Hey, I'm patented!

That's just what I'm doin'.

Improving safety, controlling (influencing) kite behavior, meaningfully changing Kite behavior,
I was worried Steffan might own me, turns out I'm okay, Germans aren't allowed to patent humans, their parts, or performance.
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Usually the knock off is the cheaper almost as good copy of the original. (See China), in this case though the Dutch control system moves and reefs the sail along its centerline perpendicular to the leading edge. The German system is a fixed and well placed bridle that puckers the kite slightly behind the leading edge. Are they different? What is the difference between a bridle and control system?
When you turn a kite the left and right side the associated bridling becomes the control for the kite on one side temporarily. Does that make my bridles control systems?
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Well time to go get ready for some control systeming
No wind, time to dance with the fat ladies today.

Looking through the older vids. Came across Born's loveliest control system.
Second or third time I watched I noticed it was about a kite.
Brilliant. I know the LS1 was just a step toward perfect, but somehow I want one?

https://youtu.be/xh8LS0QcHKk

I would love to see how the DFO system works. They don't seem to do youtube videos like Stefan so it is all a bit of a mystery.

]

6 rings drawn by 3 loops = a reef.

Works fine on handles with and without the Z bridle but no center line. And the other way I've tried it that was really good - use Z bridles and run power lines and brake lines to the ends of the bar (yep, both of 'em with trapeze in usual spot) Hook a safety leash to the brake strap between the two brake lines.
my blog:طراحی سایت

Here's my rig

Steffen just let me know that Born-Kite is coming out with V-4 of his venerable NASA kites, the NS4. The NS4s will feature better BODAPRE bridle lines. These bridle lines are the same material he introduced with the RaceStars. I really like this new bridle material and find it a vast improvement over his legacy bridle line material. More expensive per meter, and worth every Euro IMHO.

According to Steffen, the NS4s will have a new profile, less bridling, new bridle material as mentioned above, and a new color scheme as you can see below. I haven't seen it, but he told me that the new NS4 bar will have a "depower bungee" allowing the NS4s to be flown with a harness or by hand. I suspect he is working in some design features as a type of cross over from his StreetStars. The NS4s are said to work on 20m lines (standard configuration), on shorter lines, or directly from the bar, so they should work well for all of our various styles of kiting.

The NS3s were my original SSs and sort of a "first love" for me. Nowadays I mostly use DP SS in the buggy and reserve my NS3 flying for nice static sessions when my family takes beach vacations. My plan out of the gate is to get hold of a 2.5m NS4 when available but hold onto my custom 1.5m NS3 and my custom 3.2m NS3 that I won in a lottery on XK (doh!).

You will need to come to IBX2019 for a chance to own my 2.5 or 4.0m NS3s; I plan to donate them into an enhanced raffle my good friend iPaul (JeepersJoey) is spearheading. :saint:

I know I gush on and on about Born-Kites and likely seem like some sort of pimp for them. In fact, I have honestly greatly enjoyed getting to know Steffen over recent years via email and greatly admire his spirit of innovation and willingness to forge a place in the market with so many "big boys" taking most of the spotlight. I root for the underdog consistently in sports too. The world has too few Steffens IMO, and I appreciate his spirit and support it. The fact that he makes darn good products that fit my needs makes it all come together. Nuff said. :karate:


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So he is going back to more of a NPW9 profile from the NPW21 [?] profile he has been using for the Longstar and Racestar? Did he say why or is it just a method to bring the StreetStar "back into the fold?"

I'm glad Born is still working on the NASA Star line. I think the NPW still has its place in the traction kite world. Less bridling is good think for NPW's for sure. Be interested in seeing video's showing his new DP system. If someone could put an effective depower on the NPW it would be a big improvement.

Quote: Originally posted by Randy

I'm glad Born is still working on the NASA Star line. I think the NPW still has its place in the traction kite world. Less bridling is good think for NPW's for sure. Be interested in seeing video's showing his new DP system. If someone could put an effective depower on the NPW it would be a big improvement.

I certainly agree that it would be interesting to see successful DP bridling for an NPW. Please note, however, that these NS4s continue to be FB, essentially two line kites with a tertiary nose line for safety and "scrunching". No DP here. I'm really completely unclear by what he means by a "depower bungee". We'll have to wait and see!

I'm planning on getting just a 2.5m NS4 and intend to fly it on my original B-K NS3 setup bar.

Depower bungee does sound mysterious. Peter Lynn used shock cords in the secondary bridles on the Peel kites to handle gusts many years ago. It does seems like a bungee on the kill line might prevent an OBE by absorbing some of the energy. I await a Stefan video showing it in action.

I wanted to put my ns2's on a bungee a long time ago but never got around to it. not really for true depower though. I agree. The nasa will always or should always have a solid place in traction kiting. They are great kites!! One of my biggest regrets was selling my ns2's. too busy to justify buying new. Should have just kept them.

Very cool,.... very very cool... I miss mine too Sean.

THIS JUST IN

NS4s available by end of the month!!!! I'm going to get my hands on a 2.5m NS4 and put my 2.5m NS3 (and 4.0m NS3) into the IBX 2019 Thursday night raffle. Be there for a chance to own a piece of history!

Oh, and was it mentioned that the 4's will have less bridling than the 3's? Steffen is using the new (and greatly improved) BODAPRE bridle line on these beauties introduced with the RaceStars.

When the wind is right these NASAs are incredibly pleasurable buggy engines.

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It seems to me that the bridle line material being used is a bit different issue from the number of bridles used. I suppose if the bridles stretched less then having more load on fewer bridles would be a problem. However, the number of bridles is a trade-off between the drag from the "dips" in the canopy, vs. the drag of bridle lines and the better profile shapes. With NPW's it seems that adding more bridles to the preceding version has usually been a pathway to better performance. The first NPW single keels had about 20 bridles. The NPW 5and 9's had 36* bridles to produce a twin keel and performed better. The NPW 5-P and 9b mods had 48* and flew even better. The NS2 has about 60* bridles. This is the first time, someone has gone the other direction.

I've wondered how many bridles and NPW really needs. I even built a 2 M NPW 5 with about half the usual number of bridles to see how it did. Didn't perform nearly as well until I added the missing bridles back.

Anyway, kudos to Born for continued innovation.


* Here I mean the number of bridles attachment points, which ignores cascade bridles which increase the number bridles even more and arguably produce better results as well.

Quote: Originally posted by Randy

It seems to me that the bridle line material being used is a bit different issue from the number of bridles used. I suppose if the bridles stretched less then having more load on fewer bridles would be a problem. However, the number of bridles is a trade-off between the drag from the "dips" in the canopy, vs. the drag of bridle lines and the better profile shapes. With NPW's it seems that adding more bridles to the preceding version has usually been a pathway to better performance. The first NPW single keels had about 20 bridles. The NPW 5and 9's had 36* bridles to produce a twin keel and performed better. The NPW 5-P and 9b mods had 48* and flew even better. The NS2 has about 60* bridles. This is the first time, someone has gone the other direction. I've wondered how many bridles and NPW really needs. I even built a 2 M NPW 5 with about half the usual number of bridles to see how it did. Didn't perform nearly as well until I added the missing bridles back. Anyway, kudos to Born for continued innovation. * Here I mean the number of bridles attachment points, which ignores cascade bridles which increase the number bridles even more and arguably produce better results as well.

Randy, you bring up superb and well thought out points, and of course speak from a position of actual experience building kites of this general nature and test flying them in various stages of completeness. Your comment about "dips" in the fabric makes a lot of sense and seems a possible direct trade-off to having less bridling.

While I don't know this exactly, it seems to me that perhaps Steffen's urge to lessen the number of bridles is a way of creating less bridles to tangle. An abundance of bridling with SS kites does seem to lead to more frustration at times. What I can tell you because I have Steffen's new BODAPRE bridle line on my RaceStars is that this new material is somewhat stiffer and more slippery than the predecessor line material. This was a BIG improvement IMO in the RaceStars, and Steffen has told me that each new iteration of existing kite lines (NS4s, LS3s, etc.) will newly incorporate this improved bridle material. I've had some nasty rats nests with my old LS2s and old NS3s and would welcome the new material in such kites. If flight dynamics aren't overly compromised then I guess I'd take less bridles if I could. Time will tell.

I'm holding onto my 1.5 and 3.2m custom NS3s and will snuggle a new 2.5m NS4 between these two. Once the wind is light enough that I want more traction than the 3.2m NS3 can provide I'll pull out my trusty 5.0m RS. Winner winner chicken dinner!

Steve, good point on tangling. The choice of material can make a huge difference. I got some kevlar line once and used it to make some brake line bridles. It tangled virtually every time I used it and always managed to get wrapped up in the power lines. I'll never use kevlar again. I have been working on putting depower capability into my g-kites and one of the frustrations is that putting those pulleys and extra lines in does create more opportunity for entanglements.

I guess the extra bridles on the NS2 and 3's were needed tor the "half-pipes." Maybe he figured out he didn't need as many as he was using. Or maybe he is doing it with more cascading. Cascade bridles do tangle less and save on the total amount of line. Be interesting to see how he does it.

I've now ended up with the NS2 7.0 and 5.5 that went from Srefan to Sean (I think) to Oldben to Spencer before ending up here. Not sure I will keep the 5.5 because it covers the same range as my 5.0 NPW 21, but I don't like the way the 21's fly on a bar so I may stick with the 5.5.

Hey guys, The 5.5 is the only picture we have so far of the bridling arrangement.
It so happens I have a 5.5 on the floor in front of me. "help me Steve this guys flying the snot out of me" kite.:P

It appears the reduced bridle claim might not be so much about attachment points, as overall amount of material used. What's new is the three (corrected to 4) legged bridles. The NS3 has two legged bridles along the center, and they both use single lines along the edge.

The NS3 in 5.5 size has 12 two legged bridles on either side for the 24 attachments, per side.
The kite has 8 single bridle attachments on either side. So 30 attachment points are sharing 20 bridle lines at the pigtail.
Oh and the center safety adds one more three legged bridle/ or depower line not counted above.

Now that we have that perfectly clear, you who have good monitors to look at can count the bridling on Steve's pic above. :cool2:

I was thinking maybe the 12 two legged bridles could be changed to 6- 4 legged bridles. The 8 single line bridles could also be cascaded to use less line, however it doesn't quite look that way in the picture of the NS4. Anyway - I think you are on the right track Ed. My monitor isn't good enough to see enough detail to tell more (if indeed the original pic has any more detail show.)

Randy, went to the bigger puter, little better screen.
Seems like 4 legged bridles, not 3.
Try to figure where the "19%" reduction comes in, it looks like more.

Quote: Originally posted by Ed Cline

Randy, went to the bigger puter, little better screen. Seems like 4 legged bridles, not 3. Try to figure where the "19%" reduction comes in, it looks like more.

You guys are great! I put the original picture up on my computer monitor and can confirm what Ed is saying, viz., that for this 5.5m NS4, each side has 6 sets of bridles coming off the middle (or "belly") portion of the sides, each splitting to four unique attachment points. That would put it at 48 points of bridle attachment in the belly of the kite. There appears to be five single bridle lines coming off each side of the kite out on the edge so that makes for 10 more long bridle lines, taking the grand total of contact points with the kite to 58 and the number of long bridle lines to 22.

I've owned at some point NS3s in every size available from 1.5m all the way up to 12.0m. The amount of bridling gradually increases with size. I suspect the same will be true for the NS4 line as well.

I have to say that I like what Steffen has done here, viz., splitting the "belly" bridles into four short lines each. This seems to be a great compromise. Lots of points of contact on the kite surface to minimize what Randy is calling "dips". This grouping-of-four further decreases the sheer number of long bridles per kite which would be a win-win-win: less lines to tangle, less to provide parasitic drag, and lower cost (Steffen told me that the new bridle material is quite a bit more expensive per meter than his older bridle material). Nice!

Here is a nice side by side picture of the NS4 vs NS3 that shows off the differences in the bridling. The picture was intended to show that the NS4 is "flatter" than the NS3 but I'm challenged to see that since the kites are at different angles relative to the camera.

For our latest discussion, I like how this side by side comparison allows one to look at how the bridling has been modified. In the NS3s the "belly" bridles are paired in sets of two attachment points each and repeat all the way up the kite. In the NS4 these belly bridles are grouped in sets of four making self contained little rectangular patches all the way up and use half the long bridle lines as the V3s.

It seems that the perimeter bridle lines remain all singles. Randy, as the actual NPW Sartor* in the mix, how might you speculate things would go if Steffen had created pairs of two attachment points leading to one long bridle line along the perimeter? It would have been a consistent extension of the bridle reduction strategy used in the belly of the V4s.

*"Sartor": masculine form of the noun "Seamstress". Google also offered up "Seamster" (too uniony for my taste) and "Tailor" (too boring). Sartor sounded the studliness to me so I went with that! :P


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Steve,

That would be pretty standard way of doing the bridling. Most of the NPW's I've made have cascade bridles on the wing perimeter. I don't quite know why he didn't go with that. The only reasons I can think of is that you don't save that much line doing it, and you might end up with one odd line for the last couple of bridles on the wing. The last bridle on the wing may also be used as brake line when flying with handles so it needs to be on a separate line to work correctly. I have two different diagrams from Born for using the NS2 with Z-bridles, one uses the last bridle on the wing for braking while the other doesn't. Doing cascade bridling takes more time so there a trade off there. Also, the bridles on the wings probably are more prone to catching something on the ground, so he might have wanted to used heavier lines there.

BTW - some people use the term sewist as a gender but I never cared for that. Sartor sounds as good as anything.

I'm just going to leave this here... :D

Born-Kite NasaStar-4

Steve have you seen the new bridle material in person yet? Looks a bit unusual - seems like it is sort of stiff. That could be beneficial for avoiding tangles.

Quote: Originally posted by Randy

Steve have you seen the new bridle material in person yet? Looks a bit unusual - seems like it is sort of stiff. That could be beneficial for avoiding tangles.

I have. This new fancy line is stock on the RaceStars. Vast improvement over the super soft and flexible bridle line used on all Born Kites before the release of the RaceStars. Steffen let me know that it is his plan to move the entire Born Kite line to this new bridle material over time, so expect LS3s, SS2s (StreetStars) with their eventual releases to also feature this new line.

As for the tangling issue, it is my distinct impression that this new bridle material does tangle less than his traditional line. I've had some nasty, nasty tangles with his older kites but so far I've not had issues with the RaceStars.

how about depower bar with 4 lines ? that s the way i like nasawings as a add to street kiting

Quote: Originally posted by alf

how about depower bar with 4 lines ? that s the way i like nasawings as a add to street kiting

You can't just say that! Show us/me the rig :puzzled:

Quote: Originally posted by alf

how about depower bar with 4 lines ? that s the way i like nasawings as a add to street kiting

Alf, are you talking about the "StreetStar"?

Born-Kite StreetStar

I'm not sure how popular this SS kite line has been. I suspect Steffen will address his most popular kite lines first as he did now with the NasaStar-3s and (hopefully) soon the LongStar-2s. The RaceStars were the first line to get this new bridle material standard and it is my understanding that all updates that may come foward will use this new bridle line.

Bridles, bridals,

Mr Alf, Please show us the 4 line depower bar set up. :o