thought I’d update this as I’ve now managed a decent session on the 9m in winds touching 25 knots. The wind was a little up and down so this was good test for sure.

At this point I’ve only done the mod in it’s basic form. I haven’t installed the 2 extra lines from the centre attachment on the leading edge or the pulley attachment. I’m not 100% on the benefits of these tbh. but we’ll see.

Performance.

turning. Here’s the true bonus. It’s sharp and direct. It actually loops very nicely with only one side of the kite deforming - bit like the 2009 RISE from memory. But it’s a big improvement.

Feel. Better. More direct. Bar pressure is reduced ever so slightly but you can actually feel the kite. It’s not power steering by any means but has a feel that I quite like. You can feel where the kite is.

Stability: Another bonus: It’s actually become very stable and well behaved. I’m trying to unhook more and more and I’ll admit I’m pants at it but letting the bar go against the stopper on a long throw the kite will sit / drift slowly. It behaves giving you half a chance to get back in. Pull too hard on the centre line with the bar too far out and you will pull it out of the sky so there’s practice and balance needed on my part.

Relaunch. This is now ridiculously easy, too easy. Tweak a rear line and it pivots. Not too disimilar to the delta style kites aka Wainmans etc. relaunch is crazy easy on those.

Power / Depower. now here’s the good and perhaps the bad. It has stacks of power for sure. loads of low end. Top end is there too. No worries. BUT the mod, yesterdays conditions and my lack of recent flying time on the ONE’s exposes the stally nature of the kite. It didn’t fly backwards or anything, just felt strangled. Build up your board speed again and all is good again.

Jumping: Bit of an odd day yesterday. One minute you were flying the next hardly getting off the deck. This leads me to suggest that getting good pop helps. The float is now insane. Pretty crazy before and it’s still there and perhaps even more. One jump yesterday I literally stopped and sat there watching the world go by before coming down.

Overall a definate improvement but I need more flying time so watch that leading edge for defomation and stuff. Didn’t see anything yesterday which leads me to believe things aren’t looking positive. I also want to see what effect the range of adjustment on the rear lines has. I’ve built in a fair bit there. in addition I also want more time in a range of conditions to review the overall performance with regard to stalling etc.

Good stuff Wisha / Greg

Glad to hear it’s working for you, NooNoo. If you want to reduce bar pressure, then add the line from the original pulley attachment point. It doesn’t alter the steering improvements, but improves kite stability as bar pressure is reduced, and also reduces depower ability as bar loads are reduced. There is a pretty big sweet spot - it’s easy to adjust and find the flying characteristics that work best for you.

I’ve been flying my 9m a few times and yesterday my 7m with a shorter version of this mod, and am pleased with it. Yesterday the 7m made a fairly gusty 25 - 35 knot day a lot of fun. It’s a very simple mod that uses all of the original bridle lines and requires very few new additional lines.

I will post details and pictures of my shorter-V’s version for 12, 9, 7 m sizes, along with a method to size it up for a 16m ( I don’t have One that big ! ).

NooNoo - about the stalling you mention - was it “Front-stall”  ( kite at max de-power, zero or negative angle of attack, dives forward, kite inverts, crashes, general mayhem until it pops back to its design shape )  or, given your mention of flying backwards, more likely “Back-stall” ( kite at too high an angle of attack, kite slows right down, has no lift but loads of drag, or even flys backwards )  If it’s the latter, then it’s just sheeted in too far (or your steering lines are maybe about an inch too short ). On C kites it was easy to recognize over-sheeting, when the rear-edges of the wingtips were tilted inward. With the flat One and almost no curved-down wingtips, it’s hard to tell when it’s over-sheeted, other than it flying with a lot of back-stall.

If it’s Front-stall, the Ones are famous for this when sheeted out a long way, the Rises will do it too, without the inversions or so much mayhem. Adding the pulley-point line and reducing bar pressure will reduce this problem, or eliminate it ( at the expense of maximum depower ).

Hi Greg

Back stalling is definately the issue which is a characteristic of the ONE in it’s original form. Basically bar into too far and the kite slows and generates no power. Sheet out and it’s off again. Being sooo flat etc. they were always prone to it. A quick look back at old threads and you find a catalogue of people struggling with them initially as they throttled the hell out of them, something you can get away with a lot more on a C kite. So many found the transition from C kites in particular difficult and odd.

The up and down winds made the problem a little more obvious so I do need to test it in “prime” conditions for sure.

Bar pressure I’m ok with for sure but might be interested in even more stability. Look at that one.

I’ve subsequently given this another couple of goes i.e in its basic form (without Gregs extras). The last session was in some real gusty horror stuff going between 20-25 up to 35mph. A real test for any kite.

The truning I really like and the positve feel this gives at the bar is also excellent. The kite is now very sensitive to set up and sheeting which was partly due to the conditions. Simply the wind was as bumpy as a camel. Although the kite coped very well the sensitivity to set up etc. meant it felt as though it had lost some of it’s lift (I’d set it quite depowered) and the kite distorted in the gusts and when looping. But the kite is extremely well behaved now.

I’m going to try Gregs short bridle version now to see if that can add some extra support to the leading edge.

Definately getting there