DESIGNER NOTES FOR 08 INSTINCTS

Transcription

1 DESIGNER NOTES FOR 08 INSTINCTS The History of the 2008 Instinct kites. Wow that sounds like a grand statement, but that is how it feels. Since the beginning of the Instinct kite in 2006, my aim has been to design kites that I like to fly. Simple really, but it has taken a journey to get to this point. Back in the beginning life was simple! Well, it seems it now. All we had to do was design a flat kite, or SLE, or Bow Kite, or Hybrid or whatever you like to call the modern style of kite. Personally I don t care what it is called, as giving them a name immediately limits their potential. Oh, and also start a production team to make these kites of course. You see, we were starting from nothing in terms of inflatable kites. Hell, we didn t even have any software that could easily design them. It was only towards the end of the design of the 2006 Instinct (the original one) that a very clever and dedicated software guru developed our tube kite software. Just in time to make the sizes of the original kite. Thank god! Shit, if I had tried to make the sizes in the same way as the final proto of the 06 11m kite I would possibly still be finishing them! Those were the days. Why bother telling you this well, not for any sympathy that s for sure, but simply to say thanks to everyone who bought the 06 Instincts. Thanks for believing in us to produce quality kites both in terms of design and manufacture. And looking back, by a mixture of dedication of our skilled production team, and a heap load of good luck, that is what we managed to do. But even as we launched the 06 kite, I knew they needed to be better. I knew the turn was a bit stally, the water relaunch was bad, that I had given in to time pressure and added 2 more struts than I really wanted simply to get rid of creasing that had already cost us 2 months of testing and prototyping. Don t get me wrong, I loved that first kite, it got me excited, it was a great start. I knew there was a lot more available from the kite. So I set about developing the 07 kites. Well, when I say kites, that wasn t the original plan! There weren t supposed to be 3 kites in the range. That is just what came out of the testing. Throughout the summer of 2006 I was trying all sorts of combinations of struts and sail panels. I was again fortunate that the wind was good for summer here so lots of testing was possible. What emerged at the end were 3 very different kites. During the design, I had seen that I could make a kite with 3 struts work and having watched the local schools struggle to teach on the shit traded in or left over from renting, my engineering brain went in to overdrive to minimalise the kite as much as possible, reducing the number of panels and hence sewing, making it lower aspect and so on, all aimed at producing a modern teaching kite for a sensible price the Instinct Light.

2 And so to this year and the development of the new kites. Umh, where to start! The original idea was to make a pure light wind kite, a new model in the range. My basic idea was to make the kite as light as possible, with super thin struts and leading edge, no reinforcing on the sail, no Dacron in the tip, nothing added that wasn t needed. Doing all this saved 1/3 the weight and sure enough the kite could be used in lighter winds. I had a 13m and a 16m. Both were working from around 7 knots up and yes we could ride. Only problem was once the wind got to 12 knots and you needed to depower the kite, all shit would happen with the kites collapsing inverting all lovely stuff like that. Ok, so that didn t work. And no, this kite is not going to be added, but to be honest it is not now needed as described below. But like all failures, good things came from it. I had seen where the limit was on tube sizes and had worked on a new section profile for the kite and tip shape. So, starting from the 07 kites, I added these features to the kites, just not as radical as on the light wind kite and what do you know, the basis for the 08 kites was there. Sorry if this sounds boring, but sometimes design is a matter of step by step changes and what I have just written in this paragraph has actually taken 6 months of work. To give you an idea, I always start with the 13m sizes as that is the best suited to me, especially for summer in Vietnam. For the Sport08, it has taken 8 protos for this size alone, whilst the Edge has taken 6 and the Light 14m 4 protos. Oh getting ahead of myself, yep there is now a 14m Light! So if that is the summary of the work, here are the details of the changes to the 08 kites. Sorry if this next bit sounds like marketing bullshit, guess that is what happens when you write down what has changed and what is better than before! General Changes : It s kind of hard to choice which point to start with as the main changes are all related. Without one, others would not have been possible or have worked, so this description may seem like a circle that goes round and round, but as I say, often design is like that you change one thing which then lets you look again at another and then another, which then leads back to the first thing you changed which can then be further refined. Round and round we go, where we stop is well, that comes later! 1) Thinner leading edge tube This came directly from the work on the light wind kite. I had seen how thin I could go on the tubes, and so set about putting on the kites. There are several advantages to having thinner tubes : a) less material so lighter kite b) lighter kite means takes less wind to keep it flying c) lighter kite also means it takes less energy to turn it d) thinner tubes also mean less air inside them. Although this doesn t really make it lighter (warning : physics content ahead) it does mean that the kite has less mass and hence less inertia, so when you want to change

3 direction of the kite, i.e. turn it, there is less inertia to this change and it turns faster. e) thinner tubes also mean less drag from the kite, less drag means more speed is retained and the kite flies better as a result. f) An extra benefit from thinner leading edge is that if the kite is one-pump, then you can increase the pressure of the front tube and hence the pressure in the struts (thankfully as they need it) without splitting your front tube open with all the force on the seam. Sorry, more physics content ahead : pressure is the force applied over an area. So the bigger the area of cloth (i.e. the larger the tube diameter and hence circumference of the circle) then the more force is applied to the cloth. Make the tube thinner then the pressure of the air inside has less area to act over and hence the force on the closing seam on the front tube is less, or you can keep it the same as before but gain in having more pressure in the tube. More pressure in the main tube means more pressure in the struts so they become more hard and support the sail better. This then allows the section profile of the kite to be altered to be more efficient etc. Wow, long explanation sorry. Big diameter means big area for pressure to act on means big force on seam closing the b Smaller diameter means smaller area for pressure to act so can have more pressure inside for same force on the seam.

4 g) Thinner front tube also makes the kite more flexible, less stiff as the front tube can twist more. Helps with the feeling in the turns especially. 2) One-Pump on all models The Sport already had it for 07 and so we are happy with the system we are using. The Light could have had it last year but we were worried schools would not like having it on this kite. But in reality it seems that if we want to be able to sell the Light as a real kite, then people need it to be one-pump. So sorry to all those instructors who now have a harder job to change bladders in the kites. On the Edge, it was more a matter on the 07 that it simply would not work. Basically, to get the thin struts on the kite to be pressured enough, the leading edge would have been way too hard and likely to break. But by reducing the size of the front tube, the pressure in it can be higher and so the pressure in the struts is also greater and it now works, even for the thin (and hence light) struts on the Edge. One thing though you have to really pump the kites hard now, especially the Sport and Edge, less so the Light. 3) New tip shape You may only really notice this by looking at the new and old kites next to each other. But in fact the change is quite large. Basically, the tip section from the last strut to the end of the kite is shorter. Not the chord of the last strut, that is basically the same. What I realised was that the tip was too big. It s part of the history of the Instinct! In 06 it was too small giving the stally character in the turns, in 07 it was too long giving the feeling in the bar and need for faster turn for 08. This is what the new shape tip has done, it has increased the turn of the kite (the other changes have also helped this as explained above). In effect, having such a long tip section before made the vertical difference between the back lines and the power lines larger and it was like you had already pulled the tip down. This made the bar less effective, giving the feeling of less depower in the bar and less turning effect on the kite. The new tip also lets you pull more power from the kite as it has a larger range it can go through and hence effect on the rest of the kite whilst the other changes allow this to happen without the kite stalling.

5 Can move through larger angle, more control

6 4) New section profile. Because of the changes to the tubes, I was also able to experiment with different profiles on the kite. As a result, the performance of the kite has been increased and thankfully, the sail is a lot, lot cleaner now. Finally managed to clean it up. Not saying it the cleanest sail on the market, but at least it doesn t need any battens in the sail either! Added benefit of the cleaner and tighter sail is that when you depower, you don t get the same level of fluttering or as one friend here says it not farting. So the kite feels nicer as a result. So anyway, those are the main changes to all the kites, but what does it mean in specifics to each kite and how they feel, well here goes. These are only my opinions. There is really only one way to know what you think, that s to try them. Instinct Light I tried a 14m Light last year, but it was just too heavy. Well now, with the thinner tubes, the whole kite is lighter and so I have been able to make a 14m work, so a new size for 08. In fact, it more than works, it rocks in light winds. Just ask Paul, Twan or Skator (I m too fat to ask!) they all like this kite in the light stuff. Paul especially never really liked using a bigger kite, tending not to go above a 11m anything bigger and it would just drag him off downwind. Not any more, he loves the 14m and indeed the bigger Sports and Edges. That tells me a lot about the kites this year. Whilst I was working on the 08 12m Light, I checked the 07 version again and at this point I have to appologise to anyone who bought one for general riding shit that thing has a strange turn. It turns, goes straight right to the other side of the window then says ok, now I will turn back if you like. Nothing you do with the bar changes the direction of the kite until it decides it wants to. Shit, I nearly took a windsurfer out flying that kite. So sorry guys! Good news is that this nasty characteristic is GONE on the new one, completely gone. In general, all the Lights are faster this year which makes them really nice for general riding. Also, being even lighter in weight than before, they all start flying at a lower wind speed. And this is why I stopped the specific light wind kite project. Basically, take a Light 14m instead. To me, this and the Sport 15m (new one, see below) are light wind kites. Instinct Sport Umh, I think people will really like this kite this year. Basically they are faster, turn better and have a better feeling in the bar. I know, I know, same as everyone else writes, but I can not think of a better way of putting it. As I said above, for me, one of the big

7 differences with the 08 s is that 60kg Paul, who never liked the big kites before as they just dragged him off downwind, this year is happy to fly even the 15m Sport. And it starts flying in very light wind. One problem with the 07 Sport was the feeling in the bar, it could sometimes feel a bit woolly or dead. Basically, the new tip shape has allowed me to trim the kites so the feel of depower is more direct in the bar and so it feels more like you have an accelerator again, more like the 06 kites. To me, this makes the kite easier to understand and fly, but for sure, you will feel the gusts more as the bar will be pulled more than on the 07, but to me, this is actually a good thing. The 07 Sport would tend to slow down and stop in the turns, especially in light winds, but the new ones don t, they just keep going round. I think it may be a hard job to convince people that the 15m is a good kite (we didn t sell many 07 15s) but if riders try it, I think they will be surprised by it. We just need to spread the word. As I write this, the 11m is the sweetest in the range, but the rest are not far behind and will get better with more testing for sure. The bar feeling is just perfect. Really nice acceleration when you pull in, slow down when you let out. Makes boosting the jumps so easy, and turns in the waves so nice. Again the lighter weight helps here. Instinct Edge Hell I love this kite. Sorry, but I do. Main improvements this year I would say are better feeling in the bar, especially through the jumps (there is more depower in the bar so better feeling of control); kites are even faster than last year (try the 7m and you will see what I mean!); and to me, they jump even easier now. Not sure whether the jump is due to the better bar feeling or the kite being more powerful, probably both! This kite is still my weapon of choice. The 7m is unreal. The first time I tested it, it was the end of a long, long day of testing, starting with the Sport 15 and going all the way down to the 9m. Just before the sun disappeared completely (and the wind with it) I said to Paul let s try the 7m Edge, thinking he would have a go, but no way 95kg of me would, the wind was less than 20 knots on the beach. As always with a new proto kite, I checked it out on the beach first to make sure it was trimmed about right so Paul could ride it. But whilst Paul went to get his harness on, I thought, umh, I wonder and off I went. If I felt tired stood on the beach (we had started at 10:00 a.m. and it was now past 4:00 p.m.) I sure didn t once on the water! What a blast! So much fun. After a quick session, I handed it (reluctantly) to Paul and off he goes boosting crazy high jumps without even asking to! 15m high was the norm. Big smiles all round! Cant wait for the 30 knot days to arrive here. So there you go, that s it really. At the moment we are just finishing all the sizes and testing and retesting the kites in different conditions to make sure they are sound. I hope you like them, I hope they bring you big smiles. Cheers guys, David.