I remember hearing talk about this a long time ago, and always thought about trying it but never found the time. Now some of my college buddies and I want to try it out, but we can't seem to find any information on the subject other than Peter Lynn newsletters talking about the challenges and the old kite give away and a brief mention of further notes he has developed.

Does anyone have any information about bridle design, rigging, or the documents Peter Lynn talks about? Any help would be appreciated so I'm not starting back at square one. I have some guerillas I am willing to to adapt to the project.

There's a bunch of info on Extreme (maybe you've seen already?). https://www.extremekites.com.au/topic/16578-1830-f-arc/ - if you search around there are other threads about messing with arcs.
On first post there's a download link for Frank&Stein-CloningARCS-Tips&Tricks.pdf - lots of good info there.

I think Jeff is confusing f-Arcs with the SLarc project.

I'm not sure what the current state of the SL arc project is. I was participating for a while but like many things it got put to the side as time was needed to manage things that were more directly related to my kiting arena.

I will say that my F1200 that has had the multiple bridle points installed is a hoot to play with. I've made several bridles for it and even a modular bridle kit that allows me to configure all kinds of crazy stuff. It is unreal the variety of things you can do to an F-arc and the thing still flies well. And with minimal impact to AZ.

This said, eventually I just found myself riding the F-Arc in it's standard configuration just because it was so much fun to ride. Makes me laugh to find myself all these years later riding Ozone R1s for the sole reason that they fly and feel just like an F-Arc. Chris Brent did a hell of a job when he made that kite. :evil:

Quote: Originally posted by Feyd

I will say that my F1200 that has had the multiple bridle points installed is a hoot to play with. I've made several bridles for it and even a modular bridle kit that allows me to configure all kinds of crazy stuff. It is unreal the variety of things you can do to an F-arc and the thing still flies well. And with minimal impact to AZ. This said, eventually I just found myself riding the F-Arc in it's standard configuration just because it was so much fun to ride. Makes me laugh to find myself all these years later riding Ozone R1s for the sole reason that they fly and feel just like an F-Arc. Chris Brent did a hell of a job when he made that kite. :evil:

I was thinking this same thing. The newest foil board / race kites are pretty much bridled arcs.
Peter Lynn was playing with bridles at NABX when he was thete almost a decade ago.

Quote:

I think Jeff is confusing f-Arcs with the SLarc project.

Sorry, yeah wasn't clear - I was just posting some mod info, not directly related to SLarc. Thought it might be helpful in some way, or maybe point to someone that could be helpful.

I came across a few posts last year talking about SLarc-ing, but I'm still not entirely clear on why you would want to do it. Is it all about changing the camber? If so, why would single line help with that? Is the flysurfer triple depower (one of which changes camber) a descendant of this experiment?

Did you ever get your F-Arc modded to work, Chris?

Quote: Originally posted by Snake

Does anyone have any information about bridle design, rigging, or the documents Peter Lynn talks about? Any help would be appreciated so I'm not starting back at square one. I have some guerillas I am willing to to adapt to the project.

You might want to hit up Marjin (<---- Click to view Marjin's PKF profile with email).

Normally I would have expected to chime in by now, but it looks like he hasn't been on PKF since the Spring.

ATB,
Sam

Jeff, the goal of the SLarc project was to create a high performance kite single line kite that has a massive depower range and rock solid stability. Peter Lynn's original use would be for large boats to sail with. 4 lines don't work too well when you need massive winches for the amount of force on each line, as well as controlling a such massive winches. One line with a control box near the kite would work much better.

Now I hear you say, "that doesn't explain why we are turning arcs into doughnuts" and to that I say, doughnuts are delicious

But in actuality it has to do with kite speed. The faster a kite is moving the more force it has and according to Peter Lynn, it can be up to the lift to drag ratio squared. That can grow to 20 or 30 times more pull than a static kite, which would almost certainly snap the line. And we can't just use thicker lines because the weight and drag penalties would ruin the kites performance. But what we can do is add a massive amount of depower, and maybe a bit of drag, to reduce lift when needed.

A kite that can do this is fairly hard to create and control. I don't know why Peter Lynn seems to have given up on the project. Maybe he is doesn't see fruition in kite boats or maybe the project got stuck and arcs aren't suitable for the application.

I see it as a stepping stone. It seems to work well enough for me and my engineering student friends to build a working system that can fly the kite. I don't know yet if it's a solution we will use in the end though. Single skins can have much better depower, are cheaper and lighter, and should be easier and safer to launch and land. I feel that that is the direction we will go after playing with the SLarc. But the downside is we will have to build a working kite, and my past 2 attempts haven't gone too well.

I picked up some old death machines, I mean Cabrinha Black Tips, for cheap and am doing some sle bridle experiments on them. I haven't tested it yet, but I feel like it will make them actually have some depower. If that goes well I may play with a trailing edge bridle before moving into designing my own kite. It will be a challenge, but I don't have to make anything remotely human controllable, which opens the door to alot of new possiblies.

Ah - thanks Snake! The boat/winch thing makes a lot of sense. Controlling something like that still makes zero sense to me, but I'll do some more research and bake it into my noodle. I'd imagine this would be useful for the kite generators folks are working on as well.

If you come up with anything cool, I hope you post here, would love to see how you progress. Sounds really interesting.

Quote: Originally posted by jeffnyc

I'd imagine this would be useful for the kite generators folks are working on as well.

Well that's exactly what we are doing! We are taking baby steps though. Lots of experimentation and research will be performed before we even come close to letting a robot fly a the kite. There are a lot of nuances that a person can pick up on that the sensors would struggle with. That's why the right kite is so important. The more stable and predictable the kite the easier it will be for it to fly autonomously. I am sewing up the bridle for the black tips as we speak and should get some testing in tomorrow, if there is enough wind.