Thanks for posting pictures Spencer! They look great. Can't wait for you to try them. I get just as excited when other peoples kites arrive as if it were me.

Yeah come on dude, wanna hear about your first flight being as I'm stuck resting my knee up!

I've got the sticker on my kitemobile now... It must be official

Quote: Originally posted by robinsonpr

Yeah come on dude, wanna hear about your first flight being as I'm stuck resting my knee up!

Looks like there's a small possibility of a light wind flight on Monday at lunch ... We'll see.

Quote: Originally posted by soliver

I've got the sticker on my kitemobile now... It must be official

:D

There's been a bit of talk about shorter lines producing less power, do you think it's the fact the wind is less lower down, the kite not moving initially as much or the fact as the line length reduces the tow-point of the bridles is changed and alters the kites characteristics? Just something that's been in my head, about the tow-point, NPW/NASA stars don't have any cross bridles so the tow-points are dependant on the lines, the longer they are the more the kite can open up, go to the extreme of straight on to the handles and the width of the two bridle sets is the bar / handles, which would make the kite have a deeper centre panel.

Initially starting to get going is slower on short lines but once moving, I'm not sure there is much difference in power between long and short line

I think it's just a matter of building speed as you can't swoop the kite like you can with long lines. I had 6m lines on the 2.5m on the claypan in 20-25knots and had to work the kite like crazy to get going in the buggy. But once I got up to 25 - 30kph and the apparent wind kicked in, so did the power.

It was just a thought that was kicking round in my head, I haven't tried short / no lines for traction, just seen remarks about lower power, it's obviously just the kite speed that's initially lacking ( and hence the power that generates) to get the show on the road.

I use my 1.1M2 and my 2.5 M2 NPW5 on very short lines. My lines on my bar are about 10 feet
and they hook into the bridle of the kite. I can tell that there is less power with the kite on short lines. But one day I was using both lines set. I went from long to short, but where I was at the wind was about the same high and low. I was on a skateboard on payment I had about the same power. I think(just from that one day of flying) that it is just the wind.
But I am very new to this, so I don't know much.
renny

First flight today, the 5.5m in relatively nice wind; 9mph gusting to maybe 12+mph... WOW! what an awesome kite. SUPER easy to fly, SUPER stable, turns on a wingtip and AMAZINGLY consistent pull even in the light janky stuff... Even in my state of freshly healed broken appendages, I felt SUPER safe with it and have every intention of flying it hooked in next time... what else can I say but WOW!

Only issue I had was the reverse launch. Maybe I just need to work it.

GoPro was rolling with footage to come... not the best, but you'll be able to see it in flight.

glad you like it. It's a totally different experience comparatively. Reverse launch will probably get easier? I don't know because mine doesn't come down until I'm packing up?

Glad one went in the air Spencer!! I had the same thoughts about reverse launching when I first flew mine. It gets easier.

I still was not satisfied with how the NASA 3 flew on HANDLES. It still wants to fly backwards at times and when I get it to the ground to pack away, the wind would catch it and it would be all over the place and I would have to hang on for dear life.

Today I modified the brakes lines one more time and took it for a test flight in some gusty winds. It flew fantastic !

Some observations:
1 - The top LE and inner TE brake line are now under very slight tension.
2 - The NASA did not fly backwards at all during a 45 minute flight.
3 - When the brakes are applied the LE collapses slightly and the NASA comes down and stays on the ground. No more flapping all over the place.
4 - When flying the kite and the brakes are applied, the kite has a tendency to want to land. The only way to prevent this is to angle it at 45 degree and let the wind inflate it and bring it back up.
5 - When launching the kite , let the wind slightly inflate it, then give both handles a sharp pull and it will go straight up.

Does that same issue occur when flying on a bar or only handles (for those of you with the kite)?

Quote:

Does that same issue occur when flying on a bar or only handles (for those of you with the kite)?

Once in a blue moon. And that's if I turn towards the kite and it runs out of oomph, then it can go backwards. Or if I try to hold it at 12o'clock in very light winds. Even then, I just help it reverse loop and it sorts itself out pretty soon. That's on long lines. If you're going to run it straight off the bar, it will be more prone to going backwards as you haven't got the same apparent wind...until you get moving.

When packing up, I put my knee on the nose of the kite - nose into the wind and bridles facing up and fold it all into the center. If it's light wind, it gets folded nicely. If it's 20 knots, it gets roughly folded into the center and I sort it out later on.

The thing I do in stronger winds is walk behind the kite, take hold of the nose and lift it till your feet are under the TE, take a step or two forward and the wings will go to each side of you, you can now bring the wings to the front of you and fold the nose down and it's time to stuff in a bag.

The reverse flying of an NPW is usually too much brake, the problem I see is on the NASA star on handles is you are applying brake to both the LE and TE so the brake effect is exaggerated, may be in handle mode it may be better with the nose on the power line side?

When packing up, I wad mine up and stuff it. I've done away with any pleasantries.

Quote: Originally posted by bigE123

There's been a bit of talk about shorter lines producing less power, do you think it's the fact the wind is less lower down, the kite not moving initially as much or the fact as the line length reduces the tow-point of the bridles is changed and alters the kites characteristics? Just something that's been in my head, about the tow-point, NPW/NASA stars don't have any cross bridles so the tow-points are dependant on the lines, the longer they are the more the kite can open up, go to the extreme of straight on to the handles and the width of the two bridle sets is the bar / handles, which would make the kite have a deeper centre panel.

The wind does tend to increase with altitude. There is a "power law" that suggests wind speed,u, is related to height, z, (as compared to a reference height, u0, and z0) like this:

u/u0=(z/z0)^(1/a) It seems that a~7 is a commonly reported number.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_profile_power_law

Since power is related to wind speed squared, the power goes as (z/z0)^(2/7).

For 20 m lines v. 5 m lines (20/5)^(2/7)~1.5. So a 4 meter kite flown at the same angle from 20 meter lines would have its maximum potential power reduced so its equal to about 4/1.5 or a 2.7 M kite. Now, there are a lot of other factors - you may not fly the kites the same way, and the flight angles will not necessarily be the same, but the change in line length, implies that everything else equal, the bigger kite will have the maximum potential power of a smaller flown on longer lines. There are diminishing returns. Going from 20 to 40 m doubles the line length, but would only increase the potential power by 22% - giving the 4 meter as much power as a 4.9 meter.

The power law is pretty well established, but there are a lot of things that impact it - sometime the wind gradient is steeper, sometimes less steep, it varies between land and water, etc. However, part of the effect, and maybe a lot of it is the wind profile effect.

Wow Randy... I suddenly feel the goo that my brain has now turned to slowly oozing our of my ears :o...

That was a lot dude... cool, but a lot!

Quote:

I suddenly feel the goo that my brain has now turned to slowly oozing our of my ears :o...

For the continuing serenity of the kiting community as a whole, I suggest we completely ban maths.

Quote: Originally posted by John Holgate

Quote: I suddenly feel the goo that my brain has now turned to slowly oozing our of my ears :o... For the continuing serenity of the kiting community as a whole, I suggest we completely ban maths.

I finished editing my footage today... really just threw something quick together for you guys to see,... we'll see if the copyright police shut it down before I can post it... if so, I'll get a tune from free play or something.

Ok... here's my quick vid of my first flight of one of my NS3s... I got about 15-20 minutes of footage but you know how it goes flying static... it pretty much all looks the same; so here is about a minute of the good stuff.

Forgive me the glare on the camera, I think I must've gotten a fingerprint on the lens.

https://vimeo.com/123803696

Welcome to the Nasa Star addiction!

Nice vid Spencer - those NS' are awesome looking for sure. Glad you are back in action.

Sorry about the math guys. I'm trying to use some before i completely forget it all.: I recently did career day with 3rd graders at my daughter's school. My brain has been scambled eggs ever since.

Oh and by the way, I think I confirmed with Steffen (if he understood my question and I understand his answer correctly) that though others have placed orders (Sean), I am the FIRST in the United States with the Nasa Star 3s... if that makes me cool at all, I'll take it

That makes you cool in my book. It's hard to tell, but I kind of like these kites. Nice video!

Thanks for the vid Spencer! I'm a Nasa Star nerd as well.

Jason, we need to teach Randy how to buggy so at JIBE we can have a Nasa Star convoy.

We need some T-shirts too

Doesn't Randy have a ATB?
I had to scour my videos, but I found the NS2 5.5m pilot.
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