In April I started another kite building project. This time my plan was to design a no-wind quad lined kite. After prioritising a couple of other more domestic-oriented projects of mine, I finally got the pieces together and was ready for the initial test flight … in really crap conditions!
Based on the first test flight, I found a few issues to remedy, and today I was ready to take the ‘Choris’ for another spin!
Today started with rain showers but after lunch the clouds drifted away and left the sky for a shining sun, well, mostly. The wind died down to almost nothing making for great conditions to test a no-wind kite.
When I got to the field, there was a slight draft coming in from the water, however shifting directions quite often, but still in the very light area. I got the ‘Choris’ assembled and pulled a 10m (30ft) lineset out of the bag and hooked it up.
Up, up and away, and there was a much more distinct build up of forwards power after the tweaks! But more, much more braking was definetly required. Inverted hovers were very difficult to hold and sudden stops likeways. So over to the kite for some bridle tweaks.
Better but still not enough breaks. Moe tweaking and finally things started to feel better. Now the inverted hovers were stabilised and I was able to dead stop the kite!
I also found that there was a slight unsymmetry in the bridle, and fixing this off course improved the kite’s flying characteristics too! 😉
The ‘Choris’ is an excellent glider! It’s nicely balanced so it won’t fall backwards out of the sky when you walk downwind with the kite gaining ground. The LE seems to have the exact correct weight (and the rest of the kite pretty much exact aerodynamics for gliding) so it glides nicely downwind just slowly losing height.
Up and overs and 360’ies were easy peasy even when the wind picked up a little.
So far I’m pretty satisfied with the kite. I have not flown it indoor yet, but I guess I could sneak into the indoor riding arena at the stable one night to check it out! 😉
I also have a couple of other ideas for improving stuff, but first … the riding arena!
Oh yes, here’s the video!
