I recently received a complete quiver of Born-Kite LongStars (3, 5, and 7m) along with their 5-line control bar. I was very excited about these as I am so very, very pleased with the performance of Born-Kite NS3s. I am principally a buggy rider residing in the mountains of Utah so all of my riding to date has been on various grass or artificial surface athletic fields.

First things first, the LSs are beautiful and well constructed. They make me think of Batman which I think makes them look really cool. The 5-line control bar is a little crude IMHO, particularly in the chicken loop and donkey stick. Born kites most definitely seem better thought out and executed than Born bars.

Flying the LS kites with the 5-line bar is sort of strange. The kites seem to require near constant nursing to maintain decent flying characteristics. The way the bar is set up you strap the chicken loop into your harness, but 50% of the load remains on the bar and thus your arms. This is because the power lines and fifth center line go around a pulley system attached to the bar and go back out again to attach to a cleat above the bar. So... when you push the bar out part way you effectively let off on the brake lines a bit and I suppose change the kites presentation angle to the wind due to a pulley system up by the kite bridles; push it out more and you further engage the fifth line and scrunch up the kites leading edge, creating an inefficient kite that dumps power. I think the LS has a nicer DP center line system than the NS3s.

Beyond the fact that this pushing and pulling of the control bar while taking load on both the harness and your arms is unique, I've got to say that this isn't unique in a good way, IMHO. With the bar pushed out a little bit (enough to loosen up the brake lines but not so much as to scrunch up the nose of the kite) the kite will push forward a bit. This is billed as a means of keeping the kite from stalling or flying backwards. What this means in practice is that you are nursing the kite at all times in order to keep the kite flying optimally. This can certainly be done, and I'm sure would get more intuitive and natural once some sort of muscle memory set in, but the nursing of the bar is distinctly different from flying the NS3s, and IMHO not in a good way. I've got some experience flying DP with Flysurfer Peak-2s but their bar action makes sense to me and doesn't require the sort of constant attention that the LSs seem to require.

At least in my hands the LS does not seem to behave well at the edges of the wind window even with my best attempts at good bar control. With a NS3 I can bring the kite to the extreme edge of the window and sort of park it, then nose it down or up to send it smoothly back in the other direction. With the LS if I keep it flying into the edge of the wind window it will stall and then fly backwards despite attempting to arrest this with finessing the bar. Even if I manage to time it right with bar control and stop the backward flying before it happens I didn't find that I could then reasonably get the kite to respond to turning requests and everything just sort of craps out and the kite goes to the ground if I wasn't very careful. Similarly, bringing the kite up to its Zenith and trying to park it pretty much results in the same behavior, but this time sending the kite vertically downward in a reverse flight. Here, I did usually find it possible to arrest the downward path with bar finessing, but again this is the constant nursing issue. More practice (and a better pilot!) would probably take care of some of this.

Finally, as a buggy engine it does seem to require using two hands on the bar pretty much at all times to coax the bar in and out while steering the kite up and down (sining for example). Not many tries under my belt, but to date I've not been able to reasonably park an LS while rolling, something that is the hallmark of the charm of the STARS. One of the beautiful things about the STARS is their ability to "park" the kite while buggying and fly it with one hand (or no hands, just nudging the bar now and again with a finger to make micro flight corrections). This is NOT happening with the LS. Yes, I know folks that buggy with kites on handles always need to use both hands, but one of the sweet things about buggying with STARS is not having to do that.

One thing I've not had much of yet is great high wind pushing the kites upward toward their upper limits. I will say that the LSs behaved better when the wind was stronger. Of course that meant that the load on my arms was proportionally higher too....

So.... I'm not too keen on the 5-line bar. In an attempt to get good use out of the kites themselves I tried flying them using my 3-line bar set up I use for my NS3s. Doing this is quite simple as each side's bridle systems are joined with pigtails and the pulley system is part of the 5-line bar setup, so setting these up like a NS3 is as simple as with the STARS. I shot a video of me doing as close to a head-to-head comparison as I could muster, flying the 3.0m LS static on my 3-line bar back to back with my 3.2m NS3. You will see the peculiar flying characteristics I described above. Note please that these behaviors are somewhat exaggerated with the fixed bridle set up, but the kite acts this way with the 5-line set up too. I'd say the pull of these two kites was comparable, both being impressive for their size.

I'm not taking any real pleasure writing this up. I believe strongly in "keeping it real" on a forum like this so I'm doing it. It's hard for me because I have gotten to know Steffen over the past year and really like him and admire that he started his business from scratch. That coupled with my absolute LOVE of his NS3s. I'm sure he will continue to improve the LongStar concept and maybe even the fabled UltraStar. I keenly look forward to those innovations.

I'd be highly interested in hearing from any other early adopters out there that also have some flying time with the LongStars.

Great review Steve. Bummer about your experience so far. I was hoping they would fly well on the regular bar because I knew I wouldn't like the 5 line. Thanks for trying that out for us.

Sure thing Sean. One thing John Holgate and I discussed "offline" so-to-speak was exactly how I strung up the kite for the 3-line set up. I know you haven't seen the LS bridling system, but the lower bridle lines come together on each side into a sort of pigtail of sorts that is all brought together at a half way point on a longer pigtail (about 12 inches all told). One side of that foot-long pigtail gets tied into the power bridle lines from the upper portion of the kite, while the other side of that line is what you attached the "brake" line to. It isn't quite as simple as I just described because these power and brake lines go through a pulley system before going reaching the actual kite lines.

When stringing the kite for the 3-line set up (effectively changing it from some sort of hybrid DP system into a fixed bridle set up akin to the NSs) I put both ends of the "brake" line into the larks head knot at the end of the bar's lines. Since the lower bridle lines were attached exactly half way on this line I figured attaching both didn't either shorten or lengthen their effective length, just sort of doubled up the pigtail. Nonetheless it is possible (as John speculated) that putting both sides of these lines into the larks head could have tightened up the brake lines a touch, exacerbating the stalls and backward flying. So.... Next time I'll rig it only with the main power bridle system going into the Larks head knot and seeing if it makes any difference. The brake lines will still be fed into the knot from the one side of its line.

Clear as mud, right?

Holy cow. I would need one in front of me to follow you but I get the idea I think.

Tell me about it! Not much easier when you first stare at it, trust me. Makes you really appreciate the elegant simplicity of the NSs.

When the time is right I want to pick Steffen's brain as to how best to fly the LSs in this FB configuration off of his 3-line bars. As I said, the center line scrunch is an improved DP to the NS's. I'd like to know if this long skinny shape confers any advantages to the Delta shape of his original STARS once their bridles have been optimized for FB use.

Great review Steve. I suspect John is right about the brake line. On NPW's I've made and flown flying backwards or upside down is a pretty sure sign of too much brake. I usually test new builds on two line to find the right brake tension by seeing if they will launch upside down. Some fine tuning may help things a lot.

Randy - great advice! I love hearing this sort of perspective from somebody that has built NPWs and thus has an intimate understanding of these tuning issues. I pretty much feel like I'm reaching into a black box and pulling levers and pushing buttons when I adjust my bridles. I suspect you watched my video and thought something along the lines of "of course that fool's kite flew like that; he's got his brake lines too darn tight!" :D

The wind forecast looks favorable today for some buggying in the afternoon. I hope to get a LS up in the air on my 3-line bar for some mobile testing (haven't tried that yet). I most certainly plan to not attach in the second half of the brake pigtail into the main power pigtail this go around as both you and John H. have suggested.

You mentioned 2-line flying and upside down launching. Does this become a sort of litmus test for proper brake line tension for a NPW? As you could see midway through my video I was not able to reverse launch with the rig up I had that day. This makes perfect sense now that you bring it up. I've never built a kite and just haven't thought about them much at this level. To date I've been much more of a plug and play sort of guy when it comes to my power kites. Not the case always; with bikes I'll strip them down to bare frames and rebuild them without hesitation. I can generally look at things and get a good sense of them mechanically and this line of discussion has me excited to stick my hand back in that box. Wish me luck.

Thanks for the review and honesty Steve. Its probably like anything else. Just need to spend a little time getting used to them.
I chose to pass on the Long Stars. By no means because its a bad design, just I think the Nasa Star and the Peak are pretty much the ideal single skin design so far (debatable, but my opinion). That, and I already have both :D

I do however enjoy all types of kites. They are like anything in the hobby world. Can't have too many. Even if you can't fly them all at once, its cool having so many to chose from and enjoying the different flying characteristics of each.

Hope the LS comes around for you buddy. With a little more stout wind, I'm sure they will.

Thanks Jason - much appreciated. I have high hopes that I will be able to dial in the bridle system to get the brake tension optimized for FB flying on my 3-line bar. I've got several ideas and am eager to try them out. Maybe as early as this afternoon!

I don't have much interest in learning to like the 5-line bar and it will take a lot to make me pull it out of my garage at this point. I think I will post a For Sale thread for the bar. There may be somebody out there that wants to buy a LongStar as kite-only from Steffen and would appreciate buying the bar marked down from me.

Speaking of bars, I made a simple mod yesterday on my custom 3-line bar, adding some small carabiners to the ends of my pigtails for fast, easy clipping into the four holes on the ends of the bar. It turned out to be a pain in the seat meat to untie the knots to make the width adjustments, so I made some small permanent loops at the ends of the pigtails with bowline knots and put the loops into the carabiners. Now it's a snap to adjust the width. I hope to give this mod its maiden voyage today. Whoop!

That bar mod does make life a lot easier I bet. Of course if it were my OCD we were talking about, I'd have 4 bars set up. Each for its own width.

So how do the various Nasa style kites perform relative to other kites? Anyone ever buggy with others using them?

I hear ya Jason. I'm pretty OCD myself. I absolutely love having just one bar for eight NS3s (and maybe three LSs!). The bar is holding up great, and now that I can quickly and easily adjust the width I like it even better! :D

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck

You mentioned 2-line flying and upside down launching.

That may be a good way to try it. Just try to launch upside down. If it flies or at least takes off that there is probably too much brake. I would usually try to do that on short lines to find the approximate point where braking was right.

On longer lines, normally what I would do is try to launch the kite upright, but if it flipped over and tried to fly upside down, it meant I needed to take off a little brake. I have been using different NPW designs, so its not completely clear how this would translate to the LS. When you fly with quads you can adjust the brake by feel whereas on two line you are locking in a position. Normally what I tried to do was tune it a little past the point where it had too much brake.

BTW - I have also found a lot of times that when I try a new NPW (or just about any kite) it doesn't seem tofly that well at first. Often a higher performing kite seems to underperform. Sometimes its easy to overfly the wind window with a faster kite. So practice, plus a little turning may make a big difference. One thing I have found about NPW's - they all fly just a little bit differently from the others. It seems odd but true, so they take a little getting used to. Good luck with it.

I finally took the time to read the review today... good job Steve... Its too bad to hear that the LS has some issues, but I appreciate your honesty.

What you were describing about how the top lines and brake lines were all connected sounds suspiciously like a Z bridle to me ...(do a search on the forum for it and you will see what it looks like)... It is a way to fly NPW style kites in 2 line mode and still have control over the brake lines... I believe Mr. Holgate uses a Z bridle on his LS on his 3 line bar set up and has the leaders on the end of the bar split so it can be flown in 2 line mode with a strap between the brake leaders for control over braking and reverse launch....... at least thats what it looked like to me.

I am feeling content with my NS3 quiver, and while I gave some thought to the LS's, I am thinking that if I ever decide to get "something different" it will likely be a Peak, but I really have no means to afford any of those any time soon.

Good work Steve.

When are we all going to have a PKF JWC Team Nasa Star Single skin power kite meet?... We should do that... Jekyll Island anyone?

Ok, so I couldn't help myself because I was thinking about it and was compelled to give more information... this is the basic Z bridle set up which I doodled myself:



If its not obvious from the sketch, to the left is the control and to the right is the kite. I realized after I had uploaded it to Photobucket that I had written "bride" instead of "Bridle" so forgive me... This configuration allows for all of the bridling to be towed by the power line with the brake lines completely slack due to the longer leader on the bottom portion of the "Z" allowing the kite to essentially be flown in 2 line mode but allows you to apply brake pressure by proper utilization of your control.

As I said, I'm pretty sure John has a double leader on both ends of his control bar with a strap going between his brake leaders allowing him to apply brake pressure to land and reverse launch the kite.

@Spencer - Yes! That is exactly what the LongStar bridle system looks like. In my first video I had put the leader to the brake lines up with the powerline line for the larkshead know under the little nylon "wind sock" that Steffen kindly puts at the ends of his lines. In a video I'm about to post I did not put the brake line leader into the larkshead to hopefully take a touch of pressure off the lower bridle lines and decrease the stall tendency. It seemed to work a little better as you shall see.

THANKS for the great drawing; I hadn't been clear until now as to what exactly a Z bridle was, but now I know. :D

Well STAR fans, the wind picked up considerably this afternoon and I got all three LongStars up in the air for some lively buggy riding on an artificial surface athletic field near my house. Winds were classically variable, being dead still one minute, only to be gusting 20+ the next. I'd say baseline wind when it was blowing was 10-12 mph.

I used my custom 3-line NS3 bar with the kites only attached via their upper power bridle lines. The LongStars have a Z-Bridle setup and this time I did not tie in the free dangling lower Z line. Maybe a combination of the stronger wind and these lower lines being free, but the kites flew much better today than during my low wind static session that was the subject of my first video.

Bottom line, the LongStars were much improved, but still not up to the smoothness of the NS3s. I could sort of "Park" the LongStars, but not like I can easily do with the NS3. Most of the time that I'd stop moving the kite and try to park it in the front of the window I felt like I was inches away from a back stall. Sort of an uneasy feeling, as if I was about to loose control of the kite. My runs were sort of short due to the surface I was on so maybe parking would have gone better with longer straight shots with cleaner wind.

Due largely to pilot error all three kites had their little temper tantrums. You can see one for the 7m at around 0.45, one for the 3m at around 3:30, and one for the 5m in the blooper real behind the credits at around 11:45. I'm sort of proud of my in-flight corrections with the 3m LS. The crowd on the sound track seemed to like it too because they cheered right after I pulled off this maneuver!

all this video and star talk has me jonesing for a good buggy session with the stars. I think wind peaked out around 4mph this weekend :flaming:

I feel your pain Sean, believe me. Yesterday was the first wind over 5 mph around my parts in two weeks. Probably back to cricket farts again today and the week to come.

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck

I feel your pain Sean, believe me. Yesterday was the first wind over 5 mph around my parts in two weeks. Probably back to cricket farts again today and the week to come.

Precisely why I ordered a 10m... If you add my summer of continuous cricket-fartless days on top of the very little amount of days I get to get out and ride, the odds are stacked against me for rideable wind days... Looking forward to my behemoth mama kite