That's what z-bridle does in Nasa Star eliminating any brake pull unless brakes applied. There would be a substantial brake pull without it because brake lines control more of the trailing part of the kite rather than just a trailing edge. For that reason rigging it in 4 lines without z-bridle has little merit. I shortened the power side of the z-bridle by 1 cm (in a 4m kite) getting wider window i.e. less side pull and decreasing the tendency to backfly especially when underpowered on short lines. I still have to experiment a little to find the optimal differential brake /power lengths.

I have tried on a couple of occasions to fly the Nasa Star 2 on a turbo bar and did not like the results. I find them far too twitchy to fly by steering them mainly by the brakes.

The three line bar configuration works very well.

I also rigged them up on the HQ Apex depower bar - again, trying to steer them with brake lines was too twitchy and reversing it and having the brake lines through the center also proved less than satisfactory.

Then I tried both brake lines and power lines to the bar ends with a brake strap in between the brake lines - the idea was that I could pull the brake strap, land the kite on it's trailing edge and wrap the brake strap around a buggy wheel while I took a break. That worked really well until a gust put just enough pressure on the brake lines to make the kite fly backwards while I was doing 40kph forwards and resulted in a bit of a mess.

I fixed that by using the Z bridle config:



So now I have been running brake and power lines to the bar ends with a separate brake line also to the bar ends with the brake strap between them. That seems to solve the 'kite flying backwards' senario (although it can still do that in light winds if you don't keep it moving) and allows me to park and secure the kite more easily than using the third depower line. - that's the setup in the video.

Interestingly, on this stretch of beach the day before I was using a 2m Ozone Octane and getting a fair way up the beach as it curved into the wind. The wind backed off a little and I swapped to the Nasa Star 2.5m - I didn't expect to get as far upwind but I ended up being able to go further upwind than the Octane. Their upwind ability keeps on surprising me.

hallo from Greece.
My name is Dimitrios and I'm into snowkiting, landboarding, kitesurfing etc. I fly a Matrixx HQ 15m, Neo Hq 11m, Montana 9.5m V.

I am interested in the nasa star 2 (mostly for narrow spaces, or when the wind is not safe for big foils, etc). Do you think a Nasa star 2 kite can take you uphill with skis? I cannot find anything for uphill skiing with npw kites.

Do you believe this can be achieved also @ steetkite mode? (safer for mountains)

with my big foils i manage uphill some quite stiff slopes, especially if the wind is in my back (looping) or side 90 degrees to ascending.

thank you in advance.

Hi Dimitrios,

The Nasa Star 2 should easily pull you up the hills with skis. At slow speeds, the Nasa's generate more pull than most foils because of their very low aspect ratio so they will be ideal in smaller areas where there is not as much room to work the kite.

I don't, however, think it will work in 'streetkite' mode - which I believe you mean attaching the kite directly to the bar. In streetkite mode, all of the footage that I've seen is on pavement, footpaths and roads where you do not need much power to get going - I think you would still need 15m or so of lines to give you room to swing the kite around to get you going on snow. To give an example - I was buggying in a paddock at home with the 2.5m on 20m lines in 16 knots or so with ease....then I swapped to the 4m but ran it straight from the bar and I just couldn't get going at all. I've also run the 2.5m on very short (6m) lines in the buggy on a dry lake bed - had to work the kite furiously to gain momentum but once the buggy got up to 25kph or thereabouts, the kite really surged with power.

Send an email to Steffen at Born-kites and ask him about the NS2's in Snow - I believe he does a bit of skiing with them.

By the way, I've rigged the NS 2's back to the 3 line mode after seeing the video that Steffen made about landing on the side of the window. I just hook the bar end around a footpeg and the kite stays put. Even if it's gusty and the kite rolls around a bit, it still finds it's way back to the edge of the window.

thank you John.
Some more questions for you because i see you tested a lot of them.
- Can you still use the streetbar with extension lines? (i see extension lines for that bar) will it be safe? Emergency line with the leash will be efficient then?
- Which way does the kite fly better?
- with or without Zbridle Do you think will it fly good with a crossover bar like http://shop.eolo.com/en/kites/accesories-spare-parts/power-k...
- Do you think a Depower bar, untouched (in 3 line mode) - i have 3-4 bars from my HQ's can work if you use the Center line of the bar (Power for the depower foils) as Brake for the nasa star 2 and use it to control the Sigma - Pi - Delta shape of the wing? (from what i see it must work)

I think you should be able to use the streetbar with any extensions lines....not 100% sure on that...

I have flown it 4 line mode on handles and it's fine. With or without Z bridle is all ok.

Have tried Ozone Turbo bar without Z bridle - no good, kite does not like being steered mainly by brakes and I don't think it will work with the crossover bar....although it might with the Z bridle...have also tried a std depower bar without the z bridle (in four line mode without using the center depower line on the NS2) with the same results as the turbo bar.

You can rig it on a depower bar but, all the power is on ends of the bar (3rd line through the center) so you'll need a trapeze line to hook yourself to the bar otherwise your arms will tire out pretty quick. Now, having said that, Steffen has just released a new depower system which spreads the load 50/50 between the center line and power lines - I haven't had the chance to use it yet but it looks like it will be close to a normal depower setup. Here: http://www.venturi-power.de/product_info.php?info=p215_pro-d...

I have also run a depower bar by putting the NS2 in four line mode and running both power and brakes to the bar ends with a brake handle strap between the brake lines (also attached to a leash) and a trapeze to hook the bar to (see the last video) I used the Z bridle with this setup so I had power AND brakes on one pair of lines and a separate brake line to the other - a bit complicated to explain but that worked fine. After seeing Steffen's launch and landing on the side of the window video, I've gone back to the std 3 line setup.

There's probably a few more different ways to rig the kite to a bar that I haven't thought of but either way, I think you'll end up modifying a normal depower bar to make it work.

As with any kite and trying to make it work with a different style bar, you have to remember that the size of a kite in relation to the bar is rather important. The Z Bridal is a certain size in respect to the kites themselves.
it changes the reaction time of the kite itself. That's why certain bars don't work with the NASA wings.

I did try the NASA wings in snow and I found a couple little quirks about them. What are the things I found was that as the wind increases the power increases the kites do not perform as far into the window as it wood at a lower wind speed.
I was using a 15 metre NPW while everybody else was using 18 meter and larger depower kites, I found the rolling hills made it hard to keep the kite inflated as the other kites. Hard to step back and relaunch with a snowboard on. On a flat opened area the N PW would do a much much better job then a lot of the others .

A comment you made there stopped me for a moment bigkid. "The Z Bridal is a certain size in respect to the kites themselves. " Do you know why this is? I was under the impression that one size would fit all, as long as the length of the Z bridle allows full handle movement, i.e. from no brake to full brake or have I missed something?

the z-bridle probably is adjusted such that without brake input it is depowered as much as possbile without the nasawing starting to flap.

As I said, the Z bridle is one size and the kites are different sizes. I bought one and then made up 4 of them, one for each kite. I found that they had to be adjusted for each kite if I wanted them to act the same way. Flying them on the bar is the same for all the sizes because the lines are long enough to not be a problem, but the Z bridle is so short it responds a bit different on each size. Most people wouldnt realize the difference unless they were as picky as I am. Comparing 2 kites days or weeks apart is not a comparison in my world. Do it the same time, same place, same setup, the same way is the only way to compare kites in my world. That what I did with the Susan Specials and the Born Kites.
That way you can gauge how far into the window they fly, the zenith, speed from side to side, and power.
Most of the time I do this with another person next to me as we both fly different kites and then we switch kites to see how they compare with each other, kites and persons.

Got my hands on the 1.5m Nasa Star 2 the other day and have given it a few flys. Just like it's bigger brothers - wonderfully stable. Pulls hard and tracks like it's on rails. will need about 20 knots for the buggy - which I'm looking forward to. Will get a short video together.

Also had a chance to play with the new 'pro depower bar' setup Link to page which splits the force 50/50 between the harness and bar ends....and there's a little quick release to attach the bar to your harness (instead of the trapeze loop) so you end up with all the force at your harness. Push the little red ball away, the bar detaches and engages the depower - similar to the standard 3 line bar except that you're using a normal chicken loop/donkey dick setup. You can fly with the bar floating if you want to take advantage of the depower function.

I'll post up a pic of the pulley setup - it had me scratching my head when I set it up, but am becoming more and more impressed with it.

A quick look at the 1.5m here:



I'll do a separate vid of the new bar setup soon...

Nice vid there John. Can't wait to fly mine.

Hi John. I tried a Nasa 3mtr here and poah! It has power!
But I found it very hard to keep it up wind on my landboard (I don't have a buggy). Anyone else been land kiting with the NASAs and how have you managed to keep yourself upwind? Thanks. Great thread here.

To get upwind, you need power. They sit deep in the window and pull really hard on the harness. I have the advantage of sitting low in the buggy and having a side rail to brace against. On a landboard......hmmmmm.....that could be interesting....! Herc and BigE may have some tips?

Quote:

But I found it very hard to keep it up wind on my landboard (I don't have a buggy). Anyone else been land kiting with the NASAs and how have you managed to keep yourself upwind? Thanks. Great thread here.

The holy grail of a single skin kite is how to get that extra bit of window for upwind, I'm afraid I can't give you much advice on landboarding as I went to buggying, I don't bounce as well as I used to and ended up breaking my wrist stopping a face plant off the board (looking back I should have been more confident with the kite before I went to a board).
As John says for the buggy you can go more over powered and use the extra power at the edge rather than having the kite sitting in the real power zone where it maybe too much. If I need to get up wind I really edge the buggy on the verge of it breaking sideways, then I try and gain as much upwind distance as I can on my turns using the speed I'm carrying, then you won't loose any ground as you turn. It's not easy but you end up allowing for the lack of upwind and working around it.

Thanks BigE. That's how I am doing it now with my Montana 5. Upwind is no problem, even in 20knots. But I do have to keep her near the window's edge otherwise I am overpowered and tempted to jump as well. With a NASA though, I tried to keep it at the edge on 12knots once and it really struggled with me and wanted to stay in the power zone. Mind you I did not have a depower bar setup, just a FB control bar at the time.

I've never flown a Nasa other than the Born-kite ones, so I can't say if they travel upwind easier than, say, an NPW 5.... In a northerly the other week at Trug, I had no problem with the 2.5m doing loops around the lookout and getting back to the main SW part of the field although I waited till the wind came up a bit to do that.

Had my greedy mitts on the Pro Depower bar setup for the Nasa Star 2's recently. An unusual, but very effective way of managing the center depower line on the NS2. Connection to the harness is via a chicken loop - which I think is much better than the trapeze loop I had been using. You can have the bar 'free' to make use of the depower on the fly or hook it to the chicken loop for full power (which is what I do) and easily release the bar to completely depower the kite when needed. There are some color coded markers on the center line so you can set the bar stopper at the appropriate spot for each size kite. When using the bar un-attached to the chicken loop, the power is spread 50/50 between the bar ends and the center line.

As the Nasa's handle the gusts really well, I don't tend to use the depower system unless I need to completely depower the kite.

I have the Pro Depower setup on an older 'Caution' bar and Ozone lines that I had. Video here:



Also, had a chance to run the 1.5m in 25-35 knots and was very impressed with it's stability. Could even do a bit of filming while I was flying which I would never try with my 1.5m Imp which is quite manic by comparison. Also got a chance to use both safetys when hit by a nasty squall - hit the primary safety, then decided that I did not want to be attached to anything in that wind, so hit the second safety - kite didn't go far. 20km or so away, Wilson's Prom recorded gusts of over 120kph at the same time.

The next morning, I buggy'd upwind out to the point and back with the Access XT 4m which was pretty twitchy and slow going upwind. Got back and swapped to the 2.5m NS2 and ran out to the point again. The 2.5m was a lot more stable and grunty in the low end, nearly as fast upwind but a bit slower downwind. In the gusty conditions, I preferred the 2.5m NS2 - which I ran for the rest of the morning.

hallo.

Is anyone using the nasa stars 2 on snow with skis / snb?
If yes, can you describe them to us? (uphill, power etc) comparing to foils?
If no, do you know or found resources of other flyers?

i rarely find videos on snow with them.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&...
A mast improved upwind performance wiew from 3 m 14 s

A de power bar works extremly well.''with 4 lines nasa

Here's a vid showing all the sizes and a couple in 'streetkiting' mode (straight off the bar) which Mark is enjoying with the landboard. He seems to be getting up to park 'n ride speed pretty quickly with the large wheels on the landboard.

I actually managed to catch up and pass a couple buggiers heading upwind using 4m Ozone access's with my 2.5m NS2.......until they figured out I was using the compressed air on top of the dune for extra speed....once that trick was figured out I was left looking at their rear tyres....sigh..... !

The little 1.5m really saved the day for me on the claypan on a couple days where we had winds gusting to nearly 30 knots and I had a couple of great light wind sessions of 3.5 - 7 knots or so with the 10m

John. I know its an older thread, but did you find you needed different size Z bridles with different size NS2?

Quote:

John. I know its an older thread, but did you find you needed different size Z bridles with different size NS2?

I've only run the 2.5 and 4m on 4 lines with the Z bridles and they were the same length. I think if you've got a 5" bridle on the lower Z, it should give you 10" of throw when you point the handles at the kite - that should be enough I would have thought. No point having more throw available than your handles can give. You could probably size your Z bridle setup for the largest kite and it should work for all (you probably will just need smaller movements on the smaller sizes).

I think the ones that Steffen supplied would have been either 6 or 8" ? - they worked just fine too.

Thank you John!

The lengths of z-bridles (40 cm in stock configuration) is obviously more than enough for brake control. What matters more is the relative length of each part – brake vs. power side. Again, in stock configuration they are equal which – in my opinion – results in excessive brake side pull. The effect of this is the tendency to back flying and tail crashing in underpowered conditions what is quite easy to observe. What is less immediately visible but much more important is that this effect, in combination with too steep AOA, results in narrowing of the window and excessive sidepull. Now, if you start adjusting these relative lengths than the optimal combination will depend on the kite size.

Good info prussik!