John, I have watched all your NS2 vids like twenty times each!

Me too

From what I have seen of the NS 2 the bar option is due to the fact the brake and power bridles are connected together, a third line goes to the centre top to "de-power" (I use the term loosely, as it's not de-power as we know it). On normal NPWs we have separate power / brake bridles for a four line set-up.
A compromise on the four line set-up is to add a "Z" bridle so that even with no brake input at the handles / bar the tension is held on the brakes at the kite end and no nose collapse.
On my NPWs they only fly backwards with too much brake input, being able to do this means you can fly it straight down, pull on the brakes and stop the kite dead, making it hover upside down, not a buggy trick but good for static control.
A turbo bar works a treat if a bar is your thing, the only thing I found is that it needs a longer brake line leader adding. Won't be long before there is a big roll out of the new breed of single skin kites.
I haven't flown a Peak yet but the one I made knocks the pants off my NPWs and that really does pain me to say it. The extra power and window would be difficult for any type of kite to match.

Interesting days :D

PS NPW type kites are by comparison an extremely simplistic design with very little wastage on building, the new single skins are much more complex to build. That said try altering an NPW and you realise they are not a simple design, just very well designed.

BigE, does your new single skin fly more like a foil? I really like the nasa wing because it sits deep in the window and provides consistent pull. I don't think I would want a newer style single skin if it behaved more like a fb foil unless I had clean wind. Or does it combine the best traits of both?

Here's a short video I made today. Winds would have been better for a 7 meter but it still worked well. I felt so comfortable I was able to use my helmet for more important things like camera angles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8cU9wHYNPU

:D
Awesome bro!!!! Man I'm really liking those the more I see them!
Does it look like there is any way to mod the NASA bar to accept a swivel style chicken loop to be able to just spin the bar to untwist the lines after multiple loops?

If you had an old bar with a chicken loop then you could probably mod it in some way. Since I have the harness loop I suppose I could run it through a swivel pulley. I thought about that too before I got it but I've just been looping the kite as I go when I need to. I always wondered why I wouldn't see john down loop the kite in a turn. I understand now. You really don't get that whoosh of power from a nasa wing on a downturn. It seems to have exactly the same effect upturning or downturning. I can still slide in the turns but it's definitely not the same type of power as when flying a foil well powered. For an adrenaline rush the foil wins, but I have way more all around fun with these because they deliver good consistent power and are so stable.

The only downside to a swivel pully is not being able to simply lift the Nasa loop out like a regular spreader bar hook. I have an extra swivel chicken loop to play with. Not so much to unspin the lines from simple downturns, but more so to keep line wear to a minimum from being twisted if one was to do a few loops.

Heck. Look at me talk like I already own a few Nasa stars. Lmao ( :evil: )

Modification wise, These things lend themselves only to the imagination since they can be flown in so many configurations. Good idea on the swivel chicken loop. We've been having wimpy wind on the weekends lately, I'm turbo jacked up to get some 4 meter wind!!

Im turbo jacked up for you bro. Lately I'm really lovin' some NS2 media. Lol

Thanks. Hopefully we all get some decent fall wind.

@ssayre

Quote:

BigE, does your new single skin fly more like a foil? I really like the nasa wing because it sits deep in the window and provides consistent pull. I don't think I would want a newer style single skin if it behaved more like a fb foil unless I had clean wind. Or does it combine the best traits of both?

It does combine both, I've built a 10m as a low wind machine and tbh I may have gone too big, it has the NPW traits of low wind flying where a foil would just not fly, power is immediate and smooth, it doesn't luff and without brake input will over fly the window. If the wind drops it just slows down, but as it gusts the power really kicks in, 99% of my flying is inland so I need a kite that behaves in the gusty conditions. It also creates more lift, with my NPWs I'm very comfortable with sending them straight up (unless I'm really powered up and should be on a smaller kite), where as the new one I need to treat it more like a blade. With NPWs the problem is nose collapse to varying degrees these things there is none, the only thing I get is the wing tip flutters at times on turns the full LE never falters, when there is no wind the kite just slides down.

I'm a big fan of the NPWs as you need to fly them and the control you develop I don't believe you would learn from any other kite they seem just too easy to fly. After building and developing my NPWs curiosity got the better of me to see how the new ones are, next is a de-power on the 10m and later a 6m build.

Peter Lynn should take notes from bigE on his new high performance skin.

Peter Lynn's SKIN -from the responses of those that tried it-was not a great success in performance.

It was, though, an inexpensive kite at about $99.
I heard he's redesigning it.

The fact that PL was willing to share the design plans for those that want to build their own was admirable. But better to share a really good plan...if he improves or radically changes it.

But just starting with the shape of BigE's new single skin...it seems he was on the right track and had thought out a better plan.... or at least a better one for a higher performance SS(single skin) kite.

As a big reason for using NPW's is their stability..if BigE's newest SS has simililar stability- PLUS- "knocks the pants off" other NPWs in high performance(power/per/meter, upwind, etc) - then it's fantastic. As an NPW user(mostly in winter these days)...I would certainly like to try his. A new video would be nice to watch at least!

Any R&D done on single skins in general and Nasa’s in particular is admirable. My feeling is that even the simplistic Nasa design suffers from the lack of innovation and possible improvements that could make it a better kite. But it is not surprising considering how time consuming the testing can be (as I found out for myself) with no profit potential.

After well over 4000 km of flying NS2’s alternatively with foils and many hours adjusting bridles, measuring angles and speeds I think I have a fair idea of what I like about them and what I don’t. Being quite impressed initially with their performance I felt I had to find the answer why I need all those foils. As I described in the posting of 10-2-13 – “Nasa Star”, I adjusted the AOA and the pull on the trailing edge to what seemed to be close to the optimal setting. In addition I added 1-4 cm (depending on kite size) to the length of B2 bridle. The mods widened the window by 6-8 deg. (measured statically) and made it indistinguishable from foils in light to moderate loading. Whether this improvement is maintained dynamically can be debated but I have no compelling evidence that it does not. This convinced me that the observed narrower window of Nasas is there by the CHOICE of bridle lengths and it is not an inherent feature of the design – at least up to moderate loads. In fact in underpowered conditions my NS2’s are pointing a little higher than foils and in lightly to moderately powered conditions there is no difference. However in fully powered and close do overpowered conditions the Nasa’s window is narrower and the overpowering downwind pull occurs sooner than with foils. The net effect is that in light to moderate conditions my speed is on average the same for Nasas as for foils. At fully powered situation though I could not match with NS2’s the speed of foils and maintain the same reaching angle. I feel it is easier to go fast, heavily powered up with a foil, with less side pull. My cut-off point is somewhere around 35- 40 km/h for low drag conditions, lower for higher drag. There is a chance that it will be possible to improve this high wind performance by more fiddling with the bridles but this will require more time. For now I feel I found the answer why I still need my foils. In lighter conditions Nasas perform very well and are unbeatable in underpowered situations. As I mentioned before, I fly NS2 on 5 lines and to me this gives maximum control. I started flying them on short lines (3-5 m) and was quite happy with the performance in reasonably mild conditions. However in extreme wind conditions of gusts and directional shifts they were difficult to control. If a wind gust/shift kicks the kite back by a couple of meters – this puts it in the middle of the window on short lines – hardly noticeable on longer lines. Also gybing with any kind of speed is difficult with short lines. For these reasons I moved to longer lines: 10 m for the 7.0 and progressively up to 25 m for 2.5. As with any kite, the faster the kite flies, the greater the benefit of longer lines. I should still get a 1.5 for those days when I use now my 1.5 JOJO sometimes reduced to 1.2.

As to the use of handles vs. bar with NS2. To me the depower function is quite valuable and the kites perform surprisingly well depowered considering the primitive way this is accomplished. In overpowering conditions and the extreme depower setting however, surging becomes a handling problem which I may try to reduce by more bridle adjustments in the future. It is also worth keeping in mind that holding down NS2 on brakes in strong conditions is harder than with a high aspect foil, with much stronger pull which can make things quite uncomfortable. With a bar this is not a problem, neither it is with 5 lines.

I haven’t been able to find an elegant way of folding these things in any kind of wind, usually ending up with a messy bundle that won’t fit in the bag and needs repacking off the wind at home. As trivial as it is, it can be a potential problem for a multi-day trip when untangling a mess in the wind and cold would not be my favourite activity.

Firstly I've got to hold my hands up, my latest build was not my design, it was a set of plans made available for single skin para-gliders. The plans had a lot of variables associated with them, in terms of AoA, profile, aspect ratio etc. Which I altered to create a kite, with the work I have done on NPWs I realised that their primary function was not as a kite but as a re-entry chute which happened to fly well as a kite. The original reversing tendencies and narrow window was a function of it's original design. Like Prussik I have spent many hours tinkering with AoA, aspect and bridle configurations on NPWs. The upshot is I think I have now taken my NPW21 design as far as it can go which is a slightly narrower window than a foil, but with all the NPW power traits.

The new 10m I built is tbh a bit too big (and needs a de-power set-up) which I think is why the biggest Peak is a 9m, I flew my 8m NPW in 2-5 mph wind and it was a real easy fly (static) figure 8s etc no problem little pull, putting the 10m up the power difference was enough to scud and would have easily got you going on a board. I know the size difference is not a fair comparison but even so made me realise just how much more power is being developed.

As for the PL skin it was pretty similar in performance to my NPWs, but would need more time to build compared to a NPW. Seeing a vid of PLs new single skin which looks more like the Peak, they are obviously not far of a new release.

As for folding here's something to try: with the kite lines staked down, walk behind the kite, hold the LE and have your feet below the TE now walk forward a bit, the wings will blow down each side of you, leave go of the LE (or tuck it under your chin) now take hold of the wings folding them in to the front of your body. You can now fold it from the LE down. It's easier to do than explain.

Today was a great janky wind test. Winds were all over the place. I started out with the 4 meter that suited the gusts well but the thick weeds and grass and rough terrain did not like the lulls. I switched to the 5.5 and decided to temper the gusts by steering down wind a bit when overpowered. Intellicast had our winds at 13 mph with gusts to 22 and lulls of probably 7. The 5.5 did extremely well. I had to hit the safety once and it worked like a charm and fast to reset. I was able to get a much better glimpse of what these are capable of speed wise. My field is bumpy and the grass and weeds are retaining moisture and growing like crazy for this time of year which is slowing me up. This summer my fastest speed, on grass, with the viper s is 19 mph. Today I was able to hit 23 mph with the NS2 and If the wind wasn't so on and off, I think I would have been able to go much faster. These definitely have some get up and go to them. I know those speeds aren't fast by beach or wide open area standards but I was very happy with them given my field conditions. All I need now is a backrest in the worst way.

Just put her in four wheel drive and plow through that janky!!
My arm has now been twisted to the point of breakage LMAO.
Good job bud!!

Thanks bro! I will say though, that they aren't magic. When the wind died down long enough, I was lucky to be going at a quick walking pace

:D

Awesome... 23mph is fast on grass IMHO, super happy you found your jank controller. For me it's all about the RII's right now.

I know a certain person in VA that has a 6.9 RII :D

Did you get an rII 3shot?

Thanks soliver. It was a weird wind day. I would be underpowered and giving up ground slowly to the point I was running out of room to being almost overpowered to the point of almost hitting the safety and gaining all my ground back. One thing that was nice was I was able to remain hooked in all day and hold down more kite. That wind would have made me very nervous on my foils.

No. Flyguy0101 has the 6.9m.

Oh the elusive 6.9. It always seems to evade me. Now that I have a handle on my buggy engines for most conditions, I'm going to turn my attention to a homemade backrest until I save up for some sort of vtt buggy upgrade.

Tried the 4 meter in too much wind today. Winds were 20 gusting 30 with some lulls. Would have been a good day for the 2.5 which I don't have yet. Even though these are forgiving they have a limit. It had freakish power in that wind but I couldn't control it. Hit the safety twice, somehow ran over my own arm, then put it away and switched to the 2.6 viper. I'll have to wait for another day to test the 4 meter.

:o 20-30 is some major wind. Heck, pushing 30 might even call for the 1.5

20knots is my limit for the 4m - which I think is around 22mph. The 2.5m would have been just the shot.

Is Scott selling the 6.9m?

No Spencer. Was just saying he had one, and I know you are headed back this way in Oct :D

Hey Sean!!!
:D :D :D ......
That is all.