Thanks everyone for the comments, not as good a vid as I hoped but it's a start, :D No it's not my land but a field right next to where I live.
It does fly just like a foil and has the window to match!, with the immediate pull of a NASA style kite, the other thing is it also needs a bit of brake input as well so I fitted the single skin kites friend..... the Z-bridle, in lulls the wing tip does sometimes collapse during a turn but as it comes out a slight dab on the brake and it pops back out. Funny but once you've flown it all the hours spent making it are a distant memory :D These are definitely the pinnacle of my builds to-date, I felt the thought of trying a foil too daunting and stuck to buying them, as I was on the single skin path I just had to try one.

Hello everyone,

I find your works, experiments amazing! :D

I would like to show you a kite which is not an NPW, but it is similar by some means. It's ridiculously simple, cheap, slow and powerful kite.

It is called Stratta Bache (or Starta Bache). It is was designed to introduce people to power kites in an affordable and simple way.
As far as I know its designer is Michel Trouillet. It is usually made of a 2x3 m blue tarp with a slit. It has only 8 bridles with even length.
plan: http://cerf-volant.ffvl.fr/node/112

I tried to convert it to a four-liner with no luck. But I modified it a little by removing the flapping corners, so most of my Strattas (or flying sails) are eitght sided.
I have a few with a size of 0,3 to 13 m^2. Bigger ones can be dangerous, since they are moving really slow, so they spend long time in the power zone.

I hope some of you find this kite interesting and start to experiment
There are a few more vids on my channel, if you are interested:





Sorry for my English :P

Best Regards,
Gabriel


ps.: I think quad-line equivalent of this kite is the "Moco". It is an other interesting, yet simple kite.

Randy and I met up this weekend and I had a chance to fly a couple of his single keel 1.5 meter kites. Winds were 20s - 30s. Had a blast, we were able to get moving using his kites. My 2.5 star was too big for the conditions. His single keel is like a wasp on crack but still very stable. It was really fun to fly.

Good job Randy, The weather was not to bad here today. I got your HQ2.5 and flew it today. The wind was about 8 to 10 MPH. I know not a think about flying a foil. This is really my first time, I did fly a foil from China and one small two line foil for a total of about 2 min. This time I flew for about 45 min. Now reminber i don't know a thing when it comes to foil. Next to my ss kite this thing was a dog. Not that it is bad, I enjoy myself very much and learned a lot. It just does not fly like NPW do. And remember there was not a lot of wind. Yes, Randy I do like it a lot. I will have a lot of fun with it. Thanks for letting me have it. Yes, again I had one of my friends come out and take some photo. I am old, all my friend are old. They hate to get out in the cold. So no photo of my winter fun. But today was in the low 40st and I got Jon to do some flim work for me.


http://youtu.be/HXiuyS9WuRs
http://youtu.be/HnCw7Q9EXeU
http://youtu.be/wK4BEfd1be0
http://youtu.be/ZchcwwSGpbE
http://youtu.be/R1U-lFkC3Uc
http://youtu.be/_u_uQtG3r8U


They are very short clips. I hope you enjoy then as much I did flying today.

renny

Randy from what you say, about not having flown a foil before, did you change the way you held the handles? A foil you need to hold the handle with the power line between your top two fingers, the vids look like the brake lines had tension on all the time which is what made me think you may be trying to fly it like an NPW. It may seem like a subtle difference but makes a big difference to the flying. Nice looking place to fly and was that sunshine? Sorry if you know the difference with the handles it's just sometimes what may seem obvious to some may be missed by others.

No I did not know about the power line being held that way. I will try it the next time I am out. I was flying it like I do my NPW.
Thanks
renny

Edit: Yes sunrise.

:D I did think twice about the post in case it sounded like I was trying to teach my Granny how to suck eggs, but I guessed from your remarks that you didn't know that little nugget. Just give the brakes a bit of slack, you still use them for tighter turns but a foil does n't need that constant brake input, enjoy and let us know if it makes a difference.

Thank you, one other thing, the brake lines had a line with 6 knots, so never have used this kite be for I hook up on knot# 3. If the wind is up tomorrow I will fly it again and use the knot #1. That will take a lot of the brakes. You are right, I have the brakes on all the time like I do with the NPW. You have been a great help, as all ways . Hopefully their will be more wind tomorrow. Then when I get home i have to take all the kite stuff out of the truck and then reload it with my treasure hunting stuff. I need a kite truck and a treasure hunting truck.
renny

EDIT:
Never hold back, if you think I am doing something dumb. I have very thick skin. In 70 years of life I have learned that you do what people tell you to do that know what they are talking
about. If you don't like go back to what you was doing.
So speak up any time you want.

The knots on the brake line leaders at the kite end are for adjustment, normally it would be on the middle knot, when you're holding the handles there should be a bit of slack on the brake lines, if there is n't then move the brake line further away from the kite on the knots. What a lot of people do (me included) is have a couple of knots on the handle lines, this allows you to make adjustments at the handles rather than walking back to the kite.
Hence the Z-bridle for NPWs it means you can fly an NPW holding the handles like a foil as the bridle is keeping that constant pressure on.
Found a picture showing the Z-bridle and the brake line running slack to the handles

Hey Gabriel - welcome to PKF and thanks for posting your videos. i was thinking of making the strata bache, or Moko kite - maybe both. Moko looks like a lot of fun to fly and easy to make.

Sean and I had a ton of wind in Indy Sunday afternoon. We flew 1.0 meter Single Keel NPW's on 25 foot lines towing landboards/longboards to give you an idea just how much wind there was. I just got back from Indy and will post some video soon.

Renny - glad you like the Alpha - it seems like a pretty nice flyer.

Randy, yes I flew it today and did what Big E123 told me to do and had more wind. It flew great, I think the wind was the problem the other day. It pulled me on the board on the beach today. Very good wind but coal, in the 30st.

Here's Sean and me last Sunday

You guys that have coastal winds I am REALLY envious, had a a quick flight with my 5m and scudding was just sooooo easy:

Here's a quick look at one handed flying my SK NPW Ram Air kite at the Outer Banks. The other hand was used to take the video with my phone. I can do this at home with SS-P-A-M-L-I-N-K-s, though i haven't tried to see for how long yet. One this particular day, i think i could have done it as long as I wanted. Coastal winds to make everything easier.

I also measured the wind windows of several of my NPW kites using the compass on my phone. All were kites i made, all but one out of ripstop. I measured the window by finding the edge in both directions - marking a line in the sand pointing in that direction, and then overflying the line a few more times to make sure it was accurate. Once I was satisfied, I measured the direction with my phone. It was not the NASA wind tunnel, but the best I can come up with.

Here are the results: Single Keel (1m) 120 degrees - dual line all the rest on quads; Single Keel Ram Air (1m) 127; NPW 9 (1.2m) 140; NPW 21 (1.25m) 136; NPW 5p (1m) 145; NPW 5p Wide (1.45 m, uses tarp and no darts in the nose, tension line instead) 137. Snapshot Prism 1.2 - 149 (Sorry NPW fans.)

The NPW 21 deserves an asterisk - it was not on the same day, and lighter winds. However, I try to measure wind windows just about every time I fly and have not found much difference between the 21 and 9. I may not be using the optimal bridles for the 21, however.

Also, the iphone compass is not all that accurate, but i think i can say this much for sure - there is not a significant difference in wind window between the 5p, 21, 9 or 5p wide. Also - the construction material, whether plastic tarp and nose darts or tension line seems to have little performance impact. Of course, the appearance, weight and durability of the kite is certainly impacted by the choice of materials. Kites of this design seem to have a wind window of about 140 degrees.

The SK models do have a smaller wind window - probably about 120 degrees, which may or may not be important depending on the application. The Ram Air is probably a little better, though its often hard to realize that benefit, since the tube tends to be prone to collapse if winds are not steady.

It looks so small I thought you were flying a leaf Just kidding!
Must be a stable kite to fly one hand...

Did you make the handles?

Nice work on the window sizes Randy, it takes time and effort to check kites against each other well done.

Quote: Originally posted by 1oldkid

It looks so small I thought you were flying a leaf Just kidding! Must be a stable kite to fly one hand... Did you make the handles?

It is only 1 meter. Here is a picture. I made the handles as well.

Quote: Originally posted by bigE123

Nice work on the window sizes Randy, it takes time and effort to check kites against each other well done.

Thanks. I was waiting for the tide to go out so I could try my landboard on the beach and it seemed like a good way to spend the morning. As it turns out, as predicted by others the sand was just not packed enough to get going though perhaps with bigger tires or a bigger kite it might have worked. I did manage to get in some runs on the water with one of my NPW's pulling my windsurfing longboard and about 70 miles of windsurfing in, along with a lot of static flying.

My latest 2 NPWs - sticking with the Single Keel models. The orange kite started out much different. I was to have a pointed nose and a batten to prop it up, but I simply could not make it fly - even at the beach. Eventually it became the "Butterfly-NPW". I think it is the more promising.

The blue kite has a narrower plan form and shorter bridles - I was looking for stability. Very sensitive to brake tension, but I think I finally got it down. I used a 3 line bar with the power line in the center, brakes on the side. Sort of the opposite of most 3 line bars, but it worked well, and adds an extra dimension of control. I also managed to do some reverse launches with this setup.

I think the butterfly may be the more promising, but might try to blue kite as a single line.

Good job, Randy, with both the kites and the video.

Good stuff!
How long did it take you to make them?

Quote: Originally posted by 1oldkid

Good stuff! How long did it take you to make them?

Thanks. I've made several kites like the blue one and have that pretty much down, so it probably only took about 10 hours (maybe less - 2 or 3 days start to finish.)

The orange kite went through 3 different iterations and the fabric was really hard to work with so it took a while. That plus some mistakes along the way added to a the time - probably 20-30 hours spread out over 3 weeks, including time spent testing earlier versions.

It is now a much different kite than it started out - was originally built with a pointed nose and a batten to stiffen it. While seemingly a great idea - it refused to fly. For a while I started to think it was just cursed since nothing seemed to work very well. The final version is much simpler and I think it flies well, and could perhaps fly very well if I could solve the wing oscillation problem (Ian are you there?). If I were to build one from scratch I think it would be a very quick build since there are very few bridles, only a few seems necessary, esp. if better material is used. I probably will work on a subsequent version.

The original version (note the blue point at the top - correcting another screwup.)

Nice work Randy! As for the wing oscillations it's a real tricky one, I think as it's a single keel with two wing tip brake lines to steer, it's creating an imbalance so one side is stalling and the other (because you're on a bar) is loosing the brake tension on the wing tip. I've only just watch the video and it's obviously difficult to get a "feel" of the kite. What I would consider is a Z-bridle type set-up :D it's our NPW friend :D
How about this: take a line say @60cm long, fold in half and tie a double stopper knot at the end folded, now tie one loose end to the power line connection and the brake bridle to the middle, connect your brake line now to the other end (put a stopper knot on it). It'll take a bit of tuning to get it set-up but will mean when you turn, one side will stall slightly and the other side will have the brake held instead of going slack. Just an initial thought ;-)

My latest NPW. Its a 2.5 M 5-P (same design as the 5, but with an extra set of bridles in each wing. Improves the 5 a lot.) Wind was pretty weak, but this was the only chance to test fly it before JIBE.

Lookin pretty good Randy!
I like the colors...is there any flutter in the trailing edge?

You're on a mission Randy! The 5P is a very good kite, don't recall any flutter on that model.

Thanks. I built the 5-P and variations on it 3 times before - w.o. any problem with flutter. It may have been in this one when I doing the video I was struggling with very light wind and was working the kite a lot to keep it flying. The fabric I got is very light - and sort of crispy stiff - made a lot of noise when would turn pull sharply on the kite. I think this will be my summer light wind flyer. I hope to shoot some better vids next week.

BTW - any NPW-5 can be retrofit as the 5-P. All that needs to be done is putting in six more bridles (A12-A7) on a line starting from the second bridle (b2) from the top and adding a dart. Nothing is need be done to the other bridles. Widens the window a lot - competitive with the 9 and 21s. Address for the plans is on the video.

I did the same mod to the 21 with an extra bridle set, it gave the wings a better profile / shape but performance wise I didn't see / feel a difference so I have since removed them thinking less drag with lines and a slightly easier build was better :D

A light wind / short lines it's done really well to fly! A testament to the build, a 2.5m is not so much of a "light" wind size so well done.

Ian,

Yes should have clarified i was thinking of flying static in regards to light wind. i think it will be a better light wind flyer than my most of my other kite since it is lighter relative to size. Flying static gets hard pretty quickly - so I've generally not flown my bigger kites static very much. For pulling a buggy or board, of course, its not a light wind size. (We really don't have enough reliable wind around here in the summer months for many opportunities for pulling something.)

My latest kite is not exactly an NPW, but it is really fun. I made it the day before I left for Jekyll, from start to finish. Gabriel (RdSD who posted earlier in this thread) send me his plans. This is a very small stunt kite, which I got to fly a lot at Jekyll when the tide was high. Its a soft, single skin stunt kite. I took twice as long as needed to make it because I wanted to use two pieces of left over fabric.