It was a typical light gusty day at Tempelhofer Freiheit. Average wind ca. 12 knots gusting to 20 with lulls in between. In one such lull I grabbed my center line to yank some life into my luffing M6 and mistaking hit the top hat safety, in the middle of the bloody runway. Without turning too red I did a practice quick and dirty pack down, walked back to the launch area, untangled the mess I'd made, looked at my watch and decided to unroll my little red f-arc 12.

The first couple of times I'd flown this kite it didn't have pigtails and had behaved oddly. This was the first time with the recommended extensions. I had measured to the listed lengths but that made the power lines too long. It back stalled out of the air, its powerlines sagging. Two launches later it came to life.

Once I got rolling and had some apparent wind the kite was really responsive and pulled like a truck. I could park it at 45º, pull the bar most of the way in, get some good acceleration and start milking it for some more speed. This was great.

Here is what confuses me: when I was still the kite didn't want to turn at all. I had to jelly fish it up toward the zenith where it would catch some air, put tension back in the lines and then start behaving with some serious grunt.

Do you think this is more of a tuning/trim issue or should I chalk it up to light air? Of course, poor piloting could also be the reason for being unable to keep tension in the lines.

I still had the little internal string completely undone.

Arcs don't like static flying in dirty wind anymore than any other kite. They need apparent wind to magically munch the gusts as they are known to do. What you describe is pretty normal behavior unless you are in super clean beach wind.

The f-arc requires a big bar. And don't be a baby when you execute a turn, crank that bar 90 degrees, make it vertical :-) Not sure if this was indeed your problem, but try it next time you are out. You can even grab some steering line above the bar and give it a good yank if you don't think you are getting the turning radius you need.

All that said, it *sounds* like you aren't trimmed right. You put the pigtails on the steering lines correct? Reading your description makes me think the opposite. If your steering lines are too loose you'll only be able to turn the kite powered up, which is a bit perhaps of what you are describing.

Finally I'll let other f-arc folks chime in here, but f-arcs do fly differently than other arcs and you can definitely drop the kite if you do something stupid (ask me how I know). It can feel rather unresponsive as well if you aren't giving the kite air (starting upwind, pulling in the bar too much, etc). It needs speed, and definitely builds speed like nothing else. Don't starve the kite.

I put four pigtails on. The top power lines have longer ones and the ones on the bottom brake(steering) line are shorter. I kept adding shorter knots on the power lines until it became responsive and went to the top of the window with some coaxing.

If the kite is back stalling in a lull, pulling the power lines (jelly fishing) fixed the problem. If I had pulled the trim on the navigator bar, would this have helped? I started with it all the way out and pulled it in some.

Telling me more wind and fly it more aggressively, definitely get's me itching for the nest session. All in all I was pretty happy I got up to 20mph compared to 15mph on the 9.5 Montana.

I guess trial and error will eventually show me when I have the power and steering knots in the right place. When one set or the other sags, then it's fairly obvious what to do. I'd like to figure out how to get from good enough to optimal though.

no action while still. the kite really needs a threshold amount of breeze to become "powered" with responsive input.

you really have it trimmed in(short front), or set for close bar action. its not a depower more like a c-kite with narrow range

more wind or more rear line tension , f-arc have fairly small throw amount in the sweet spot for power at the bar

a big bar will speed it up but don't expect speedy turns or depower.

you're close on the settings keep working at it. bar postion when powered, with steer abilty, is where to find the sweet spot .

as you mentioned "the bar almost all the way in " thats what you are looking for! add a little to front lines (or short the back) about 3"

oh yeah, the apparent wind should give you a good impression of power/speed it can generate!

Phree nailes it. "It's not a depower" at least not in the sense of anything produced after 2005. The kite was sold with both handles or bar as an option.

It does respond well to long throw bars like the Navigator but still, compared to modern Arcs it has very little depow.

They generate a ton of power once they get up to speed. the 1200 is easily as powerful as a 19m Charger 1.

The only kite I've flown that flies and feels like an F-Arc is the Ozone Chrono. It's like an F-arc with bridles and depower. Both are probably my two favorite kites ever as far as my personal tastes go.

This video does a pretty good job of illustrating the turn rate of the F-Arc. https://youtu.be/FTLBuJIRwxM


This is with a 56cm bar and using a bit of muscle. You will see that I like tight rear lines and I have the ability to tail stall the kite like an open cell foil. Depending on the bar you can get good broad range line tension that will allow you to get maximum power but also stall the kite if needed. The tighter lines obviously help with turn rate as well.

I'll just add the next time you try flying, don't set your bar trim all the way in or out while adjusting the pigtails. That way you have some room to adjust after you've set them and find it's sweet spot. Once you find it, mark it and leave it :-)

Thanks for the tips. I should be able to get it dialed in the rest of the way now.
The sit down at 1:53 in Feyd's clip pretty much summed up my difficulty.
Understanding the importance of apparent wind for this kite and that it goes from zero pull to full on grunt without much depower will also help the next session. Oh yeah, and that it likes a bit more wind.
Who doesn't?