Slartibartfast

Yeah, buggying as well. Though, save one Flexifoil 4.9m Blade IV I haven't any gear at all here I'm afraid. I had a reasonable amount of gear back in Adelaide but when I moved here a little over 4 years ago I just brought the single kite with me and expected to slowly rebuild my collection but I just haven't got back into the game again, mainly because I haven't found any good sites to fly and haven't had any buddies to explore with. Given how frequently I managed to bang myself up previously I thought it unwise to set off to a remote location on my own, so since moving here I've largely given the sport up completely. It would be great to get back into things again though: 😀

I've been out of the scene for many years but moved to Canberra a few years ago and would love to get back into the scene. What kind of flying are you into?

You could try asking for material at a local drop zone (skydiving club). I worked as a packer for several years before getting into kiting and I can assure you most drop zones have plenty of retired parachutes laying about the place. Parachutes are made from F1-11 ripstop nylon and become porous over time, just like kites. Modern parachutes (and by modern I mean made in the 90's or later) are generally made from a material called "ZP", which stands for Zero Porosity (note they actually meant Zero Permeability but got the name wrong). ZP uses strands that are coated in silicone to reduce the permeability of the fabric but over time and not to mention many a violent opening, the silicon wears off and ZP fabric basically becomes F1-11. Another interesting thing to note about parachute material is that the strands that make up the cloth are not twisted. In most cloth the fibers that are woven together are spun or twisted to make circular 'yarns' that are then woven. This makes the cloth stronger but parachute material is woven from un-spun strands such that the fibers are able to squash flat once the weaving is completed. This reduces the porosity of the fabric which in turn reduces its permeability. I'm not sure if the same is done with kiting material but I suspect not. I suspect the additional strength of twisted yarns outweigh the benefits of reduced permeability for kites and certainly the kites I have check appear to have twisted yarns. It might be the case the these new "super fabrics" they use in these deluxe kites do use unspun fibers but I haven't examined any. Using unspun fibers would improve performance but would also reduce the lifetime of the kite. By the way a brand new parachute is incredibly difficult to pack! Packers will generally charge extra for the first 10 or so pack jobs because they're so damn hard to get in the bag. What happens is tiny slithers of air get trapped between all those layers of silicon coated fabric and the whole bundle becomes almost unmanageably slippery. Many a time I have placed my knee on a nicely folded up parachute while attempting to get it into the bag only to have the guts of the stack come spilling out all over the place. It's amazing how easily this happens with brand new ZP canopies.

For those that missed it, it was a video of people flying para-gliders down ski fields, similar in concept to this: The actual video posted above was better than this one but the general concept is the same.

Well, my money's been refunded, so I guess all's good. Of course I would have preferred to have the kite but at least I'm not out of pocket

Hmm, things went a bit weird... I contacted the guy and asked if he'd be willing to send it to Adelaide and said I would like to pay him through PayPal. He wrote back saying that would be fine, postage to Adelaide would be $33.60 and PayPal fees would be $7.72, so I send him $191.32. He received the money and said he'd send the kite the next day but then later that night I received an email saying: Weird? So at the moment he has $200 of mine which he says he'll return to me rather than send the kite because it's too much of a headache. I hope it works out.

Oow, that Venom is exactly what I'm after. Been after another light wind kite since I busted my 13m Venom II and that 16 seems perfect!

Cool, sounds good. I'll gladly grab one of those of you. Thanks Sinbad (: (:

Yeah, I have tried both Bunnings and Stratco. They mainly have steel wheels and the few plastic ones they do have are for a much smaller axle diameters. They also don't really sell them on there own. I have been thinking of going to Sysmic rims with Midi XLs, just haven't been able to come at the expense. However, given replacing a plastic barrow is looking like $90 perhaps the $300 to upgrade to Midi XLs is starting to look justifiable

Anyone know where I can get a replacement rim from? I see Briskites has then but their only listed as a complete wheels (including tyres and bearings) and acutely cost more than the Sysmic 4x8 rims.

Yeah, that's what I was concerned about when I mentioned the "departure angle" above. For my next attempt I intend to bring the rear wheels closer and raise them a little. As it is it already pokes above the roof rack by an appreciable amount and I don't want to push it much higher but a little extra clearance at the back would indeed be welcomed. Also, if I raise the rear axle too much those tyres will start to obscure the taillights and I'll have to look at wiring additional lights to the rack. I'll be able to plug them into the trailer socket, kind of like those towing boards you sometimes see on boats and alike but I'd rather not bother if I can get away with it

So you wheel the buggy up to the car front wheel first, yeah? Then basically you stand the buggy upright with the front wheel in the air, letting the side-rail/swan-next rest on one shoulder (and possibly shuffle forwards a little to get closer to the mount) then, grasping both side-rails, you essentially lift the whole buggy vertically and drop in into the rack, one side first then the other. Is that right? My buggy weighs in excess of 60kg and is an exceedingly awkward shape to lift. While I probably would be able to manage it that way it would be quite an effort and not something I would look forward to :s

I originally planned to mount the bug facing this way too but ended up deciding to mount it 'backwards' so I could simply wheel the buggy up to the mount, lift the axle in then tilt it up. How do you actually lift your buggy in with it facing 'forwards'? Do you kind of stand it up vertically then lift the whole lot, or do you somehow flip it upside down and back it in, or what? My bug's pretty heavy and simply lifting the axle into the cups is best done with two people, I'd hate to imagine how I'd go getting it in the other way round, especially on my own. How do you do it?

The trig's not really that important. I'm just pointing out that traveling 10 degreese of straight down wind at 2.5 times wind speed seems infeasible.

It's hard to know. That tube is made from 5mm, 2" square hollow section so it is incredibly strong! The main issue is that 2" hollow section does not mate perfectly with the hitch receiver. It fits in there fine and the retaining pin works as it should but there is a but of slop where it slots in. This means the whole buggy is able to rotate axially a little which on a beast of this size and weight becomes quite significant. To make it stable I have to lash the front wheel to the middle of the roof rack and also use a ratchet strap to keep it all tight. You can see the green ratchet strap in this photo": I'm thinking I will have another go at this. Firstly I'm concerned about the departure angle of the current design, as in how low and how far back the buggy's wheels sit. Fortunately the tail lights on this car are fairly high so I should be able to raise the bug some with out obscuring them too much. The S1 also uses 48mm tube for the rear axle, which is exactly what scaffolding tubing is made from so I should be able to clamp the buggy to the hitch with 90-deg scaffolding couplers: Believe me, these couplers are incredibly strong! So I'm thinking I'll reduce that extension arm to bring the wheels closer to the car making the buggy stand more upright and I'll weld vertical tubes to that cross member and clamp the buggy to the vertical tubes with scaffolding couplers. The advantage of using scaffolding couplers on vertical tubes is 1, it will be incredibly rigid and 2, I'll be able to adjust the ride height of the buggy as I see fit.

Well, after seeing all these I decided to knock something together myself and tell you what, and S1 sure looks pretty big hanging off the back of a car: While it works I sure got a lot of looks driving around Adelaide with that thing hanging off the back

You asked for it

Yeah, it kind of seems like he's saying something like that, but I still don't get it. I mean, in what direction is the pole oriented, what does "kite line at the proper angle" mean and what is the "drag angle"? Do they have a pole sticking out the side of a truck with a line attached connecting the end of the pole to a buggy? And if so what force are they measuring with the spring and protractor, then once they've measured it how is this data used? It just doesn't make any sense - well at least not to me

Hmmm, been thinking things over and I have to say the number seem a bit sus. In particular the 2.5 x wind speed, 10° of straight down wind. Correct me if I'm wrong but I calculate this to have an apparent wind of being only 6.5° of straight into the (apparent) wind: (the true wind is coloured blue and is heading straight down the page, the buggy direction is red and the resulting apparent wind is cyan) To my mind it just does not seem possible. I calculate that if you were to travel at 2.5 x wind speed the best apparent wind direction would be achieved at 65.4° off straight down wind, which kind of sounds like what "All the other tracks" were running - although "within 45 degrees either side of a beam reach" does kind of cover most points of sail . Anyway, I calculate 65.4° off straight down wind to give you an apparent wind 23.7° off your nose (ie 23.7°off straight into wind): While a 23.7° apparent wind is sharp I would believe it to be possible, but 6.5° off straight into the wind??? I'm inclined to think the 10° of straight down wind at 2.5 x wind speed is an error. ... Or have I missed something?

Interesting, do you understand what they were measuring? I don't quite understand what this means Anyone get it?

Personally I love the swag! It really depends on how long you plan to stay in one location though. Anything more than 2 nights then I'd probably opt for a tent but if you move frequently than nothing beats a swag. While it's true that they don't really offer any storage space the good thing about swags is there an absolute snap to set up and are always ready to go. I know people always like to say how quick and easy there tents are to set up but nothing compares to a swag, you literally just release the straps and kick it out. Honestly, it takes longer to get your pants off than it does to set up your swag The other good thing is your swag literally contains all your bedding, as in you roll the mattress, quilt/sleeping bag and pillow all up together, so it's always ready to go should you want to grab it at a moments notice. I frequently lash my swag on the back of my motorbike when I head off to parties. If it gets too late or I've drunk too much to drive I just pull the swag off and kick it out on the lawn. I often don't need it but it's always handy to have on hand. When I was a student and spent a lot of time living rough, bouncing between mates places, share accommodation and drop zones and alike it wouldn't be uncommon to spend 3 or even 4 nights a week in that thing. I used my first swag for over 10 years before it finally fell apart and I dare say there was a time that I had spent more nights in that swag than I had in any other bed I'd owned! A swag also doubles as a useful "spare bed" for someone else if ever you have mates crash the night. All that being said though, for longer stays I would recommend a tent - and that includes Kingston. I would never sleep in the tent (God forbid) but if your staying put for a time it is useful to have somewhere to stow your gear. Even when we have set up the tents though I still find I actually prefer to sleep under the stars as it were as you can roll your swag out right next to the fire in a way you never would a tent, which I really like. There are of course a lot of options for swags out there. The cheaper ones tend not to be as water proof as one might hope and the dearer ones though good, are well, dearer Two of the best are made in SA. They are The Tack Room and Candy Canvas swags but well, they don't exactly give them away. My first swag was a Sar Major swag, who also make first rate swags. As for budget swags, I've seen Anaconda push them in there catalogs pretty darn cheep on occasion and I would imagine Ray's Outdoors and BCF would also do a similar trade. It's also worth casting a glance on GumTree every so often and you can also try eBay but be sure to include the work "camping" when searching or you'll be inundated with results of tacky jewelry As for poles, zips and mesh, well it's up to you but personally it all looks like wank to me. A swag is meant to be basic and if you want to prissy it up then by all means go ahead but "Real Men" just use canvas

From the ad: Classic!

Cavitation? Do you mean the "beating" I was talking about? I'm not quite sure what speed it comes in at as it kind of creeps up on you but you start to wonder "what on earth is that?" I'd guess that at perhaps 40-50km/h it becomes noticeable. It's no doubt similar to the experience people have when they put thorn protecting slime in there tyres. I first noticed it on the Kingston clay pan and thought there was something seriously wrong with a wheel. I went back and noticed one of the tyres was significantly down on pressure so I gave them all a good whack with the compressor and was amazed at just how much better the buggy ran I'm not sure what the pressure was down to but possibly 10-15psi or something. It looked fine to the eye but if you pressed it you could definitely feel the lack of pressure. Other than suspension is there any reason for running low pressures? Personally I'd much rather suffer the bumps and take the gains of reduced rolling resistance On a different note I know it's recommended to let the tyres down on a 4x4 whenever you drive on sand but this is for reasons that really don't apply to kite buggies, mainly because we have "rolling" wheels as apposed to "driving" wheels. Essentially what we care about is sideways traction where as a 4x4 cares about driving traction. Also you know, we aren't trying to make 2 tons of steel 'float' on soft sand

I crank my Kenda BeachRacers pretty hard generally running 30-35psi. I find that if I let the pressures drop too much they start 'beating' at high speed, as in you start feeling a rhythmic bump-bump-bump as they turn. I see no advantage to running soft tyres so I reckon you might as well pump them as tight as you think they'll handle I know some believe low pressures offer better traction but I'm not convinced, so I say "Go Hard"

I'd be in in a heart beat! Just the kind of thing I've been dying to do ever since I first got into kiting