Leaderboard

You can go back over the same holes, but of work but totally possible - and about perforation, depends on the size of the panel, location, etc. For vent prototypes, I just keep sewing on new layers and cutting out the old ones from behind.

I wish I could take more days off work and afford hotels for that long. Mid-day 29th through late on the 2nd. Even though the festival is Friday and Saturday, there is casual flying there on Sunday and later. I'll stay as late as I can, but will need to leave before sundown to get back to real life.

Making of the LE fittings First image: Time to do the fittings. Second image: The (polyolefin) heat shrink tubing I got shrinks at 125degC to half its original diameter. While still soft directly after shrinking it is sometimes beneficial to shape it or try to compact it further using the finger tips. Using a (initially) wider heat shrink tubing from the assortment bag gave a higher wall thickness. Unless getting hold of a thicker walled heat shrinking tubing type, the heat shrink fittings would be for indoor and/or small kites only. There are many dimensions (up to 4mm, 1/6 inch, of resulting wall thickness) and materials of heat shrink tubing, but if it would be good (or cheap) for general use I don't know - Beware I have not tested heat shrink tubing fittings on a real/standard sized kite (anyone?). Third image: Cut the side of the heat shrink tubing that would be facing the wing tip at an angle to make the edge of the fitting to become circle shaped after shrinking it (later). Impale it in the middle of the longest side. Then you need to also put the spreader in before applying the heat to shrink the tube to give it the right shape so that the opening doesn't become to small for the spreader. Fourth image: A robust alternative to to heat shrink tubing for the nose was to use a narrow hose. It was initially a little bit too narrow, but it could be softened by heating it somewhat, so it could be slid onto the barbecue sticks.

I know of one person @Stuart McCullough that has made a convertible quad with removable vent covers. Adding vents to as an existing kite is pretty easy. Adding too much vent is just as easy though. Decreasing venting will require a tradeoff of additional weight to cover the vent with a fabric of some sort. As with everything else. It's a balancing act. I bought a bunch of cheap closeout material to experiment with. It's what I use when trying new design elements. I usually add midnight to the name when I use this fabric. Failure has to be an option or you might not get past the afraid to cut fabric stage. Learn from everything yuh ou build and you will begin to see what works and what doesn't before you start your build.

@DonFibonacci Great question and very worthy of its own discussion.. I spent quite a bit of personal thought into venting options. My thoughts and the thread are here All of that being said, there's a bit of science AND art to venting.. Some of it is as simple as putting a hole where the pressure has a tendency to build too heavily.. That comes with a price though as you can render a perfectly good sail almost un-flyable. I've personally gravitated to what I call the balanced venting where pressure relief is across the entire face of the sail. While that works incredibly well for a flow type of flier like myself, it does indeed load up differently and someone that likes to really load and pop the sail would feel a delay. All that being said, if you are venting your own design, what looks right to you will probably work for you as long as it's symmetrical between the left and right sides of the sail.. If there's a part of your sail you know get overloaded in a gust, that area is probably your target for pressure relief.

I''m sure we will cross paths. We will be staying at Solare Tower @ bahia mar.

Cutting surface for fabric.