Stuff that went wrong

Things to think about:

Here is an email from the foildesign group that describes and solves my willi wing problems far more elequantly than I ever could:

Hi John,

Sounds like it needs more of a front wedge.  Flying the kite across the
window increases it's speed and effectively lowers the AoA.  This can allow
flying to the top of the window, but as soon as you try to park, the kite
will drift back down.  Your kite will probably work better in high wind (but
this problem still there), and total rubbish in low wind, yes?

> window. It hovers in the middle of the window, but once it gets
> some speed, it flies!!

Yep, sounds like it needs more front wedge.  Perhaps try more wedges at 25%
and 75% of the span - don't wedge the centre any more - too much wedge in
one point can cause that point to luff before the rest of the kite.

Cheers,

Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Glazebrook [mailto:john.glazebrook@idesta.com]
> Sent: Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:42 PM
> To: Foildesign@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Foildesign] Construction technique ? - reinforcing tape
> ontop/bottom face
>
>
> >From: diego [mailto:diego@epitec.com]
> >
> >PS John can you tell me why your Willy didn't fly?
>
> Heh! I wish I could!
>
> I was very hard to get the kite to fly up through the window,
> when I managed
> to get it parked above my head it would either:
>
> float back down to the middle of the window.
> luff *really* badly
>
> I tried a LE tuck which kinda worked, but it still won't fly the whole
> window. It hovers in the middle of the window, but once it gets
> some speed,
> it flies!!
>
> We put it on a bar (it was on handles) but this made it worse, I think the
> extra control with the handles compensated for the naff kite.
>
> I'd love to get this kite flying, mostly because I think I would
> learn loads
> about sleds from the mistakes I have made...
>
> But I wanna get the LEI up first :-)
>
> john.e.boy
>
>
>

So thats what Dave thinks I should do.

I may try some top / bottom skin tucks first though. I would love to get this kite flying, but at the moment I am concentrating on my leading edge inflatable kite: TeethGrinder...

Also

The first time I crashed the willi wing hard it tore the top skin on a stone.

The second time I crashed it, the spar ripped through it's pocket. As I tried to land the kite the stress on the canope tore the end cell.

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