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Nasa Star 4


windstruck

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Steffen just let me know that Born-Kite is soon coming out with V-4 of his venerable Nasa kites, the NS4. The NS4s will feature better BODAPRE bridle lines, and as you can see below, a new color design. These bridle lines are the same material he introduced with the RaceStars. I own a complete quiver of RaceStars and really like this new bridle material and find it a vast improvement over his legacy bridle line material. More expensive per meter, and worth every Euro IMHO.

According to Steffen, the NS4s will have a new profile, less bridling, new bridle material as mentioned above, and a new color scheme as seen below. I haven't seen it, but he told me that the new NS4 bar will have a "depower bungee" allowing the NS4s to be flown with a harness or by hand. I suspect he is working in some design features as a type of crossover from his StreetStars. The NS4s are said to work on 20m lines (standard configuration), on shorter lines, or directly from the bar, so they should work well for all of our various styles of kiting.

The NS3s were my original SSs and sort of a "first love" for me. Nowadays I mostly use DP SS in the buggy and reserve my NS3 flying for nice static sessions when my family takes beach vacations. My plan out of the gate is to get hold of a 2.5m NS4 when available but hold onto my custom 1.5m NS3 and my custom 3.2m NS3 that I won in the lottery here on XK (doh!).

I know I gush on and on about Born-Kites and likely seem like some sort of pimp for them. In fact, I have honestly greatly enjoyed getting to know Steffen over recent years via email and greatly admire his spirit of innovation and willingness to forge a place in the market with so many "big boys" taking most of the spotlight. I root for the underdog consistently in sports too. The world has too few Steffens IMO, and I appreciate his spirit and support it. The fact that he makes darn good products that fit my needs makes it all come together. Nuff said.

NasaStar4 bridles.jpg

NasaStar4 range.jpg

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2 hours ago, SoutherlyBuster said:

Can see that Steffen is a doing a great job, puting profits back into research and development to further his kiting products. All he needs now is just enough flotation in his wings so they can tolerate a quick dip in the water and relaunch :) 

Good point!  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all.  Maybe something along the lines of the Shaman with it's wingtip closed cells:

https://www.ginkites.com/product/shaman-2/

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  • 2 months later...
6 hours ago, Mfwetu said:

Thanks for sharing @windstruck.

Nice to see that Steffen has kept the price for the NS4 the same as for the NS3 although the lineup has been trimmed down. Any idea if he's going to be making it in the larger sizes?

I too was pleased with the prices. I suspect costs ended up being somewhat comparable on a size to size basis NS4 vs NS3. The new bridle line is more expensive per meter but he groups four attachment points per long bridle line in the "belly" of the kite in the NS4s vs two attachment points grouped per long bridle line for the NS3s. 

I'm not in the market personally for larger FB kites but I can certainly ask him. I currently own custom 1.5 and 3.2m NS3s (the latter having been won here on XK!) and depending on how much more I like the 2.5m NS4 than its V3 predecessor I may want V4 models made of those small ones too. In the past Steffen would accept custom orders for those smaller ones so who knows, maybe he still will for larger ones too. I do know that it isn't as straightforward as proportional scaling in his CAD program. 

I'll shot him an email and see. Will report back. 

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On 12/28/2018 at 1:02 AM, Mfwetu said:

Thanks for sharing @windstruck.

Nice to see that Steffen has kept the price for the NS4 the same as for the NS3 although the lineup has been trimmed down. Any idea if he's going to be making it in the larger sizes?

Steffen just let me know via email that his team is currently beta testing NS4s in the 8.5 and 10m sizes.  Perhaps not surprisingly, air flow dynamics are such that it was not possible to simply "scale" the smaller kites. I suspect that means they'll be offered commercially later in 2019. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/1/2019 at 12:35 AM, windstruck said:

Steffen just let me know via email that his team is currently beta testing NS4s in the 8.5 and 10m sizes.  Perhaps not surprisingly, air flow dynamics are such that it was not possible to simply "scale" the smaller kites. I suspect that means they'll be offered commercially later in 2019. 

Thanks for the update. I'll bide my time until they're available. With their raw power and quick turning ability I reckon the 8.5 will be perfect as a down-wind tractor using my old 2-line rig and 40m lines when I have a few k's of open beach in front of me ?

DSC_0030.JPG

DSC_0029.JPG

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6 hours ago, Mfwetu said:

Thanks for the update. I'll bide my time until they're available. With their raw power and quick turning ability I reckon the 8.5 will be perfect as a down-wind tractor using my old 2-line rig and 40m lines when I have a few k's of open beach in front of me ?

DSC_0030.JPG

DSC_0029.JPG

So that is a cool setup!  With a big kite out at the end of those 40m lines how much pull is needed on the handles to turn the barge?  I see that the static load is taken up by your seat harness. 

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On 40m lines if you're content with big slow turns you don't need a lot of force to bring the kite around but if you want to hurry things up then you've got to give a good strong pull. I did try a 4m NS3 on this setup and it worked well - turned really quickly with minimal input but unfortunately just wasn't big enough to ski behind.   

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