ripsessionkites - 16-6-2010 at 03:09 AM
finally got what I need from the weekend to get this together for those that asked.
http://www.ricardo-kc88.com/Ricardo-KC88/Kiting_101/Entries/...
RonH - 3-7-2010 at 09:53 AM
So...
I had a look at the bridle of my reactor II. In your blog you say the A lines and B lines are the same length. They are not even close on my kite.
Now the secondary lines look very close but the primary lines are not.
Ron
ripsessionkites - 3-7-2010 at 12:55 PM
you can make your adjustments there ... i should get pics online to what im talking about
funny thing, peter lynn (himself) also did an article on the similar topic based on similar theories ... LOL.
see below::::
It's easy, and even the why of it is simple:
Here's the essential:
To pull a Pilot kite to the right, shorten "B" bridle on the right. - End of story!
A's are the set of bridles along the leading edge, B's are the next set and C's are the ones nearest the trailing edge. (on later model 8 bridle
Pilots there's no C in the centre span.)
OK so I've lied a little, not quite the entire story: the kite will be sensitive to this adjustment to within a few millimetres, but only when the B
bridle length is already nearly correct. Often it will be necessary to pull in 50mm or so before it gets into this critical range. I think this is
why it's so confusing. If you shorten a side B by 50mm and nothing seems to have happened, then it's completely reasonable to expect that another
10mm won't make any difference either. And if you then shorten it another 50mm and that side of the kite folds in half and won't even stay inflated,
then the conclusion might reasonably be that changing B lengths doesn't work at all as a tuning system. But it does. You just have to find the
critical length range within which it works. Somewhere in the middle between the extremes will be a +/-25mm length range that will enable any Pilot
I've met so far to be centralised.
But isn't this rather a brave statement of the 'Bring me your sick and dying and I will heal them' sort? Well yes, I am a bit nervous, can imagine
really needing that last Tee shirt while at kite events from now on.
Realistically I expect there are some Pilots out there that are so asymmetric (from angled weft, manufacturing inaccuracies, asymmetrical stretch or a
combination of these things) as to be beyond help. But for some years now I've been taking the Pilots that have been rejected as un-flyable/unsalable
by Peter Lynn Kites Ltd, fixing them by the above (and below) techniques and using them at events,- and haven't yet had a failure.
But what about stability?
What to do when your Pilot starts weaving around all over the sky then crashes out in a series of loops (taking other kites in the vicinity along for
the ride, and earning you a Tee shirt number two). This cure is also easy:
To stop Pilot kites zooming around, shorten the centre span B bridle. End of story.
But by how much should you shorten centre B?
By just enough to stabilise the kite, because too much will eat in to light wind performance.
And the reasons for why these techniques work? This really is simple:
The more lift (upwards force) that a kite generates, the less stable it will be, but the more drag it creates horizontal force), the more stable it
will be.
Shortening any B bridle reduces the camber (lift creating curvature) of that section of the kite, which decreases the amount of lift and increases the
drag generated there.
When B bridle on the right side of a Pilot kite is shortened it reduces the lift and increases the drag from that side of the kite, allowing the left
hand side of the kite to dominate and push the kite to the right.
When the centre span B bridle is shortened, the camber in the centre of the kite is reduced so the amount of lift generated is reduced and the drag
increased, so the kite becomes more stable.
Sure there are forms of instability that this adjustment won't cure, but the zooming around sort is by far the most common, and this is a complete fix
for it.
These techniques work for every size and every model of Pilot kite produced by Peter Lynn Kites Ltd so far.
For the next (probably 6 bridle, but not yet finalised) models, rather than changing bridle lengths, there is to be an internal adjustment that
accomplishes the same effect. This is neater, more predictable in effect and even simpler to do. It can even be retro-fitted to earlier 8 and 9
bridle Pilots if you have a mind to.
* So does this mean that the Chinese are really showing how much they admire us when ripping us off?
Judging by the increasingly blatant activities of Weifang New Sky Kites I think I'd rather be reviled - and no doubt will be when PL Kites Ltd finally
loses patience with polite requests and starts jumping on their Western customers for copyright infringement in a big and expensive way.
source: July 2010 Newsletter