Musings On Kite Design Stunt Kite Design I intend this to be an ongoing project. As I learn more and ideas occur to me I will add them. The following is my personal view of kite aerodynamics.
Most framed kites are pretty poor low speed airfoils to begin with.
It is only when the kite attains a forward velocity sufficient to cause the apparent wind vector to be within 20 degrees, or there abouts, of the kites forward direction that it starts to behave as an airfoil. The other conditions are when the kite is at the window edges, but this is not really a unique condition since the apparent wind and the real wind are nearly the same and meet the angle requirements stated in the previous sentence. For the rest of the time the kite is in some transition region either starting to behave like a classical airfoil or droping out of such a region. For one thing we can surmise that during the times the kite is not behaving like an airfoil the area of the sail is the dominating factor in making the kite fly. When the kite is in the region that it is behaving like an airfoil then wing efficiency dominates.