Power Kite Forum

Adjusting Break Lines

pea - 28-10-2006 at 04:45 AM

Wondering how much i should reduce the break lines too to give me more power. It's a buster 2 3m if anyone else has done it. I was gonna do about an inch, is that ok? Or is it a case of experimenting?

Pete

Pablo - 28-10-2006 at 08:48 AM

THe Buster II should have the quick adjusters on the brakes,

What you want to do is take the brakes in until you get very little slack in the brake lines with the kite straight overhead. You should see the power lines dead straight and a slight bow on the brakes. Then when you hit the brakes you should be able to really pull in on the trailing edge, with full aplication of the full brakes the kite should totally fold and float to the ground.

I find that any tension on the brake lines when trying to fly straight will result in poorer performance, yes the kite may feel like it's pulling a little harder, but that's because the brake tension will keep the kite further back in the window, you'll have a little more pull, but it'll be more downwind, so less speed, less upwind, just more bottom end grunt. You're much better to sine the kite a little generating more apparent wind and power, it'll also keep the kite back in the window a little, then when you're cruising you can let the kite run at the edge of the window. One other option if you're powered up pretty good it to ride the brakes a little when powering up to get a longer power stroke, then let the kite run when you're cruising.


Feel free to mess around though, you won't hurt the kite. When it gets hard to launch and has trouble climbing to zenith you have too much brake on for the wind conditions.

pea - 29-10-2006 at 01:29 AM

Ok thanks. Yesterday i tried jumping with a little more breaks and i got loads of air :D