From: jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu (Jeffrey C. Burka)
Newsgroups: rec.kites
Subject: Kites I flew last weekend...
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:42:14 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland at College Park


I got to play around with a couple of kites last weekend.  First was a 
Rev I with the ultralight kit.  The sail was homemade, but everything else
was straight from the factory kit, which includes bridle (made of spectra), 
endcaps/bungee, and long-throw handles, as well ast he 3-wrap Advantage frame.
I was flying on ~70' of 80# spectra.  I'd flown this particular kite once 
before, but it was tuned quite right at the time, and the winds were a bit 
higher.  Yesterday I was having no trouble flying it in ~2mph in the middle 
of the wind shadow created by a hot-air balloon.  The kite just popped right 
off the ground and flew with no trouble at all.  Very slow and graceful, and 
with lighter/shorter lines (say 40-50 feet of 45# spectra), it'd be even 
better.  This is definitely a worthwhile purchase.

I also got to fly (finally!) Benson's new Swallowtail.  Ooh!  Nifty!  Instead
of the normal dart keel, this kite has two little sailettes (;-) extending
down from the t-fitting, like the tail of an angelfish (or Joel Scholtz'
Neptune).  Benson is far more sensible about his tail than Scholtz.  On
the Neptune, the tail is kept taut by a piece of fiberglass that curves
by the sail.  While this works, it distorts the sail by the spine.  Benson
simply has what amounts to leading edge pockets that meet at the t-fitting,
and the swallowtails are held out by graphite spars (held in place with the
obligatory bungee).  All this is stuck onto a kite that looks an awful
lot like a Phantom, in terms of size, geometry, and construction.

So how does it fly?  Well, the Swallowtail seems to take a bit more wind,
but once it's in the air is shockingly reminiscient of the Phantom.  It
sounds just like a Phantom and has the same solid feel through turns.  The
big differences seem to be that it turns an awful lot faster (though nothing
like the High Profile, Benson's other new kite) and it skates beautifully.

While not an overly radical kite (certainly more than the Phantom though),
this kite needs the now ever-present piece of monofilament strung along
the bottom--the double tails just provide too many places for your bridles
to get snagged.

I also got to take a closer look at one of the new EFMs from Big Easy Kites.
I first flew the EFM (then the Mariah--Trilogy got their Moriah on the market
first, so they got the name) when it was still being worked out and was
impressed with it's light wind capabilities, silent flight, and solid feel.
But it never appealed to me like the Phantom (the kite from which the EFM
is partially derived).  Even the original Mariah has the innovative stand-off
system which relieves pressure from the lower spreaders.

Over the past 6 months or so, Big Easy has been making a number of 
innovations to the EFM that are quite neat.  The most obviously visible
one is to the bridle.  The EFM's bridle is rigged like the Phantom's--the
static line goes to the t-fitting instead of the lower leading edge.  But
that's where the similarity ends.  On the EFM, the dynamic line has been 
shortened and the static line lengthented.  Instead of attaching the flying
line to he junction of the two lines, the flying line is attached to a 
loop of line that's on the static line.  Both the static and dynamic lines
have markings for wind ranges, with corresponding color.  For instance,
for light winds, put both lines on the black mark.  Once you've adjusted both
lines for the right wind, you can then adjust the static line for oversteer.
By doing it this way, you can adjust the attitude of the kite without changing
where the bridle is set over the pocket of the sail.  It's quite neat and
something I'm anxious to experiment with.  Another advantange to this 
bridle method is that it supposedly increases the wind range of the kite
into the 20s (the EFM is sparred with beman 5.5).

The other major innovation is to the lower spreader.  There are 3 ways to 
use the bottom spreader, thanks to vinyl stops glued to either end at 
different lenghts from the end of the spar, *and* a removable vinyl stop
that can be slid on one end.  The t-fitting is extra wide to allow different
amounts of the spreaders to be inserted.  By using the shorter options on
the spreader, you pull in the bottom of the leading edge, creating a camber
in the sail.  Also included with the kite are two different top spreaders.

All in all, it's a neat package, and one I'm far more interested in now
than I was when I first flew the kite.

Jeff










-- 
|Jeffrey C. Burka                | "Show what you are / Be strong, be true  |
|                                |  Time for you to / Be who you are."      |
|jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu            |                         --Happy Rhodes   |