What do you think the angle to the wind you can travel with a kite? I had lots of trouble with a low price kite getting back to the car. wind was from the north and I could only go east west. Once I got a better kite I could go north west and north east but not sure at what angle to the wind. What do you think is the max angle attainable?

Hey

The maximum upwind angle depends on a lot of things, like wind speed, the type of kite an how much edge you can hold.
Usually it's easier to go upwind when your well powered. Also the more edge you can hold the better you can go upwind.
I am guessing but snow kiting on hard pack I would say I can go 135 degrees or maybe a little more. I've done a couple of mile long tacks on the lake and been more than a mile upwind of my truck.
I could be off on this but I'm sure someone will correct me.
I know on hard pack snow I can go upwind a lot beter than on water.

John

Reading your question struck me as funny - you never said whether you were using anything or just walking with a cheap kite and struggling to get to your car. If you buy a really good kite you'll find it easy to run straight to your car to go kiting!



manitoulin is right - the more power you have the higher upwind angle you can go - unless you are using something too big then you get dragged downwind. On the dry lake when you are really going fast and angle hard upwind you can get pretty really high upwind but a lot of that is momentum as well - eventually you slow down and need to angle off.

Manitoulin - oh to get back surfing at Providence Bay again one of these summers :-)

Good question. Lots of factors, also, like aparent wind. When I'm perfectly powered on the v19 and I get moving, it almost seems like I can go very nead upwind... never measured it though. Sounds like an experiment is due! I don't doubt there's a theoritical angle, a practical angle and then ways to "cheat" in both situations to get more degress up wind.

Can you get upwind with other kites?

Have to agree with all comments above. Too many factors to take into consideration. I know there have been days at Wildwood when the winds were light, and blowing nearly straight down the beach, once I had built up some speed, I could turn almost straight into the wind and keep moving.. would eventually lose speed and have to veer off, but some of the tack lines would be nearly dead upwind. Wouldnt last long though...

Yeah that's all so squishy that there is no one right answer. Depends on kite L/D and wind speed. I hear people say they can go almost directly upwind with a ceratin kite but I'm sure that is momentum and is not sustainable. Also I bet they are feeling the apparent wind on their face which will always seem to be from near straight ahead.
When people ask me, I say about 45 degrees off of dead upwind. I have gone as far as taking compass bearings of the true local wind and my tire tracks and this seems to hold up with my Reactors pretty well powered up and me hooked in with a strop in clean steady coastal wind.

With a 4m XT in 25-30 knots I could just manage to get back upwind - the wind would have been 45 degrees or so onto the beach. Fabulous trip downwind - at 60kph there wasn't much noise and I couldn't feel a lot of wind either. But what a slow slog to get back!! I had an 8m Manta as a demo for a short while and was amazed by how far that seemed to go upwind.

Here's a pic of the 4m XT directly downwind on the beach which gives you a good idea of wind direction.[img]null[/img]

A great source for this question is Nop V. "Stunt Kites 2". He has a great graph that shows the maximum attainable speed at different angles to the wind.

Answer is basically a physics problem. Kite has to be in front of you, so kites that go further to the edge pull more "in front of you" when going upwind. Pull has to overcome friction and your inertia, so that is why momentum comes into play.

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Originally posted by geokite A great source for this question is Nop V. "Stunt Kites 2". He has a great graph that shows the maximum attainable speed at different angles to the wind.

Right, great book if not dated. The slugs like the Sputniks he was flying have a max L/D of 3 on his graph. According to PL designers, modern kites are up to about 6.

Another thing to consider is Velocity Made Good (VMG), which is the speed at which you reach your (upwind) goal regardless of your speed and heading at any given time. In other words, do you get upwind faster by heading more directly upwind going slower but with few tacks, or by going much faster hauling farther off the wind but with more tacks?

My Garmin E-Trex Legend has a VMG function but I have never used it.

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Originally posted by John Holgate I had an 8m Manta as a demo for a short while and was amazed by how far that seemed to go upwind.

Yeah, the Manta's always seem to go almost silly far upwind.