolling near 80mph, in smooth morning air before. Get where i'm going
with this ?
Bille