First off, supports, there seems to be a difference of opinion on whether to use them or not, one manufacturer states "No supports" yet later in the blurb it states "Single skin gives a smaller window than a foil, making it easier to use". The other side of the fence is the de-power leader, quoting "using the latest innovations" and from reports I haven't seen anyone say it's window is much less than a foil. My opinion is they work, giving a nice stable LE, I liked the idea and the effect of t
End of my second phase, appliqué design sewn on, all panels hemmed on the TE and LE. Stats for anyone who is curious:
Flat area 2.99m2 - Projected 2.45m2
AR 6 - Projected 4.5
Wingspan 4.23m - Projected 3.32m (It's only 30cm shorter than my 5m!)
And this is what it currently looks like before it goes back under the sewing machine for final assembly:
Went out to rescue an echidna yesterday afternoon.......
To those of you not familiar with an echidna....just think of a small bolder, covered in spines with grappling hooks drilled into the ground......now try lift it up.....!
40 minute drive from home, mostly sealed bended roads, then 8 km down a dirt road to Bend of Islands, Victoria to find a extremely large lump on a gravel driveway. The women's husband was backing out in his car, heard a "thud" then a scrapping sound, underneath
Big smile time, for the white and red it's a matter of tracing the printouts (with the material stretched out) and cutting out, I don't hot-cut these as all the edges will be hemmed. For the black, I cut around the printout, laid it on top of the material and traced around the edge. So here we have one half of the wing laid out and the other side piled up ready. I'd usually plough straight in to the construction now but..... I'm putting an appliqué design on.
I've gone for
This is probably my most satisfying moment, when all the ribs are finished, lots of work for something that doesn't look like a kite! From this point on things start to take shape:
One side's worth of ribs all cut out and the bottom of each "V" hot cut ready to hem.
The top edge has a roll hem, I insert Dacron tape at the tops and bottom of each triangle to give stability and strength.
And finally, I've sewn 4mm Dacron sleeving to the hem creating a loop at the top of each triangle.
Before I show how I do the ribs, a bit of a disclaimer, mine is not the definitive method, it is only my interpretation of what works. I have not found very much on the net which details methods of making ribs, in fact I have found only one, which I used as a basis to upgrade my NPWs. The way I see a rib (or keel) is to spread the load of the bridle across the kite surface rather than connecting direct to the kite. The downside is the profile is fixed on the rib, so not much leeway to tune the
Here's the video making process!.......
I start off by copying all my video files onto an external hard drive. I have 10 files from the SJ 5000 cam (should have turned the image stabilization off as it hates being mounted to the buggy). Joel very kindly has given me the drone files from the first few flights, so another 6 files from there. 15 .mov files from my SLR. 47 files from my hand held gopro and 42 files from the ION Air Pro mounted on the back of the buggy.
Once that's copi
So John left yesterday, so I thought I'd keep up the blog writing for you all.
A busy day out on the clay pan with approximately 11 blokarts, several with the "Shadow" side carts and the custom land yachts zipping in between the branded sails. Dougie, Chook, Rob, Jay and Darryl have the buggies out and will soon have to do some dodging as I see the witches hats being set up for a sailing course. Plenty of space for everyone to share though, but a lot of tacking for the kites to get out. Ou
Starting with my printed out plans, and the bit's I need to do the ribs:
New material laid out and weighted down to keep it taught. Steady hand and a bit of patience to trace the plans on to the material:
One side done ready to cut out:
Now to repeat for the other side and all the ribs are ready to be worked on.
An on shore wind started up around 11.30am so after a quick cuppa at the lobster (who's called Larry btw) we made for the beach and had a really great day running from the breakwall at Kingston up to the granites. The 6m P2 was brilliant in the 6-12 knots that we had over the course of the day and even the Pansh a15 made an appearance later in the afternoon - and looked good. Bull had the 7m Brooza up and running and it looked great against the blue sky. The wind started to turn more southerly
An amazing storm came through early this morning with some fantastic lightning on display. Before heading to bed, we watched it out to sea, hit Rob's home town, before it gracefully made tracks to the quiet town on Kingston where it didn't disappoint.
We unzipped the front end of the trailer tent, whilst dodging the rain drops, enjoyed Mother Natures light display. I hear John, tinkering around, so he's also up watching too. This was not to be missed. She did a good job with the pyrotechni
A couple of really good days on the claypan with quite a few turning out for the fun. Chook rigged his pole dancer up and proceeded to hurtle past us and pull in front spraying us (well me, anyway) with gypsum or whatever the claypan is made out of. You sure you haven't been talking to Mik333, Chook? Joel gave his Phantom 3 quad a spin with very, very impressive results. He's kindly given me the files so I can put some aerial footage into my vid.
A quiet day today with just myself and
I thought I'd post up the next couple of days wind forecast, then again the same couple of days, just to show you how unpredictable the wind came be.
Forecast as of Tuesday 19th January 2016 8:40am.
Monday 18th January 2016
Dougie @igeighty having fun with his 1997 Revolution II. One of his first kites - from brand new. Thank you to @KaoS for the spar replacement. Last flight for this one was 1998, it broke its spar when it fell from its display at home a few years back.
John's turn....
Very little wind this afternoon but still wanted to go landboarding, I pulled out the old 6m ozone little devil grabbed my board and off to the Oval. Just got set up and working hard to keep the kite up with light wind, when a gust picked up lifting the kite and myself. As I let go of the bar I realized I didn't have the safety leash on.
Standing in the middle of the Oval looking up at the kite thinking it'll come down it'll come down. Last I saw it was headed towards upper Beaconsfield, i
Sunday 17th January 2016
An afternoon in photos..... Enjoy!
I shall update throughout the day. Good Morning Kingston - morning walk as the sun came up.
Formula One Pit for Kite Buggies - Doug @igeighty
Mez of the pan! @mezzararty
Trevor's 9 meter Flysurfer Peak - a bit strong in today's wind but what a lovely looking kite? @Tiger37
John started out with his Ozone Access XT 4 meter. @jhn.holgate
Some good winds between Christmas and New Year here in SEQ. Decided to dust the cobwebs off the buggy and get the bearings turning.
Running Sysmic 2 Buggy with Midi XL tyres.
Kite- Ozone Edge V8 with 24m lines.
Location - Skirmish Point Bribie Island (Beach)
We made an early-ish start on the claypan today to get there before the wind died off. I measured the wind over several minutes at an average of 6 knots......but not for long! Took the cheeseburger wrapper out and had a good run out and back before the wind died to 1.5 knots. After standing around for 20 minutes with a few false starts I gave it up and sat down in the shade with Trevor, Shane, Doug & Mary. After about 3/4 of an hour the wind turned onshore and started to rise so we all j
After a whirlwind of activity at the Hospital yesterday I was released back home into my own care yesterday afternoon. HUGE THANKS to Jason fro Briskites who came into to visit me just as news that I was being released came in just before 1pm yesterday. He was a champion and helped me pack my gear and transported me out to the airport just in time to make my flight. I can't thank him enough for going out of his way to do that for me, that is truly unbelievable customer service you won't see oth
Another beautiful start to another day here in Kingston. A quiet morning with a gentle southerly breeze, roughly 18 knots but no fear, the 23 knots is near! It will pick up towards late afternoon - ready for the Clay Pan.
Went on a walk this morning, down along the beach (only downside is the smell of the rotting seaweed) The water, very calm but no dolphins this morning. Then up onto and along the pier and back along the foreshore. There's a co-op down that way which I'll investigat
Been off the Fentanyl Intravenous Delivery System for nearly 24 hours now and the pain at times has been excruciating. I was flat out lilting the medicine cup with my painkillers in it to my mouth before. I can see it's going to to be a very long couple of months while all the muscles that have been stripped away from the back of my neck slowly rebuild.
For anyone who has ummed and arghed about making the trip to Kingston, no more excuses, it's bloody amazing here! The drive up from Victoria was a warm one, but the start of an adventure. Some amazing natural rock formations coming into S.A truly had the wow factor and it is amazing how different the landscape is.
Kingston, is a quiet little town, about 250kms south from Adelaide and is protected from the direct Southerly winds so the sea doesn't display the crashing waves like that at San
