Hi all,

Not really a question as such, just wondering as to people thoughts. I recently bought a flexi blurr 3.5 as a replacement to my sting 3.3. While i understood it was going to generate a lot more grunt, I am slightly shocked as to how much more. Yesterday when the wind was 17ish knts, the sting was perfectly manageable as always but there was no possabiltiy of holding on to the blurr (and i cetainly wasnt hooking in on it) Unfortunately the 2.5 Ive ordered had not yet arrived.
Im not new to this type of kite as i fly a pl viper in the lower winds, but what would you say is the realistic wind range of the smaller size buggy engines (blurr/method/viper/reactor etc) as opposed to their tamer counterparts (sting/rage/beamer/soulfly etc)?

Thanks

Realistic wind range and prefered kite style becomes a real personal thing when you get down to small sizes.

The greater the kite skills of the pilot the greater the range. It has more to do with pilot skill that kite design at a certain point.

the best thing about the kites you mentioned is their performance compared to the entry level kites. Upwind, downwind or whatever, they are just better.

Wind range depends on wind quality a lot. We were out a sunset beach and the wind picked up to 18 - 25 ish and I flew a smaller kite (2.3 meter) because of the gusts and lack of beach to play with.

Surface is huge too. Dry lake and 20mph = 50mph + with a small kite. same kite on the beach would be less than 40 I bet.

Variations in line length will make a difference too. Longer lines will generate more power than the same kite on shorter lines. If all your kite lines are the same length then of course this consideration won't matter but something to consider nonetheless.

The biggest difference between entry level foils and intermediate or high end race foils is usually the aspect ratio of the sail. Entry level foils are usually more "square" shaped, meaning they are tall and long more proportionately (low aspect ratio). Intermediate or race foils are usually very long and narrow (high aspect ratios).

Like an airplane wing, the faster the kite flies the more power it can generate. This is called apparent wind. A lower aspect ratio foil will not fly as fast as a higher aspect ratio foil. Thus the higher aspect ratio foil will usually produce much more power than the lower. As AnnieO mentioned, different line lengths will effect power, longer lines allow the kite to generate more speed which means more power, plus the kite has a larger power window to generate power in before it starts to hit the edge of the window and slow down. Shorter lines gives the kite a much shorter power window before it starts to reach the edge of the window and begins to slow down.

As far as flying goes, pretty much anyone can fly a race foil just as easy as a beginner foil. The difference is that the race foil will produce more power and because of its speed, apparent wind and inertia, it will not slow down when it reaches the edge of the window. The race foil will overfly the wind window instead of slow down and stop. This is where experience comes into play. As the race foil reaches the edge, you need to manually slow it down and turn it or it will fly past the edge and collapse on itself, creating a tangled ball of nylon. Beginner foils will not overshoot the edge, thus easier for a beginner to fly because they don't have to worry that much about it overflying and collapsing. Race foils are also usually thinner in profile, taking more effort to inflate or if you stall them, re-inflating can be harder to do. Beginner foils are usually quite fat with huge openings in the leading edge so they stay inflated very easily and hardly ever collapse.

Hope this helps you understand some of the differences between the two.

I can attest to this phenomenon too,... I traded in my 3m Beamer for a higher AR 2.6m PL viper s. the Viper s generates more power at a smaller size, and is generally pretty awesome.

I recently did some good 8-15 foot scuds on wet grass with that little guy.