Thanks John, the problem with this one is the wind! Until it was sorted I could only test fly it in light winds, the wind gods knew that and cranked the wind up for weeks!!

My word that thing is pretty bigE123!

I just finished up a 12 meter npw9. Here is a picture.

Susan (npw goddess)


12 meter npw9 yandg by kitemaker42002, on Flickr

Gonna look sweet in flight against a snowy white background!!!Thanks again for your mad skills!

Not being funny, but unless we home builders step up to the mark, we're gonna get trounced by the new breed of single skin kites coming through!
Things have to change, otherwise the same old just won't cut the mustard, and I think I may have an answer to keeping up with the game, early days yet but I had my first flight with a re-bridled NPW21 on a completely different profile and it looks promising. Look out the cottage industry is fighting back :D

Susan/Big, create a business!!! You are soo good at this, why not? Specializing in NPWs and single skin? I'd be a client!

I do this as a hobby. There is not much call for old school kites like nasa wings. I still have fun when I make up a kite. It is very rewarding when you go and fly the kite for the first time knowing that you made it from scratch. I think if it were a business I would loose the "fun" factor in making them.

Susan (npw goddess)

Ditto on that, it's one thing making as a hobby but to compete with the big boys and be competitive when it's your living is another matter. That said I did a little back to back test between my modified NPW21 and a "skin" and there is not much between them :-)

Little bit of vid of my 5m NPW21 with it's new bridle profile, wind was @ 6mph

Near zero winds and below zero temperatures (Fahrenheit) makes a young man's mind turn to ...art?
Anyways my otherwise productive evening of sitting indoors and playing Super Mario was interrupted as I realized the perfect graphic for my 2.6m NPW21.

I'm not much of an artist but I can art if I have to and this was a case where I had to Drew him freehand with a printed pic for guidance.

A couple of hours with the pencils and the Sharpies and this famous ghost is ready to take flight! Can't wait for a good high wind day to take him riding.


He has a lot in common with the sport of kiting, tends to sneak up on you from behind when your back is turned.

An NPW with attitude, nice! :D
That Tyvek still intrigues me, do you know what weight you used as I came across an ad for "Tyvek 1443R Kitemaking Material" it's only 40g/m. (It was on that well known book store that now sells everything.)

PS and I've just found a UK supplier 20m x 150cm for £32!!!

BigE, my Tyvek is the standard housewrap which weighs in around 65g/square meter. 40g/sqm is the nice stuff the coveralls are made from and is much softer like fabric. Probably doesn't have the branding on the rear, either, and that sounds like a fair price for it.

Unfortunately the only means I found of decorating a soft Tyvek kite is Sharpie markers. Anything else flakes off when it flexes.

An NPW21 6m, first flight and ready for the summer :D

And a little something for someone else this time!

NPW 21 6m and the theme is?

Is there any reason one can't make an NPW from one single sheet of fabric instead of having several panels sewn together. Can't all the bridal attachment points be reinforced with webbing? It seems this would save a lot of time when trying out new ideas. Of course it would make more fabric waste.
Ben

It would have to be smaller kites.

Susan (npw goddess)

The number of panels is determined by the fabric width, the only reason the wing panels are done in two pieces on an NPW is to save on material waste.

I use webbing in my bridle seams for stability and saves me having to sew in tags, I have had no issues using this method.

So where do you go from an NPW? The internet is both a wonderful thing and a daemon! Why because I came across plans for a single skin kite and well something in my head said BUILD IT! So that I did and here is my new 10m2 low wind kite. There are 21 panels and in the time it took me build this I could have built at least 8 NPWs! Early days yet as I've only had a couple of static sessions with it but whilst it may be very different from an NPW in some respects, in others it is not. I've now started tuning it more as a power kite and it is very stable generates bags of power and although I did not want a big "lifty" kite, I went for a lower AoA, that said it does lift and is super smooth when it does.
From building this I've gone back to my NPW quiver and added some of the lessons learnt, which means my NPW quiver has now virtually no nose collapse at all .... happy days :D



Flight in a max wind of 3mph!:

Very very nice single skin!

How many hours to make?

Racing shape design....?

Keep us updated on performance once you try with buggy or board.


New skin in the game- of single skins.....move over Peter Lynn SKIN!

Very cool!

Cheers guys for the comments

Quote:

How many hours to make?

Too many! First off is making the pattern up, then all the cutting: 21 panels with 22 keels. The sewing skills needed is a step up from an NPW as there are three pieces per seam and need working to get the shape, the bridle side is pretty straight forward. That all said I would hazard a guess at @200 hrs which may reduce on an other build but it is very labour intensive.

Quote:

Racing shape design....?

I wanted a higher aspect kite hence the shape

Quote:

Keep us updated on performance once you try with buggy or board.

Will do, low wind buggy engine was my aim, at the moment I want to get some static flying under my belt to get it fully tuned in different conditions and get really comfortable with it, I sent it straight up the other day in 6mph wind and I went with it, only a foot or so off the ground, the power just keeps coming and is so smooth.

Nice!! Keep us posted on how it goes :D

really looks great nice work..it looks powerful as heck

First flight in 12mph wind had to really skirt around the edges of the window:

Here we go, managed a quick 1/2 hr test flight with the Z-bridle fitted:
One Z-bridle


How it looks when the handles are staked down:


And finally in-flight:


It's now so close, flying can now be done as per a foil, power line between top two fingers.

The window and power is really impressive, I'm hooked this is the future. I've been told no more building for at least 6 months! But I may swing a stealth 6m build in soon :D

Another couple of sessions to do a final tune then in to the buggy :D

BTW..

Where did you get plans for this build?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/singleskin/files/

I used the SingleSkin_0.3_Setup.exe

There are a lot of parameters you can change to create the kite you want, if you are interested I can send you the parameter set I used.

BigE are you accepting orders? :D

I'm guessing that would be a labor intensive expensive build.

:D Oh lordy, nice try:D, until I get another build under my belt and get the time down I could not compete with the price of even the Peak.

PS My wife has just got her kitchen table back, it's been my work place for a good few weeks ;-)

Good evening from Czech Republic,
I just joined the forum because I am planning to make my first NPW I own 4m C LEI and 9,5m open cell depower kites. It seems for 5-6m NPW21 maybe wider. I would like to ask for some help with the bridles. I want to control the AoA, so depower. I am thinking about putting keels there to reduce the amount of the attachment points, bridels and pulleys. Do you think there would be possibility of reducing the pulleys completly? Another thing is about the bridle material, thinking about putting unsleeved fishing 100lb dyneema, should I go for 8 strands braided or 4 is ok? Planning to make handels or just put on a bar from my current kites (try).
Thank you in advance for your reactions