The F-arc, one of the best awesome low wind engines that exists. They were made over 10 years ago yet they have the record for fastest depower kite and go up wind better than almost any kite. Crazy lifty and amazing hangtime. Some call it a death trap, others a thing of beauty. What makes these kites so high preformance?

Aspect Ratio and profile. The combination of crazy high AR and a profile similar to a paraglider makes the F-arc have all it's crazy goodness. The profile is an important part of what makes a F-arc so high preformance, but the AR is what makes them what they are.

Twinskins lack of bridles makes them have unique characteristics. The 16m F-arc , with an AR of 7, does something strange when is gets moving.

Notice how the kite seems to open up once Hardwater starts moving. Using multiple spots in multiple videos to take measurements. I have calculated the AR of the kite in the arc shape when moving to be 5.625 with a projected area of just under 13m. Peter lynn himself states the S-arc flys with a near perfect arc. This is true for all arc except for the f-arc and maybe the phantom. If the f-arc flew with a perfect arc then it would have a projected area of 9.5m and an 4.43 AR when in the arc shape. My theory of why this happens is that the amount of shoulder the kite creates is proportional to the cord of the kite, not the area.

All of this means that the f-arc, when moveing, is equivalent to a lifty 13m kite without bridles. Bridles add alot of drag to a kite. One round bridle line creates as much drag as an airfoil 10x as thick. Being bridle-less the f-arc has less drag than a bridled foil. Less drag mean more prefomance and light wind power.

Could have saved some time by scanning the Arc faq

Fastest depower kite ? Can you expand on that ?

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Originally posted by Kamikuza Could have saved some time by scanning the Arc faq

The arc faq has very litle information on the f-arc. I got some of the data I needed from there like the span and cord of the kite. I have an experement that should prove my data that the f-arc is producing a higher than normal projected area. The problem is I don't have an F-arc. I really want to get some f-arcs for low wind days. I have a few mods in mind that could improve the depower range and turning speed of this beast. A F-arc would also be the ultimate test for my anti-invert and anti-bowtie mod.

Feyd has/had one... or two...

Doh but I guess you know that already I'm suffering brain-farts cos I haven't had a good session to blow the crap out lately

I have a 1200 I need to give some airtime the next appropriate wind day. Anxious to try it out and see what it's made of.

I just found some vintage 2002 F-arc footage. The airtime is insane!!! I'd say the 16m has as much airtime as a speed 3. There is even some footage of the rare 9m version.
http://www.awindofchange.com/photo.html

I would not argue that the F-Arc has as much lift and glide as a Speed 3, maybe even more. And it will blow a Speed 3 away in an upwind run.

The Speed 3 comes out on top in downwind performance and wind range. The depow on the speed is much better as any modern production kite should be.

I saw a video around somewhere or the Kiwis flying F-arcs on water with handles in some pretty good surf. I have an old instruction manual around here somewhere that shows you the bar and handle options for F-Arcs.

I can't even imagine.

I hear a lot of people say that the F-arc generates minimal pull relative to it's forward speed. I would agree that is the case with the Phantom 1 but the F-arc, at least mine, generate some serious grunt at speed. If my edges are locked in it can still pull me off my line which none of the current Arcs (except maybe the CH1) are able to do very often.:roll:

Quote:

Originally posted by Feyd I can't even imagine. I hear a lot of people say that the F-arc generates minimal pull relative to it's forward speed. I would agree that is the case with the Phantom 1 but the F-arc, at least mine, generate some serious grunt at speed. If my edges are locked in it can still pull me off my line which none of the current Arcs (except maybe the CH1) are able to do very often.:roll:

This is why I question how this can be called the fastest depower ?

The F-Arc has some pretty good depower, but you need to have long monkey arms to be able to use it. The depower throw was somewhere in the 2-3 foot range and steering was also rather slow compared to today's foils/kites. You needed a huge bar to really get the turning performance out of it. With a long bar and a huge depower line, the F-Arc was a kite that was well ahead of it's time.

The speed comes from the ultra thin profile, near flat trailing edge and 7+ aspect ratio. Not sure how PL did it, but that thing is incredibly fast!!!

AWOC is right. It has some amount of depow with a long throw bar. My Navi bar (large) works very well with the F-Arcs.

I had to tweak the F-Arcs leader lengths to work with my bar the way I want but it works great IMO.

In regards to "The world's fastest depower" I think "fastest REPORTED depower" or "fastest depower with a buggy" would be less controversial. There are a lot of people trying to go fast in the world and not everyone reports on every session.

F-Arcs are very fast. When I first started playing with them I thought they would be a sweet easy way to set some new personal bests but it lacks the windrange and depower to do what I need it to do in the conditions I like to operate in. Now it's been relegated to use when I want a kite that just cranks in moderate winds, claws upwind like crazy and floats for days. It really is one of my all time favorites. Feels very much like a fixed bridle IMO. Turn rate isn't bad either.
:bouncy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTLBuJIRwxM&feature=share...

One of the local Flysurfer disciples commented after taking a test ride on the 1200 his words were "You were cheating". This was after a day of moderate light winds in which I was smoking him and his S3 15m SA all over the place. He was very impressed.

Love the video, awesome!!!

So let me get this straight...you were using 10 year old technology....and you were cheating?!?! Love it.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bladerunner This is why I question how this can be called the fastest depower ?

"Not for the faint hearted. (worlds fastest depower kite at 128kph)."

The excerpt directly from the Peter Lynn website. I don't think they would say that If it wern't true. Maybe they were on a dry lake bed with a buggy or under similar conditions.

I think PL should try a kite similar to the f-arc again. With the vpc and shaped panels they could drop the AR to about 6. With everything they have learned over the lat 10 year the could surely make an f-arc like kite with better relaunch and turnrate. PL really needs a low wind kite to compete with all the other brands and the f-arc fits the bill.

Well, they have a 22 and 24m arc available right now. Who do they say went 79 mph with an F arc? I know Brian Holgate got into the 70s with one last spring but I thought it was low to mid 70s.

Gav Mulvey. He told me about it in FB chat last summer. And my response was kinda the same and kinda in jest. But like I said, they claimed it.

The thing that intrests me about that is that he did his speed on a 9m arc. I do my speeds on a 10-12m arc. Holgate did his top speed on a 2.5m (?) FB foil. What does this mean exactly?

That is higher than the "official" buggy with depower record with PTW. Shame they don't submit it where all the records are kept. I guess that was in the speed buggy last April, right after NABX?

You are in a different element than buggies and kite size. Holgate was on a 2.7m Vapor FB race kite with winds gusting over 50 mph. It has the power similar to a 4-5m FB, but delivers it WAY out front. To compare, a 9m Phantom had a projected area of 5.7. With the right winds I can probably get over 60 with my 12m P II. I don't think I can handle it and stop and stuff with the more than 40 mph winds it would take to break 70. I'm still looking for it's limits though. Then there is still the 9 and 6m ones to find the limits of. I also need to put in some FB time for perspective now.

Thanks you for illustrating my point B.

It's an interesting thing. We've had this discussion of kite size/wind and the speeds we all get but one factor that you never mention is surface conditions. I'm going to guess that surface conditions for you on the playa are pretty constant?

To confuse things (for myself) further, I had a session on a 12m Ph2 and got a top speed was 72mph. I then switched to my 8m Charger 1, first time flying it, and managed 69mph. Winds hadn't changed much if at all and the variation in speed could easily be as simple as catching the right gust.

The stark difference was on the 12m I had to depower almost completely to fight my way up wind whereas the 8m I had to actually sine the kite to get the speeds that I did. What does this mean exactly?, I have no idea. :ticking:

I've found that the the more well powered the kite is, the better the upwind performance. Larger kites are more efficient with the wind. My problem is to have maximum "useable" power. Too much and I'm dragged sideways and downwind. Too safe on kite size and I'm missing speed.

72mph and 128KPH are not far apart ?

I was thinking that they may be refering to hard water with those speeds.

Feyd, what kite did you use when hitting your speed record ? How fast ?

The f-arc has nothing compaired to the AR of this beast.

http://www.powerkiteforum.com/viewthread.php?tid=24660

Hey! I have those same skis! I bought them on a lark for $50 with tons of camber left and they turned out to be fun as hell. Go Salomon!

Anyway, don't suppose anyone knows what the actual "perfect" shape of the f-arc is supposed to be? Is it an actual "arc" as in s*theta, or is it a parabola (y = x^2) or hyperbola (erm... some formula I don't recall offhand.)? Maybe a hyperbolic cosine (that's the shape of a chain hanging between two posts.)?

That f-arc looks incredibly challenging for a noobie. At the beginning, he's pumping the bar to keep it afloat and 3 seconds later it's whipping him along with no problem. Anyway, I was just curious, in case anyone knows.

I feel I should point out that the video that Snake has used as an example here is the very first time I took the 1600 for a ride. At this point I didn't have the pigtail lengths dialed in for my bar (see my leaders, shortened to off set wrong pigtail lengths) and I was very cautious with it being my first time out. The winds were very light that day for sure and it made it hard to get air into the Arc. But once she inflated I was amazed at the kite's performance.

It definately isn't a begginer kite. But in light winds it's a dream to fly.

The 1200 is the sweet spot tho =)

The F-Arc is definitely quirky to fly and not something a beginner should NOT be starting out on. It has its attitude issues and because of the high aspect ratio, it can bowtie extremely easy when launching/landing etc... In light winds there is a mandatory technique that needs to be used to get it inflated and flying, it asks to be "pumped" by the front lines to get its long ribbon shape inflated but once it locks in, it is pure adrenaline.

I heard a rumor that there was a stash/stockpile of brand new F-Arc's available that were never released / sold on the open market. I am inquiring on a price on them right now and if we can work out a deal to get them here, I will offer the deal to PKF users.

If you are interested in picking up one (or more) of these bad boys, let me know and if we can get enough people interested, it makes the shipping much more affordable and we may be able to score a great deal.

Kent, it would be awesome if you could get some f-arcs for everyone. I would want 1600 and a 1200. I also call dibs if they find a rare 900 . You should also see if they have any other old kites like venoms or phantoms. You should start a new thread to see how many people would be interested in getting an f-arc(s).

Quote:

Originally posted by Snake You should also see if they have any other old kites like venoms or phantoms. You should start a new thread to see how many people would be interested in getting an f-arc(s).

haha is anyone else experiencing deja vu?

remember this whole thing a year or year and half ago when there were the last of the original Phantoms found and sold off and then a number of other things as well as the infamous F-Arc shipment that was supposed to be on it's way to Ricardo.
At that time there was also talk of the SLarc project and Peter had distributed a quantity of F Arcs around the world to hub people interested in the project. I was thinking the F-Arcs were pretty much accounted for with that dispersement but I did see the Peter Lynn New Zealand site offering some F arcs at the year end so maybe there are more coming to light?

I dunno, sounds like carnage in the making to me. :P


It's easy to get wrapped up in gear lust for a wing that does some amazing things. But Like Kent said it is NOT a kite for beginners and to be fair it's not a kite for a broad range of experienced kiters IMO. Don't get me wrong, I love my F-Arcs but my tastes and the environment I use them in is likely very different than 90% of the kiting population. The responses I got back from F-Arc owners (prior to getting the 2 I have) were by and large on the negative side. Most people who have them don't fly them either because they were immediately put off by the endless bowtie action or by the fierceness the kite posses when it turns on you. :evil:

I made some mistakes playing with mine before I got them dialed in and luckily cam out ahead. When you're out on a big patch of ice you have some room to make mistakes. It has some depower but compared to say and old Venom it has about 1/3rd the comparable depower IMO. Personally don't know if I would recommend these things to anyone that wasn't looking to absolutely haul ass.

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Originally posted by Feyd Personally don't know if I would recommend these things to anyone that wasn't looking to absolutely haul ass.

:ticking:

I feel better about being a little bit afraid of this thing. Not sure what to expect. Afraid I can't get it launched without a bowtie and invert. Gotta try next chance I get.

As long as your internal pressure is good it's easy.

Low air pressure, not so much but possible....

http://youtu.be/sdBV2njwwJg

And just because these words are from the man himself back in 2001 (shaking my head)

http://www.peterlynnkites.com/news/0112news.htm

You got away with way more issues than you actually had. I was jumping all over my seat watching the kite. Good job. I guess you were trying to get home under kite power after the wind went over the horizon with the sun.