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FlowForm
I just completed my first "FlowForm" on Saturday afternoon (5th September).
It's from Jim Rowland's book on kites and windsocks. All the kites in the book
are "soft" (not one spar in there at all at all). I scaled up by 14%
so that the span of the flowform is 2m (approx 7 feet).
There is 1 bug in his plans for the flowform, but other than that ...
As I said, I've never built a flowform before so I just took faith in
Jim. The bug's easy to spot, and is no big deal.
Saturday was a very light wind .... too light for a roller.
The flowform flew on 400lb dacron line. First time out!
On Sunday it was blowing in excess of 30mph, very gusty, and heavy rain.
I would not have dared fly one of my parafoils (they would have been all over the place).
The flowform stayed aloft from when I arrived to when I left the site (approx 1.5 hours in the
air). When I took it down it must have weighed in excess of 3 times its normal weight.
The kite moved around in the air (anything would in those gusts) but it never flipped.
The book recommends 300lb line (approx). I used 600lb line on Sunday, and I worried at times!
The flowform took 12 meters of ripstop and 40 meters of 100lb dacron (for bridles).
Therefore, material cost was approximately 35 pounds (sterling). The kite took 2.5 days to build
(at a leisurely pace. This is a hobby you know!), Therefore say 20 hours.
My opinion ... could this be the best single line kite yet? It is stable (or as stable as you can
expect), flies in a WIDE wind range, has a strong pull, and has a genuinely "high tech" look.
Now could I scale it up, say to 4 meter span, and still use the same proportions?
Do I really want to :-)
Patrick
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