Article 27468 of rec.kites: Path: tug!ibmpcug!laura.pcug.co.uk!hole.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.be.innet.net!INbe.net!news.nl.innet.net!INnl.net!hunter.premier.net!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!math.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!freenet.columbus.oh.us!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!lerc.nasa.gov!purdue!oitnews.harvard.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!harvard-gateway!andrew From: Andrew Beattie Newsgroups: rec.kites Subject: Chevron Progress Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:41:24 +0100 Organization: Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University Lines: 75 Sender: news@das.harvard.edu Message-ID: <9607100941.aa03191@tug.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: endor.harvard.edu Originator: mss@endor I'm on holiday in Yorkshire at the moment, so I'm writing this up on my portable, but it won't actually go out till I return, in about a week and a half. Yorkshire is a lot different to Basingstoke. Back home, most towns have a couple of soccer pitches or somewhere similar that you can jump on and do a little buggying. Nothing spectacular, perhaps, but somewhere to have a go. Out here in the dales, things are different. There is miles and miles of open, unforrested land, but it is all wither walled off for raising livestock, or wild with long grass or heather. Any parks are little more than pocket handkerchiefs, bordered by either roads or trees. The frustration was building, when I happened across a little track, in the middle of no-where, leading off into the distance at an angle into the wind that looked manageable. Joanne looked at me in disbelief as I stopped the car and put the buggy together. The dales are raised above the surrounding coutryside and with the lack of tree cover, the wind was quite fresh, so the best choice was Matthew Hurrell's freshly re-tuned 7m Chevron. With the new primary bridle setting, it's now giving the power it deserves, without any vices. The trip up the track was difficult - I only had the width of an land-rover's axle to play with, so progress was slow but steady. I continued until I reached a small bridge of railway sleepers before turning back towards the car. Coming back was more fun - an easy hill-climb, then a broad reach back to the car, except that as I built up speed on the narrow track, I found myself barrelling through puddles that I had merely trundled through earlier, earning myself a skinful of cold mountain water. That was yesterday. Today, we went further afield, exploring the ancient walled city of York. On the way out of town, we passed the York horse-racing field, which is open for public access, and it was clearly a place to see how well I had managed to re-tune Matthew's 10m. This proved to be a bit of an eye opener... I keep saying that the thing that I'm after is Lift/Drag. I want power. I want speed, I want manoverability, but mostly, I want L/D. Right now, this kite is tuned closer to the edge than anything else I've built. It's so close to the edge that I don't have sufficient skill to it! You can stuff it up in the middle of a reach! It's a bizarre experience - you're stonking along on a reach, everything is working well and pulling hard, then you hit a bit of a gust. The kite gives you a yank and inevitably, you move towards it. That movement was fatal. It moves the angle of attack and stalls the canopy. One moment you've got loads of wind, loads of pull, loads of speed and full control, the next moment, there is no kite on the end of the lines. Sure, it's still inflated, but it's not *flying*. No pull, no steering, no control. If you don't have momentum and a low-drag surface, you've just got to wait till the kite drifts down to a re-launching position (at least it is still nice and easy to recover...) Oh well, I tuned it in, so I can tune it out... [time passes] It's now Monday morning, after the Washington Tyne & Wear festival. I wonder if I'm going backwards or forwards. Matthew's 7m is one of the earliest Chevrons that I built, but it's like a new kite with it's revised primary. He's absolutely delighted with it. I had been expecting I would be unable to get the 7m to perform as well as his new 10m, because of the fundamental improvements in the 10 that are in the cut of the fabric (the rib-shape, rib-sizes, plan-shape) but the tables have been turned. The 7m is stonking and I can't get the 10m to come up to his new, raised level of expectation. I re-tuned it on Saturday night, and then twice again on Sunday morning, but I still havn't hit the spot. I can make it reliable, I can make it inflate quickly, I can make it turn sharply, I can make it fast, I just can't quite persuade it to be all of these things at the same time. I guess I've got a few more knots to re-tie before I'm done on this one... Andrew Microsoft is to Software as McDonalds is to Cuisine