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Buggys in 3 knots :puzzled:

I'd believe it too. Nigel's 8.5m C Quad is always the last kite in the sky in light winds. Got some video of it on a very light wind day 4 years ago with the Geelong kite club here: Geelong kite club race

I've also seen some amazing very early NZ footage of both kite surfing and dune jumping with buggys and C-Quads. Very impressive kites....

Yep


Bring on the 10m skin !

I went to the school yesterday afternoon to compare the 3.8M Reactor to the 4M Skin, using the same lines, about 15M. The wind was such that I could launch the Reactor, but keeping it in the sky was work, and getting any traction with it was almost impossible, a few short butt scuds while sitting on a snowtube was all I could manage. I changed the lines over to the Skin, and it flew with enough power to drag me across the field on the snowtube (downwinders). More fun than down hill tubing, just walk back upwind flying the kite while dragging the tube behind on a leash. Glad no-one was around to see the OG having too much fun!

Well this is a positive review!

need more wind speed ...more testing will be yet be coming- I hope.

Get you SKIN in the game!

bobalooie57 - looking at your vid I think you need to adjust (shorten) the three outside bridle lines.
Give this a try, tie the bridle line further down the tie on line:
Wing edge brake line 1cm from kite,
Middle power line 1cm from kite
Top wing edge 8cm from kite.

I did this on mine and the wing edge flutter had virtually disappeared, works from the slightest of breezes to full on wind in the buggy. From this point I then shortened the wing edge bridle line by a further 1.5cm, this seems to have really stabilised the wing edges.

Hopefully it makes sense the pic shows the TE brake on the left.

Thanks for the info, bigE123, I just figured it was the wind I was flying in. I didn't even think to try adjusting the kite, I didn't really see the problem when I was flying the kite fully powered. I'll give this a try. BTW, is that the 2.5(?)M? I asked about getting the 4M in green, and they said I'd have to wait, as they only had the 4M in red.

Okay... waiting to see new video on fully powered AND bridal adjusted SKIN.

Any more details, BigE123? How was your experience with it regarding upwind ability, turning etc.?

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Thanks for the info, bigE123, I just figured it was the wind I was flying in. I didn't even think to try adjusting the kite, I didn't really see the problem when I was flying the kite fully powered. I'll give this a try. BTW, is that the 2.5(?)M? I asked about getting the 4M in green, and they said I'd have to wait, as they only had the 4M in red.

It's a 4m 7 cell prototype, it's one of the things I found when testing it, even when fully powered if I pushed mine right to the edge of the window the first thing to go was the wing edge just like your vid.

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Any more details, BigE123? How was your experience with it regarding upwind ability, turning etc.?

TBH I've only had one session in the buggy with it and it was well powered-up. It's a nice stable kite and turns/controls well. I've mainly been static flying it to get to grips with it and tune it, as it is a prototype and not a final production model. As for upwind I'm just waiting for the fields to harden up as it's like a quagmire at the moment, so that I can do some back to back testing.

It does fly in only the slightest of breezes, an ideal kite to always have in the car (or like me when I take the dogs out for a "walk")

So far, it seems the wing edges just needed a little more curve, especially at top- by your testing..


I would get your info on success of altering some bridal lengths( now or after a little more final testing?) to Peter Lynn .... Email: peter@peterlynnhimself.com . He would appreciate feedback and might soon do some testing with changes in design(bridal).


Although the factory will still be selling ones they made( or if they never alter bridal design)..seems easy fix.

This SKIN is interesting in it's release as a prototype available to the public. How often does that happen?

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So far, it seems the wing edges just needed a little more curve, especially at top- by your testing..

It's more at the bottom than the top.

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I would get your info on success of altering some bridal lengths( now or after a little more final testing?) to Peter Lynn .... Email: peter@peterlynnhimself.com . He would appreciate feedback and might soon do some testing with changes in design(bridal).

Already done, I've had mine a little while now. Just thought I'd share my findings with others who have a prototype as I'm not sure what changes have been made across the different models.

Oh...? you gave most (8cm) adjustment(shortened?) to TOP wing edge bridal line, so.. I thought...

I couldn't make out the pic of alteration too well. Need better pic/diagram perhaps...or I'm just a bit confused.:duh:

Definitely the coolest looking bunch of NPW's showing from bige123...you should applique something onto your SKIN.

An update(scroll down a ways)(near the picture)

http://www.peterlynnhimself.com/newsletter/Dec_Nl_13.html

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Oh...? you gave most (8cm) adjustment(shortened?) to TOP wing edge bridal line, so.. I thought...

Maybe if I make a bit more clear. Each bridle line ties-on to a line, which is sewn on to the kite, the measurements I gave was from the kite edge to the knot where the bridle line is tied on. The bridle it'self is not shortened it is tied closer to the kite (which will obviously make the overall line shorter). So the bottom two lines are tied 1 cm from the kite edge, where as the top one is tied 8cm from the kite.

After I made those adjustments I did also added a double stop knot in to the brake line which shortened the bridle by another 1.5 cm, this took it from a very slight flutter on the top edge to virtually no flutter.

Looked at Peter Lynn's December newsletter.

It starts oddly, in almost rambling analogy about cost, globalism, environment:puzzled:...then finally steers back to basics.

See..always wear a helmet.

After testing his competitors prototype... he is humbled...then makes prediction highlighted above. Well....

I'll be flying my museum pieces and having fun , thank you!

Well, I looked into making adjustments, but the lines that your(edit:meaning bigE123) bridles attach to are sewn in loops on my version, so any adjustment I do will have to be in the bridle itself. I think I'll spend some more time with it before I mess with that. Interesting that P.Lynn is going even simpler to 5 cell/simpler bridle. I hope they decide to scale up in size. Until then our NPW goddess will handle my large single skin needs!

bobalooie57
Ah hence the confusion! If you do want to shorten the lines, I'll measure mine from end to kite. Just had a fly this afternoon in the lightest of breezes and no luffing at all.

As for the other prototype kite he flew, wow over 200 bridles! I'm all for getting the most out of a single skin kite but that seems excessive to me. Aspect ratio must be immense!

Yeah, I found PL's comments a little odd. How can you compare a 5 cell minimal bridle kite with a 200 bridle complexity monster? In building kites I know bridling is more than half the effort!!

The cost difference due to labour must necessarily be immense, globalization comments aside, and I really hope he does bring this kite to market, if only for the benefit to new kiters. There is a very real market segment for a $200 powerful and indestructible kite, far more than that for a $2000 overcomplicated bridle tangler in my opinion.

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The cost difference due to labour must necessarily be immense, globalization comments aside, and I really hope he does bring this kite to market, if only for the benefit to new kiters. There is a very real market segment for a $200 powerful and indestructible kite, far more than that for a $2000 overcomplicated bridle tangler in my opinion.

Now that hits the nail on the head, for the performance to price a simple single skin kite is a win/win option, sure there are some draw backs but also some positives as well.

The real trick is making a kite that appears "simple" but packs in the performance.

Thanks, bigE. No rush on measurements, I might have some decent wind tomorrow to try it again. Will try to bring back video/GPS evidence. :D

Quote: Originally posted by bigE123

Quote: The cost difference due to labour must necessarily be immense, globalization comments aside, and I really hope he does bring this kite to market, if only for the benefit to new kiters. There is a very real market segment for a $200 powerful and indestructible kite, far more than that for a $2000 overcomplicated bridle tangler in my opinion. Now that hits the nail on the head, for the performance to price a simple single skin kite is a win/win option, sure there are some draw backs but also some positives as well. The real trick is making a kite that appears "simple" but packs in the performance.

peter lynn the man has nothing to do with the power kites that still carries his name. he is about research and development, playing and trying new things, having fun.
not fair to assume he is about 2000 dollar techno kites. he is much like each one of us, out to enjoy the sport and tinker.

I like peter lynn's rants on his newsletter . It sounds like he is a conservative guy that has life and business experience to make informed opinions on such matters.

Quote: Originally posted by bigkid

Quote: Originally posted by bigE123   Quote: The cost difference due to labour must necessarily be immense, globalization comments aside, and I really hope he does bring this kite to market, if only for the benefit to new kiters. There is a very real market segment for a $200 powerful and indestructible kite, far more than that for a $2000 overcomplicated bridle tangler in my opinion. Now that hits the nail on the head, for the performance to price a simple single skin kite is a win/win option, sure there are some draw backs but also some positives as well. The real trick is making a kite that appears "simple" but packs in the performance. peter lynn the man has nothing to do with the power kites that still carries his name. he is about research and development, playing and trying new things, having fun. not fair to assume he is about 2000 dollar techno kites. he is much like each one of us, out to enjoy the sport and tinker.

You may have misunderstood the intention of my comment. I respect Peter and his tinkering, I like tinkering with kites as well and I feel Peter is one of the guys who builds kites for the love of building them. When I read his latest newsletter, I got the impression that he feels there may not be a place in today's world for his SKIN kite, and I think it would be a shame if he were to stop developing it due to perceived competition from complex singleskins. It's a neat kite.

Hey rectifier, I saw your tyvek kite on a previous post. That's pretty cool, did you sew it or did you use some sort of adhesive?

ssayre, I now have 3 Tyvek kites! (the two NPW21s and a single line foil). To avoid too much thread hijacking, I'll just say that sewing it works well if you keep the stitch length long and use a sharp needle and thick and sturdy thread.
If you are interested in working with Tyvek feel free to start a thread about it and we can share some knowledge about it there. It has some special considerations but in general I'm very happy with its performance as a material, now I just wish I could get some without the logos on the back!

I received the Skin 2.75m 5 cell and the 4m 7 cell a couple of weeks ago. So far I’ve only had a chance to static fly the 2.75m. This is what I experienced:

First Test Flight
My intention was to see how well it would fly on an Ozone Turbo Bar. At first it would only fly if I pulled the bar fully in (adding heaps of brake). After shortening the brake leaders I was able to get it to fly ok with the bar out, however the leading edge showed some folding towards the tips. The only way I could get the LE tips to inflate properly was to add more brake pressure. However, this had an unwanted side-effect – the kite was highly susceptible to flying backwards. In fact it would randomly fly backwards with a fair bit of force, so much so that at one point I questioned whether I was flying it the right way.
The good news was that the kite turned very well on the Turbo Bar.

Second Test Flight
Prior to the second test flight I made some minor adjustments to the kite. First off, I replaced the 46cm brake leaders with 75cm leaders as per Peter Lynn’s November 2013 newsletter. I then made the power / main leaders longer due to the fact that during the first test flight the kite needed a lot of brake pressure to fly ok on the Turbo Bar.
The second change I made was to add a 25mm extension to the leading edge bridle on the outer ribs. I got this idea after reading that Peter Lynn made a similar change to the 4.6m 5 cell to fix the same issue that I was experiencing (leading edge folding over).
I wasn’t sure what to expect with these changes, but the kite flew really well. Here are my observations:

Very grunty.

Handles gusty and variable conditions well.

Only flies backwards occasionally when the wind is light (this is similar to my Nasa Star 2’s). A vigorous tug of the power lines gets it flying forwards again.

Feels to me like it flies somewhere between an Nasa Star 2 and a foil.

Power comes on faster during a gust than my Nasa Star 2’s.

May have a slightly wider window than my Nasa Star 2’s (I’ll need to fly it in better conditions to confirm this).

Works really well on an Ozone Turbo Bar. In the end the power/main leaders ended up 38cm longer than the brake leaders. With this trimming the kite flew nicely with the bar fully out and allowed me full bar travel to add extra brakes as required (not really necessary when static flying).

Launches easily - both forwards and reverse.

All in all I’m really happy with the 2.75m. I can’t wait to try it with my buggy. I’ll test the 4m soon.

A friend is getting Peter Lynn to cut and send him the panels/pieces( he's not getting from factory )- as Peter promised he would do for home sewers...... and he is going to sew his own SKIN using good quality bridal lines and much better stiching(more stitches per inch and seams likely 'tuck folded' for ...etc)....... Much like the kind of quality 'the Goddess' produces-or hopefully that good. ) He did a very good job on his NPW ...so...

He will need correct figures when making and sewing on the bridles. Maybe PL will give him updated formula for bridal lengths. Maybe PL can get the Chinese factory to alter and update their production(just a few simple line length changes!). A RTF kite that's then truly RTF.

Still waiting for a definitive riding experience expose...

Patience......

If he is going to really push the boat out with the sewing/bridles then best not forget the keels, there is always some compromise on kites due to production techniques and costs. Self building means you can do a real no holes barred build. The skin I have is pretty much spot on now, just going to do a little tidying up on it and I think like you said above some pucker bridle lines would be a bonus.

Yes, he does pretty good work.....though I recall comparing his one he bought from Susan and hers was the best. I just hope he gets the bridal lines tweaked right or can easily adjust them.

BigE123, I'm sure the quality of your work is probably good.... but what I love is the different collection of graphics of yours. What a unique cool portfolio of NPW's.

Mine is in the pipe line (7-10 days to make a green one) a 4.6m2, 5 cell with handles and lines for US $97 + $35 postage.
Should be good fun over the new year break.

Chook

Cheers skimtwashington,
my goal was quality first then something that was unique, and in between all that is the quest to make them even better. In the current climate of single skin development I think I may have an idea for my next NPW.