Asked Angus about this a while back, but it was over the phone and wasn't sure how good my description was. Soooo....

A while back, I got some older Flexifoils Bullets. I generally swapped them over to handles but always wondered about the bar.



Outside leader lines for the power lines. Insider leader for brake lines and attaching to a wriststrap. The cord for the brake lines run through a stainless ring at the center of the bar. The 3 black sections on the center line are:

• Top and bottom ones are nylon webbing collars that act as limiting stoppers to limit the movement of the cord through the stainless steel ring.
  
• Center one is a velcro collar that is used to secure the center line when putting the bar away.
  

Detail of stainless ring of center of bar. Attached with a nylon strap that passes through a plastic loop, is cinched down, and brough back and secured to itself with velcro.




Detail of brake leader terminations. Top nylon limiting collar and a single knot.


Does anyone know anything about the history of this bar and more importantly how it was used with a 4 line FB. I guess you could have always larksheaded both brake lines to the terminating knot, but that just seems all kinds of wrong.

The Quark is the only 3 line trainer that I know of from Flexifoil and the predates that by quite a few years.

This bar is going to go through 1 maybe 2 rounds of mods, but the curiousity factor nags at me.

This isn't meant to spark a debate on the whole bars/handles thing.

For me, this roughly equates to tinkering or dismantling an old alarm clock to see what makes it tick. Any history lessons would just be an added bonus.

ATB,
Sam

This bar came with my 1.5 bullet about 4 years ago. It is made for smaller kites and the two brake lines from the kite do larks head to the line that has the wrist attachment on the bar. Mine didn't last, I am pretty sure the bar was aluminum and padded with relatively thick foam that ended up ripping.

If you use a this bar on a larger kite, it could definitely benefit from a pulley with a brake leader line running through it. Without that, the kite will not fly properly when taking a tight turn because there will be a little bit of input on the opposite side brake. This happened to me way back when I setup my Stylus P4 on a bar. I had to set the brake lines loose enough to compensate for that brake line take up during a turn. The lines were extremely slack and had a nice long curve to them while flying. Because of that, looping often created a mess. I was using a New Tech bar, similar style to that where the two brake lines attached via larkshead to one brake leader line knot.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jason-G This bar came with my 1.5 bullet about 4 years ago. It is made for smaller kites and the two brake lines from the kite do larks head to the line that has the wrist attachment on the bar. Mine didn't last, I am pretty sure the bar was aluminum and padded with relatively thick foam that ended up ripping.

Yuppers, one of the bars definitely came with the Bullet 1.5, but having a hard time recalling where the second one came from.

It's weird abot larksheading both brake lines to the knot. It was the only thing that made sense, but still seemed like it would make up for screwed up flight due to the tension being so uneven at times.

The foam on the bar is completely intact with no tearing issues thus far. It seems to be the same foam that way used on the handles from the same generation.

ATB,
Sam

Quote:

Originally posted by Jovver If you use a this bar on a larger kite, it could definitely benefit from a pulley with a brake leader line running through it. Without that, the kite will not fly properly when taking a tight turn because there will be a little bit of input on the opposite side brake.

That's definitely along the lines I was thinking.

When I was wandering the aisles of West Marine, I picked up some blocks. Was looking for something lightweight without being flimsy. Couldn't find two of the same type, so each bar will have a slightly different one, but that actually works out well from an experimentation point of view.

These are the two that I finally settled on (pickings were slim that day).



Ironically, the block on the right seems to be the one that is used for the Ozone Turbo Bar. The one on the left is essentially the same with the added ability to freely rotate. Both employ balling bearings which means the pulley wheel free spins like mad.

This should make for some fairly interesting tinkering.

ATB,
Sam

In my bullet instructions it was clear that when you purchased it with the bar option, it was only the 1.5 that had this bar. Larger than the 1.5 and the bar supplied is different. I have a pully on the bar that came with my Rage 2.5 and the bar that came with my Riot 5.0. In my opinion the bar is not meant for a large kite and off all the bars I have or had (quite a few) it was the weakest and probably why flexifoil only supplied it on their 1.5 kite.

Thanks for that, Jason.

It will stay with the 1.5 Bullet and kites in that class or lower. Would have been nice if that was actually stamped/tagged that on the bar, but I kind of assumed that caveat was implicitly in place.

I expect that Flexifoil wasn't really thinking of what happens to their kites or controls, once they hit the secondary market.

Larger kites can fly on the Ozone Turbo Bar that landed today (thanks Angus).

ATB,
Sam

I got one when I got my Bullet too. The Bullet looks to me like a 2-line kite that they added brake lines to as an after thought ... I was assuming that the brake lines went to the wrist leash as a safety.

Ended up using the bar on the Vibe for the wife