28 replies to this topic

[Harrier]

I read lots about swapping the 12mm spar for 1/4in. but little about how the bridle is supposed to deal with the rod change, it does not appear to be a good combination on a Sedgwick using the standard bridle, oh, or on a standard 1.5 with the shallow bridle which I fitted 1/4in. spars to.
g]
New sail and bridle with the "Pro Use" spar before being rebridled.

[REVflyer]

nobody changes or adjusts their bridles as they switch between different the framing choices

It doesn't matter than some bridle legs have slight slack showing in the photos. That movement of pieces & slack is what a bridle does,... it de-tunes some of the responsiveness out of the kite's flight dynamics. If you closed-up the space and took away the slack the bridle would perform better under low and no wind conditions. But it would twitch and wiggle in a bigger blow. You need to decide which set of conditions is more common at your favorite location. Then if you insist, you can build a better bridle for your locale. Again, nobody changes or adjust the bridle between different frames. I use a custom bridle, (more responsive in low wind), but I leave it on all the time, regardless of wind speed/conditions. Sometimes my kites are twitchy, other times they are the only things flying.

Quads almost always come down to a personal choice. I'd recommend you leave the stock bridle on and ignore the slack you see on occasion.

[Harrier]

nobody changes or adjusts their bridles as they switch between different the framing choices

It doesn't matter than some bridle legs have slight slack showing in the photos. That movement of pieces & slack is what a bridle does,... it de-tunes some of the responsiveness out of the kite's flight dynamics. If you closed-up the space and took away the slack the bridle would perform better under low and no wind conditions. But it would twitch and wiggle in a bigger blow. You need to decide which set of conditions is more common at your favorite location. Then if you insist, you can build a better bridle for your locale. Again, nobody changes or adjust the bridle between different frames. I use a custom bridle, (more responsive in low wind), but I leave it on all the time, regardless of wind speed/conditions. Sometimes my kites are twitchy, other times they are the only things flying.

Quads almost always come down to a personal choice. I'd recommend you leave the stock bridle on and ignore the slack you see on occasion.

Thanks for the comments Revflyer.



Generally we don't change spars when flying, if conditions change we tend to switch kites, although for around 80-90% of our flying these days we seem to be using vented kites, the various lighter wind kites don't seem to be getting much airtime.
I have to say that it is not completely clear from the pics but parts of the bridle were completely unloaded and remained slack, at the spar ends, (outside of the uprights), the bridle provided no support at all to the LE during flight.
With the kite in the inverted hover (second pic) you can see the spar is in fact starting to take on a recurve shape as the unsupported ends bend away from the flyer, when the kite was being powered the recurve became more severe.
As you quite rightly say the partly supported LE certainly detunes responsiveness and flight, which rather defeated the reason for fitting the Pro Use Only spar, to be polite it flew rather poorly.

The kite is only ever going to be used in light winds with that spar and needs to fly properly in those conditions, should it have seen a "bigger blow" then there would have been every likelihood of a broken spar.



A replacement bridle was fitted as soon as it was back home.

[jay]

Just a thought Bruce
I was getting that sort of curve on the LE of my Std B, found out the LE was splitting slightly at the ferrule join, new spar fitted problem solved.

[Kitelife]

With regard to the slack shown, based only on those two pictures, it seemed to be occurring on the lowest part of the kite (which changes as it rotates).

In the LE down photo, part of the top bridle is slack (lowest part of the kite).

In the LE-to-upper-right photo, it's still the lowest part, now being the right wing.

If you have any doubts about the bridle being correct, try hovering the kite in each of the four basic clockwork positions and take photos of each one.

If you use the same technique on all four (more or less), you should get a reliable reading on the slack dynamics.

[Harrier]

Thanks for that Jade, not a problem with the spar.

As I said John the pics do not show clearly how slack the bridle was, being as you can only see one plane on the 2d image the pics cannot show properly the amount of slack being developed.
I was standing beside Rob when he put the kite into the air and it was immediately apparent to both of us that the outboard bridle legs were just flapping as if free.
I did just as you have suggested, staked my kite and wandered off to take some pics of the kite being held in various positions directly downwind from Rob and captured a series of images; of course some showed what was happening better than others.
With the kite airborne it was obvious what the problem was and was just a matter of rectifying it, the spar flex reduced overall kite width, which in effect made the top bridle too long.
In the basic hover pic you can perhaps see the bridle end nearest the camera throwing an upward curve above the LE; again it is not so easy to see the amount of slack at the other end, although it might not appear so it was a light wind when the pics were taken.

[Kitelife]

Hrm, interesting.

At the end of the day, how does it fly?

[skunky]

Hrm, interesting.

At the end of the day, how does it fly?

Hi john the kite flys so much better now bruce has redone the bridle ,floats and clock turns are the best yet,defo needed doing...see ya soon

[Kitelife]

Cool.