Power Kite Forum

Ace 8m, 6m, Legend 4.5m

revpaul - 31-7-2008 at 09:24 PM

my brother bought a used 8M Ace w/flexi control bar. tonnes of juice but terrible turning. strangest thing is when launching, the kite will turn in the opposite direction until it gains some altitude/speed. it pretty much takes the whole window to turn a 360. we just thought that was the way things are.
he then ordered the "two for one 4.5m/6m" deal from Pansh. with one set of handles and one (shorter, i'd bet) line set.
i haven't flown any of them a whole lot.
He prefers to use the bar with all three kites. he says they fly better with the bar. i think it's odd that they fly better with a bar, aren't they designed for handles?
*he uses the line set/bar that came with 8M on the 6m. they seem pretty long, maybe too long.
i wanted to buggy with the 6m so he rolled it out and started to switch over the line set/bar from the 8m. i put the handles on. looked like way too much slack in brake lines. put more knots at handle leaders but still lots of slack. seemed to brake a little though.
wondering if we should we try doing some bridle adjustments or cutting lines to shorter length? how long should lines generally be for each size of kite?
Paul

furbowski - 31-7-2008 at 11:27 PM

don't know the 6 or the 8, but my 5 flies best on very slack brakes and is very sensitive on the brakes. never tried flying it on a bar, i would not want to as it turns slow enough on the powers that I would indeed need a full wind window to turn a larger ace on powers alone (lines to outside of bar).

personally i don't think the aces would be any good on bars. I've got an 8m ace waiting for me at a friend's place in washington, and I plan to rig that with jellis pulley handles, don't think I'll get good turning speed otherwise.

the actual line length increases the size of your window, the difference you can make with the powers is what affects the turning of your kite. with the bar you are limited to the length of the bar, with handles you can use the entire spread of your arms plus brake for faster turns. With pulley handles you get twice the length of line pull on the brakes, at the cost of twice the force needed to pull on the brakes, not an issue with the aces as they are sensitive on the brakes when compared to most kites.

I depowered my tips on my 5m, this helped it turn faster.

hope that helps.

revpaul - 1-8-2008 at 11:31 AM

how did you depower tips? would the technique work with other sizes? i've never fiddled with a bridle aside from the occasional de-tangling ;)
Paul

Bladerunner - 1-8-2008 at 12:35 PM

I put my 5m ace on a CROSSOVER bar right out of the bag. I thought it performed pretty well. After a long spell that way I tried it on handles and in low wind the handles are better BY FAR !!! It performed well in a good wind though.

Trying to turn that 8m on a bar without crossover would be a chore I'm sure. You NEED that brake input to speed things up !!!


If you add a bit of brake to the side you are turning with handles it will speed up your turn greatly !!!

furbowski - 1-8-2008 at 01:05 PM

I had to debuild the bridle to do the depower mod, used to have a lovely two-page write-up, but it's gone with my last trashed hard drive!

In brief: the tips benefit from extension by about 3-4 inches as well as being depowered by about 5 degrees. In addition I took out a couple of the C row bridles near the tips as well, one is so close to the tip as to be useless, and another when taken out helps to depower a larger area of the tip. A little power is lost, but what is gained by flyability in the turns seemed to make it a much more fun kite to fly, my tips never fold in the turns now for example.

Here's what i remember about doing the tip mod: I did not have to make any new bridle bits, I was able to do it by swapping some of the lines I took out of the bridle. My memory is vague, I wrote the 2-page brief so i would remember but it is gone.

So you start with the big bridle knots where you attach the lines and take the bridle apart working towards the canopy. It is very important to do this slowly and carefully, taking notes as you go along, but it is not difficult, it just requires patience and care, mostly so you can restore the kite to stock if needed. Taking lots of pictures helps, backing up your hard drive also helps!

Here's what I remember:

1) I took out the middle wing-tip bridle. I think this was 5-6 cm longer than the cascade leader so I swapped this for the cascade leader (one back from the canopy, does not connect directly to the canopy) and that gave me my extension.

2) I altered the angle of the tips by wrapping the canopy bridle around the canopy attachment point, each wrap shortened the line by about 1.5 cm. wrapping the A row tip bridle depowers the tip, wrapping the C row tip bridle powers up the tip. Two wraps did the job, I think. This cancels out some of the wing-tip extension.

3) I took out the B row tip bridle, this may have been swapped out with something else in the bridle to make all the lengths come out OK, can't remember exactly how.

4) A row is the row of canopy ties /bridles nearest the leading edge, B row the next back, and C row the last of the power bridle rows. The brake row is usually called the X-row.

I don't think that's very clear, but that should give you a rough idea. The goal, remember, is to lengthen the wing-tips by about 5 cm, depower by 5 degrees, and lose a couple of the C-row nearest the tip. These mods made my 5m Ace much more flyable, and I'm sure I'll be doing these on the 8m as well when I finally get my hands on it.

The first rule of modifying kites is to make sure you have the notes and pictures neccesary to restore the kite to stock. I lost my info though with that hard drive, but it was there....

Make sure you have enough time to do the job patiently. Mine took about three hours, about half of that with the initial mod, the rest of the time flying and adjusting.

hope that helps....

Bladerunner - 1-8-2008 at 03:53 PM

I don't get what you are saying here. The opposite direction of ( launch ) up is down ( land ) :?:

Some of my kites seem to prefer to turn to one side when I launch and take some big influance to start of and turn the other way. Is it possible your kite just has a tendancy to turn the same way each time it's launched :?:

I think that the Flexi bar is not a crossover ? That is, it only has a single pulley ? If that is the case you MUST try changing it to a 2:1 crossover :!: . All you need is 2 more pulleys and a bit of line. Search crossover bar on here for past posts or copy the one HQ sells with the Scout !


Quote:
Originally posted by revpaul
my brother bought a used 8M Ace w/flexi control bar. tonnes of juice but terrible turning. strangest thing is when launching, the kite will turn in the opposite direction until it gains some altitude/speed. it pretty much takes the whole window to turn a 360. we just thought that was the way things are.
Paul

revpaul - 1-8-2008 at 04:07 PM

sorry,
as you pull/launch and it's just off the ground and climbing a left pull on the bar will turn the kite right and vice/versa. i realize some kites will drift/turn in one particular direction but this is not the case with the 8m. it simply turns in the opposite direction of input when launching and has since day one.
very odd

furbowski - 1-8-2008 at 04:31 PM

yes very odd...

one of the troubles with pansh is the odd full-on lemon that comes out of the factory, kitedemon has one as well....

you could take it off the bar and give it a try on handles?

Is there any amount of brake line tension on launch? a little brake tension goes a long way on pansh, and a little tension on a partially inflated kite on launch can do really weird things.... After it flies a bit and the tips fully inflate it flies better?

The aces are really really twitchy on their brake response, think back to what the brake lines are doing on launch, i have a hunch this has a lot to do with your problem, totally slack brakes on launch should really help.

I guess the next step I'd suggest is a good hard look at the bridle to make sure it is all symmetrical.

and it could be you just have one of the lemons....

revpaul - 4-8-2008 at 10:38 AM

sorry for late reply,

yes, once it has been fully launched (up to zenith) it flys/turns as expected. i don't think there is tension on brake lines because we are pulling on front (and running back) to launch. we will definitely try using handles some more/again. i read scoopy's (sorry if i got wrong person) thread and how he explains the difference between 2 and 4 line biased quad-line kites.
*the 8m was used and had very little use. according to seller (very little experience with any kite), the kite shipped kite only and seller's friend picked up the lines/bar for him. neither could get the kite flying well (compared to friends FSs) and seller got a good scare enough to rid himself of the beast. kite and 'nice' flexi control bar/harness line with QR/line set was only 200.C
i doubt it is a lemon. i think we just need to get rid of the bar and use handles. bet it would fly better with handles (with brake inputbias/turning). thanks scoopy.
Paul

jockeys - 5-8-2008 at 06:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by revpaul
sorry,
as you pull/launch and it's just off the ground and climbing a left pull on the bar will turn the kite right and vice/versa. i realize some kites will drift/turn in one particular direction but this is not the case with the 8m. it simply turns in the opposite direction of input when launching and has since day one.
very odd


yep, my Ace6 did this consistently the first few times i flew it, turned out that my brakes were too tight. shorten your power leads in 2 inch increments until you find the sweet spot. any brake tension AT ALL and it won't launch straight. i am seriously considering making a crossover bar for this reason, the thing really should be flown on power alone, except a tiny dab of brakes to help it turn