After taking various kites on the bike with me to town, I finally got a day with at least the beginnings of a kite-flying wind yesterday.
I put the purple parafoil up, since it hasn’t had any flying for awhile.
The kite is a scaled up version of the first parafoil I ever made, and has quite a deep aerofoil. That gives it a bit more drag overall – the newer blue parafoil has a much slimmer aerofoil.
My main dislike of it is that the outside bottom fins are made so that rather than having three fins down the line, like the ones in the middle, the outside has a larger bottom fin that takes the place of two. It seems to blow out somewhat in flight, and just doesn’t look as nice as the design of the blue kite.
But it flew well, and without any tail to compensate for errors – as a kitemaker, that is one of my ‘measures of success’ in making a parafoil. You can, and generally do, have to have some sort of tail or drogue on parafoils. But if they are made well, they can and should be able to fly without, I say!
Each day, feed it with some more flour and water. I used mostly rye flour, as I read it is a particularly ‘lively’ food for the sourdough.