F-Arc Motorized Paraglider ?

[Paul Isabelle]

Hi all,

I have been thinking about developing a motorized F-Arc e-paraglider for quite some time now. The F-Arc peel up launches easily, generates tremendous lift, is low drag (great upwind performance) but with unfortunate bowtie susceptibility.

Kite surfing in unstable winds with the F-Arc is almost useless due to the short relaunch window on water (not so bad on snow). My lower aspect clones (900, 1400) are much better regarding this but with less performance whereas higher ones (1900) can be most challenging with only modest performance increase and a tad of quirkiness. The vanilla 1600 would be a good start.

Using such an efficient wing as the F-Arc for a paraglider seems most attractive to me. Bowties may be less an issue since we cruise in light winds, at a very constant speed, with gentle turns and pitch correction. Apart from doing something silly and stalling the F-Arc, bowties or inversions should be less an issue. Lower surface area and higher wing loading implies faster speeds. Not an issue.

Proof of concept

I will be trying the F-Arc 1600 on a small 9.9HP 14foot fishing boat on which I will install a cross bar shortly. The two tow points will be a good 5 feet apart. The front lines could go to the middle of the bar, however, they could also cross and attach to opposite ends. The idea here is to increase autozenith reactivity, keeping the kite parallel with the bar at all times.

Questions:

Has anyone ever heard of an autozenith setup like this? Does it work? Are there thing to know?

Would steering the kite be better (kite turns, craft follows) than a rudder or direction of thrust (craft leads, kite follows)?

Perhaps an active kite control system (Arduino, sensors, servos) would be better? The lines and kite could be spread apart with much shorter lines.

Not a good idea ? 😞

Paul in Quebec City Canada.

[Gulf Kitesurfing Paradise]

Bonjour Paul. Peut on en discuter ? WhatsApp 0097332233327 

[nigel]

I have to ask, why?

Past generation fixed bridal race kites, like Vapors, Combats, Yakuza's, or current generation de-power race foils (R1's, VMG's), would have superior performance to the F-Arc.

They would also have less handling "quirks" (bow tie).

 

If your committed to the Arc.

A few people (and Peter Lynn) have played with adding a bridle to an Arc before.

This would remove the bow tie issue.

These bridled Arcs have an "A" and "B" attached to the cells at different points.

I happen to have one of these from the secret squirrel works at the PL factory.

Leading edge is on the right hand side in the pic.

 

 Thinking of my safety, wouldn't a proper rated wing (paraglider wing) be a better option?

These high performance kites might over fly when attached/anchored to a base of some sort.

I know from experience, that when a kiter is in the air, you need to pull the brakes on as you descend, to stop the kite over flying.

So you will have to back bridle, or increase the AOA of the kite in some way to stop this. 

A performance loss?  If you need to fly with the so called "brakes on" all the time?

 

Keep us informed of your progress, and good luck.