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1. Light Saber

   07/02/08 08:55:14 | 0 Comments

   So... It's been a while since I have posted, so I thought I would share a bit. I flew the light saber today, and I think it is getting better. Right now I think the only thing that I don't like about it is that it is kinda slow going to the fade in a Jacob's ladder and it is hard to get it out of a turtle when it is wrapped up.
   
   Other than that I am loving it. Flat spins nicely, which is not at all what I was expecting given the std. It is somewhat a cross between a UL and SUL in its weight, so it is nice in the light winds we have here. I don't like how many SULs feel, just the oh so floaty feeling, so I am happy to work a bit harder to get the mass necessary to do a lot more tricks.
   
   It isn't that great in forward pitch, but that is ok. I am not good at it, and it is a really light kite anyway. It might be good, but I just am not that good at that sort of stuff and so can't do anything on it yet.
   
   Precision is still eye poppingly good. Makes a nice noise in a sharp turn, so octagons sound good. Kinda cool.

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2. Made a few more changes to the std

   06/19/08 11:51:00 | 0 Comments

   I flew the std a bit today in winds ranging from about 1-4 and shifting. I broke a LS on the light doing a cynique from a k200... guess I learned my lesson on that one.
   
   So I made only one little change and it really helped the kite I think. Instead of just 1 12" standoff per side, I set it up with 2 113/4" standoffs per side, about 2" apart. Pitch is really nice now, before it kinda hesitated when pitching from some positions, but now it is very snappy in all positions flip wise. Flat spins a bit better than it did before. The UL flat spins just fine, but this kite originally was impossible, then just horrible, and now it is only bad. I can occasionally get a flat slot machine, but still no good 540s.
   
   A few other tricks got better, like the wap doo wap. Overall, I think that it is better.
   
   This kite is almost all I ever wanted in a kite, I would like it to do mulilazies a bit better, as right now it has a nasty habit of either deepening overly much or only rotating about one wingtip.
   

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3. After a tiny bit of time on the light saber...

   06/14/08 15:05:48 | 0 Comments

   Now that I have gotten a bit of time on it and made some mods that seem to make it work better, I can really start this thing I think. I am still far from done, but it actually flies like a decent kite now.
   
   Changes I made:
   
   I added a leach line to make it a bit faster in most things, the saber has a very loose TE, which I like, but it made the light have a bit to little drive. This has worked as I hoped it would.
   
   I made it use 2 standoffs per side. I know that this is a huge departure from the standard, but it is a different kite.
   
   I changed the bridle to something similar to the one used on the nirvana.
   
   
   
   
   So how does it work?? I think fairly well.
   
   Tracking is fairly good
   
   it turns really tightly and fast, but with absolutely NO oversteer.
   
   Stalls really easily
   
   flat spins nicely
   
   fairly stable fade
   
   easy cyniques
   
   yoyos extremely fast, never had such a lovely kite for pitch. I did a yoyo dead launch today
   
   Easy dead launches
   
   Super sweet multilazies and yoyo multilazies
   
   Really nice tip stabs, I can now do a tip stand in our packed dirt field, which it is impossible to get a purchase on. As with the winds, if you can do it here, you can do it anywhere...
   
   
   
   So what is not working yet??
   
   It has a fairly bad dead spot. No where near as bad as the CTC, but that same general thing. there is a spot which it is hard to recover from in a flare a bit beyond horizontal. The part of a jacob's ladder to a fade is hard, as the kite wants to stop a bit before it gets parallel to the ground.
   
   It is hard to get a really nice landing, it doesn't want to go all the way around.
   
   Flapjacks are actually really hard, as you can't let the kite go forward before the pop at all. If you do that, it will go a bit to far and make it really hard to get the input for the lazy to work.
   
   I think most of these issues can be resolved with enough playing around with standoff position and weights.
   
   I would really like the inputs for it to be a bit larger. It still requires more than most kites, but still not quite enough think. I will have to play around with the bridle on that one.
   
   I still really want to try it with a skinny SUL frame, when I can afford it
   

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4. Light saber

   06/07/08 05:21:35 | 0 Comments

   I just finished making the first prototype for the Light Saber (Saber UL) Total weight with what I think should be a reasonable amount of tailweight was a bit less than 8.5 oz, about 4 oz lighter than the std.
   
   The frame is P90 LEs and spine, 3pt LS. I would really have preferred to use Skinny SULs, but I don't have any, and I would really like to have this flying fairly well for ODSKC.
   
   I still haven't flown it yet, but hopefully soon.
   

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5. What's happening...

   05/21/08 11:58:54 | 0 Comments

   I have been doing a bit of experimenting with the frame a bit. I'm waiting for some more G-force SULs, because I used my last spare. I still have enough for the lower leading edges, but don't want to be stuck with a broken leading edge and no replacement. I have been trying 5PTs in the LLE, not quite as good as G-force SULs but still better than P200s. Comets, precision, and BS cascades aren't quite as good.
   
   I finally figured out the cynique, I just needed to give the input before it fully completed each rotation.
   
   I have been trying G-force ULs in the ULE, I don't think they work as well as the P200s, but I would like more time on them.
   

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