Um.... 10m is BIG!!!

Wowsers.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Um.... 10m is BIG!!! Wowsers.

You betcha. Just wait until you get it up in the air and some good gusts come along doubling your base wind. Your memory will quickly be refreshed that you've got 10 square meters of Fixed-Bridle love up in the air. That little yellow ball is harder to pull than it is on your junior-sized stars, but you'll manage, because the alternative is worse.

I like my larger NS3s, but you will find that there is a lot more bridle line and ripstop to deal with when packing it up. Have fun!

Ok gang so here is the 10m laid out... its BIG. And I must say, I REALLY like the color scheme on this one... may be fighting for my favorite between it and the 7m.



And since I really loved how Sean stacked his NS2's for a pic, I did the same just to see... so here we have the 4m, 5.5m, 7m, and 10m:



just FYI I had to stand about 2/3 way up a 6' ladder to take the pic.

Sub 10mph wind tomorrow so I may give the 10m a try on lunch.

the 10 is a beauty. my personal favorite looking one out of the ns3 line up. i like the orange on the bottom instead of white

Sweet! Good luck tomorrow in the sub10s. One of these days I'm going to lay my quiver out on my backyard and shoot it from the deck above. Panorama? Doh!

Quote: Originally posted by ssayre

the 10 is a beauty. my personal favorite looking one out of the ns3 line up. i like the orange on the bottom instead of white

Agreed!... the orange on the bottom is really nice!

Steve, I tried a Pano with my iPhone and it looked a little weird,... the way that Pano shots have a tendency to distort things, it made it look kinda like they were all the same size.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

I tried a Pano with my iPhone and it looked a little weird,... the way that Pano shots have a tendency to distort things, it made it look kinda like they were all the same size.

Good to know! I'll lease a helicopter then for the shot.

"What the hell are you doing on the roof?" "Honey, it's important!" :moon:

Looks good Spencer!

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck

Good to know! I'll lease a helicopter then for the shot. "What the hell are you doing on the roof?" "Honey, it's important!" :moon:

Not sure if I'll go out today... possible rain and gusty-ish winds. May not be 10m worthy. Blasted new kite curse... we shall see.

HOLY KATZ!!! It looks like everything may be falling into place for me to get a buggy session in n Thursday!!!

-Kids sleeping over at in-laws house (check)
-Free time available after work (check)
-Wind forecasted over 10mph (check)
-Permission to launch from ground control (check)

Awesome sauce... deffo doesn't look like a 10m kind of day, but will prob be having a good time on the 5.5m and 7m. Rain forecasted in the morning so it might be wet, but it will hopefully dry up by lunch.

:wee:

Good luck Spencer. Looks like we are heading for a solid week of wind starting Wednesday on.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Awesome sauce...

We're pulling for ya Big Daddy! I'm sure you will have a fantastic time. Full report expected promptly thereafter. :karate:

Great session yesterday. Spent most of the time under the 7m, but as the day came to an end and the wind started dropping off, I was able to buggy a little with the 10m, and I really felt just fine with the stock Born-kite bar. Maybe it was the windspeed, but I really felt like it turned just fine for me.

Caught a majority of it with the GoPro, so I hope to have a new vid in the next week or so.

Sweet! Cant wait to see.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Great session yesterday. Spent most of the time under the 7m, but as the day came to an end and the wind started dropping off, I was able to buggy a little with the 10m, and I really felt just fine with the stock Born-kite bar. Maybe it was the windspeed, but I really felt like it turned just fine for me. Caught a majority of it with the GoPro, so I hope to have a new vid in the next week or so.

Stoked for ya buddy! Glad you got the spiderwebs off your ride and got some! Also happy that you were cool with the standard bar set up. My adjustable width bar most certainly sits in the "nice to have" not need to have category.

Footage please! :karate:

Quote: Originally posted by waybeyond

Cheers Windstruck! I split up the bridle lines, but they can easily be put back to a 3 or 2 line setup. I have just tied up the middle line. For me you get much more control out of using them as 4 line kites. Its really cool that they are customisable like this.

Holy schnikies. I now have a whole new thing to think about with the STARS. I've got a 5m set of quad lines that I use on occasion to stretch out the low end of the wind range with my 12m Peak2 and some old quad handles kicking around. I'm seeing some new experimentation coming on! I do miss flying off of handles sometimes.

Bottom 3 bridles for the back lines? I'd just larks head the center line to the yellow transport loop.

Hot damn! :saint:

Following the superb lead of the esteemed Mr. Holgate, this morning I mocked up a five line bar for my LongStar quiver. I cannibalized parts shamelessly from the stock 5-line bar Steffen intends us to use with the LongStars. The bar in the picture below is the LongStar bar, as are the lines. The white center line, little black stopper (with the red cord), and chicken loop are from the 3.2m NS3 I won on the XK raffle (whupp!). The white brake lines and brake strap come from the LongStar bar set up as do the five colored nylon sleeves (I do like those!) and line clip. The donkey stick is of my own design. The green outer lines are paracord that I had kicking around the house and should do the trick. John - I set up the center line the same way as you had it in your LongStar 2 video with a carabiner; I just wrapped the line around the bar to keep things neat for the picture.

As noted previously by John the advantage of this bar over the stock 5-line bar is that all of the load is taken up on the chicken loop. The stock bar splits the load 50/50 between the bar and the chicken loop in a set up that I have tried to like but in the end just couldn't.

The LongStars have a Z-bridle with an innovative 5th center line that scrunches up the middle of the kite to make the kite less efficient and thus sort of a DP system. This center line is further useful to abort stalls and backward flying that the LongStars seem to be somewhat disproportionately prone to do (at least in my mitts).

I am most excited to try this new bar out! I really never cared to fly the LongStars again using the stock bar but they are darn nice kites with a lot of pull. Plus, I just think they look really cool, and well, I own three of them so I wanted to work out a solution so I could actually enjoy them.

Thanks John for the inspiration to make this happen!



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Cool beans Steve, let us know how it goes.

I've been super busy with school and well, life... one day I'll cull through that Video material and give you guys a show from my last sesh.

Thanks Big Daddy! Hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We look forward to seeing your next video; you put some fine film together.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Cool beans Steve, let us know how it goes. I've been super busy with school and well, life... one day I'll cull through that Video material and give you guys a show from my last sesh.

Thanks, I may try to mess around with it next week,... School's tapering off after this week and I foresee a little more spare time. We shall see.

Got a quick session in with my 3m LS and the new 5-line modified bar.  Pluses and minuses.  Minus on the ground setting it up versus the 3 line NS3 bar, lines, and kite set up.  Two more lines means more to fiddle with.  Had to walk the lines a few times to get everything straightened out despite extreme care in setting up the bar and lines in the house.  Points on the ground go to the NS3.  I'm going to ditch the little clip; more pain than its worth IMO.

Once in the air the LS flew "brilliantly" as JH likes to say!  Really, really, really liked this bar/line/kite set up.  Good point John about making the knots on the brake pigtails 4 inches longer than the power lines; I did that in the house and it was just perfect in the air.  Took a couple of launches and landings to get the 5th line length just right (right again John, just short of tension on the 5th line is where it's at).  Loved, loved, loved having a brake line cross strap for landing a Born kite.  High winds (20+ mph) with the kite at Zenith, pull on the brake strap and the LS dives backward out of the sky right to the ground like its been shot.  Wow.  Initiate one of those screaming backwards dives on purpose with the cross strap followed by a slight tug on the center 5th line and zoom, right back up to Zenith.  Points in the air go to the LS!

Landing and keeping the kite secured to the ground in the center of the wind window is easy with the brake strap.  Point again to the LS.  Packing up:  Point to the NS3 (hard to beat the simplicity).

I really look forward to trying the LSs in the buggy or on skis.  Their stock has seriously risen with this new bar!

Good to hear the LS's weren't a complete bust after all... good read, Steve. Thanks!

Forgot to mention earlier, thats a cool looking coffee table by the way

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

Forgot to mention earlier, thats a cool looking coffee table by the way

Thanks Spencer! Actually, that's our dining room table. I'll keep it interesting and take future pics on different furniture. I'll be sure to throw in a coffee table for ya!

I'm debating setting up all of my stars on bars with lines attached. All 5m lines. I'm thinking I will set them all up with 2 lines only since I don't use a kite killer or third line for any reason. However, If I'm in close quarters and high wind, I might need to wear a kite killer. I'm thinking of having one side of the bar set up to slide along one of the outside lines to flag out and connect to killer to kill power opposed to third line. I know it will work but I'm curious if sudden shock to one side of the bridle will damage the kite??

Thoughts?

I'd think you'd be fine Sean. Typically you'd just let go of the kite, or mother nature would snatch it out of your hands anyway.at that point the kite would be in a luft state as you know. A simple bungie killer would then pull on the one side of the kite while its lufted. IMHO

I'm with Jason. If the bungee kite killer is a couple of feet up the one line then once it comes under tension the force will already have come off the lines (because the bar is out of your hands at that point). There would be so much difference in length from left to right at that point that I'd think the kite would just flag out off of the bungee.

This would be super easy to test: next time you are flying a STAR on a short line bar set up just reach up with one hand, grab a line, and let go of the bar.

If it were me doing this I'd just put an extra knot an inch below the knots on both of the bar's long pigtails and put the bungee kite killer between the two knots (assuming here you have the line on the final knot). Easy peasy nice and easy.

Do you have a good source for a bunch of bars and 5-m line sets?

I'm going to try Snowkiting at some point off of 5m lines this winter. If that goes well then it might be a way to go with my skates come Spring. I'm with you; short line set ups would be sweet for snagging quick sessions. You on your board; me on my skates.

Quote: Originally posted by 3shot

I'd think you'd be fine Sean. Typically you'd just let go of the kite, or mother nature would snatch it out of your hands anyway.at that point the kite would be in a luft state as you know. A simple bungie killer would then pull on the one side of the kite while its lufted. IMHO

"Do you have a good source for a bunch of bars and 5-m line sets?"

I guess you could say that. :P Broom handles / paracord / various lines accumulated over time.

Perfect! I bought a bunch of paracord super cheap from Home Depot a while back and some Dyneema from a marine supply store. I like the Dyneema line better but you can't melt the ends like you can paracord. What the guy at the Marine store taught me was to wrap tape tightly around the line right where you want to cut it and then cut the line in the middle of the tape. I did that with my adjustable pigtails for my adjustable STAR bar and its done fine for the 3-4 months I've had it. Long term testing continues....

Quote: Originally posted by ssayre

"Do you have a good source for a bunch of bars and 5-m line sets?" I guess you could say that. :P Broom handles / paracord / various lines accumulated over time.

Steve's EBay NASA bar seems to be doing great. Wasn't a bad price tag either. May even get a discount on 5 bars. I like the adjustable bar width too. Of course there is always the basic HQ bar. Two line trainer bar is about $23 each. Of course your gangsta style seems to bend those in the middle. Lol. Could always put a dowel rod through them?