I have been designing kites for more than a decade now. Starting on 3m & 5m double strutted kites back in early 2000, learning to sew on a small Toyota plastic fantastic sewing machine, giving me a lot of headaches when tearing the thread every few decimeters, then progressing to second hand old industrial machines.
Those times were a real fun! Looking how to spend extra funds for the "stupid things like some clothes or TPU" my girl said and not knowing what will came out at the end. Learning on trial and error basis. Making new bridles, testing and testing again. A great thing was that the whole family was involved, especially the kids. They watching me sewing the kites, trying to help me, wanting to help, all three kids. And then, when you set up the newly created kite and seeing that it actually flies - W.O.W. there is little words that can describe the feelings! :O
While not so "active" on a hobby kite building scene anymore, I've still designed some kites for myself and for few other brands. While running day to day tasks on our Dr.Tuba brand, we decided that it is time to upgrade our product line with something new, something that comes out from our ideas in the past and something we can identify with. So, new kite named FORCE was born!
The Force is an incredibly versatile all-around performer, suitable for a wide range of riders and styles. Built around the latest Hybrid platform, the Force delivers consistency in all riding disciplines. The kite is smooth and predictable in the air with progressive power delivery on-demand. I've designed simple dynamic bridle, which has a very direct feel. Incredibly stable kite will allow you to focus more on those cool tricks you want to land. The ease of use is unbelievable, leaving even the most particular riders feeling right at home in no time. The kite is also light dute to only 2 struts, which is great for traveling. We sourced only the highest quality Dacron from Germany and Ripstop from Japan for the construction of the 2015 model. The kite is also well protected, to meet requirements riders wants for land and snow kitin. Sizes which will be available are 7m, 10m and 13m flat.
The plan behind the project is to make a small, limited serie of the kite. While not on sale yet, pre-orders can already be made. Since some of my open-source nature still exists I will be posting the development here in my Blog pages...
May the Force be with you! ;)
Kite Testing
The crucial part before launching of the Force kite is testing on various surfaces. The goal was that the kite must perform well in all conditions and all surfaces.
It needs to eat gusts well, it must have good performance on the water and it needs to be well built to sustain all the beating from the crashes. In my previous post you were able to see how well it performs in variable winds on land. With the help of dynamic bridle it nicely drops back in the wind window when the wind drops and center of the kite "breathes" when gust came, giving you a smooth ride.
We tested several bridles (6 to be exact with some variants of each), to see the behaviour of the kite in real time situations and to be able to choose the most suitable one. With the bridle a kite designer can tune the feel and behaviour of the kite. While the kite may work fine on many bridles, the designer need to choose one which fits the kite most for the kite's segment. I choose a simple 2-Y bridle, with pulleys. Pulleys, in contrast to a static (pulley-less) bridle gives kite more windrange (better changes in AoA eg. self positioning), easier gust eating, better relaunch and a smoother ride. On the other end, kite will have a bit less direct feel and slightly less solid canopy. At the end it is all about compromises...
