Category: Kites

Silver flowform

The blue parafoil is finished – and I’m going to strike while the iron is hot to start making another kite!  Striking with a hot iron, even just a hot soldering iron, is something you need to be careful of when working with rip stop nylon!

Flowform kites have a lot in common with parafoils, but are not nearly so ‘elegant’.  But considerably easier to sew, and since I’ll be sewing this one myself, that is a real factor.

The kite will be just under a metre wide, and a bit over 1.1 metres wide.  The lack of exactitude here is due to the fact that the pattern is done in inches, and I’m converting to metric for the layout.  Gets a bit confusing…

Here’s the article from the old Kitelines magazine that I’m using as my guideline: Flow Form Kite

I recognised the maker’s name – Ed Grauel, assisted by the magazine editor, Margaret Gregor, and figured it must be a pretty reliable pattern.  I can’t see any reference to the magazine in which it first appeared – it appears on the Internet as: http://www.kiteplans.org/planos/flowform5/flowform5.html

The blue parafoil can fly!…

Last night I made my only sewing contribution – I made a drawstring bag to carry the kite in. 

Though the wind was somewhat too mild and somewhat erratic, I can confidently say now that the blue parafoil can fly!

I wasn’t confident to let out a lot of line.  Until I get it tuned exactly, it has something of a tendency to over-correct – and sometimes go around in increasingly fast loops until it either crashes or loses its shape and flutters to the ground.

But flying.  No doubt at all that it will be a heavy puller – when I didn’t have it tied to a bench, it could feel sort of scary even at low altitudes, pulling enough to be more than I’d want to handle in a bigger wind…

I’m going to see about getting a heap of (cheap) sewing machine bobbins, and try to develop a better ‘tuning system’, a way to easily lengthen and shorted specific towing lines.  More to come!

Plans for the blue parafoil…

1982 Edition 3

This .pdf parafoil kite plan is from https://www.kiteplans.org/planos/parafoil4/parafoil4.html,  but I have used Google Translate.  As you can see, it is about 35 years old, but I liked the approach by the author.  It isn’t a plan to tell you how to make it – it just concentrates on quality calculations to create the patterns.

I didn’t use this so much as a ‘plan’ as for the shape of the aerofoil and fins.  I relied on an element of trust when it came to some of the maths…

 

Sewing is finished…

Sophia finished the last of the sewing last night – more than a half kilometer – (more than 1600 feet) of sewing.  Estimation is based on the spool of cotton (well, polyester) that was used.

Preparing to finish off trailing edge.

Then I sat on the couch are got/kept Paris the cat’s attention.  She enjoyed the bridling process immensely.

So I stretched the kite out on its back, and gently pulled the strings, trying not to disrupt the relative flatness, as the 18 fins gently lifted.  I could then, letting the strings run through my fingers, position the soon-to-be towing point above the kite.  I’m aiming for about a 22 degree ‘angle of attack’, the angle the face of the kite will be, based on the pull of the line below it.

Pulling the 18 lines up to set the towing point. May need to do this better, or at least fine tune the lengths when it flies…

That shallow angle of attack, combined with the relative ‘thinness’ of the aerofoil shape that I am using will produce, I hope, a really high performance pulling kite!

The bridling I did last night was pretty rough – I’m not expecting immediate success at stable flying.  It has a lot of fine-tuning to go before I can teach it to fly (heh, heh).

First flight might be later today…

 

Nearly finished!

We had some time off from making the blue parafoil, what with life and other commitments…

But got seriously stuck in yesterday.  We had completed the stitching to attach the 18 ‘fins’ from the face of the kite, as well as the 11 ‘aerofoils’ coming off the back of the face.

Yesterday was a lot of repetition, pinning and sewing the aerofoils to the back square of nylon.  This involves sewing a curved shape to a straight line – not massively difficult, but I reverted to pinning rather than ‘hot tacking’ the nylon with an old soldering iron.

Ready to sew the final vertical seam, with the other 9 ‘pockets’ rolled up and inside the last outside pocket.

So now ready for the last vertical seam.  In order that the rough edges of the seam will be inside the pocket, the entire kite is rolled and folded so that all of the kite is inside the final pocket.  The process is sometimes called a ‘burrito roll’ by kitemakers.

When I did my own sewing in the past on parafoil kites, I would often be a bit sloppy, and end up sewing through layers that I should not have – and then having to go back to unpick it to try again.  With Sophia’s vigilant eyes, I have been more exacting and methodical in the folding back and pinning.

I’ve already got the lines ready to attach to the 18 tow points on the fins, so after this last vertical stitch, the kite will emerge from that last pocket like unrolling a rolled up sock.  Then one last seam across the bottom to close off the trailing edge of the pockets.

First flight maybe today?  Something of a deadline, as Sophia will be leaving tomorrow…

Almost ready for the more challenging sewing…

Each of the 18 fins have a small loop to attach the 18 bridle lines. We have extended that line from the loop back to the front piece of the kite, to better distribute the pulling force to the kite…

We’ve got the (31) pieces of the parafoil ready.  So far the sewing has been pretty straightforward, so to speak.  The next job will be to join both the front fins and the flat edge of the aerofoil shape to the 1.5M square front piece.  That will be a combination of tacking and pinning to make sure the seams get all the layers they should.  But the final sewing, putting the 1.5M square back piece onto the curved side of the aerofoil, creating the pockets, will be the most demanding.  Not only do you have to contend with sewing to the curve, but also making sure seams on both left and right side are inside their pockets.  And the last seam, as I remember from previous parafoil constructions, involves putting the entire kite into one of its pockets, and having to use extra care not to stitch through any of it when the seam is done.  I have confidence in Sophia’s sewing expertise!

Parafoil progress…

Sophia took this picture yesterday as I was cutting the nylon.

The new parafoil is now in pieces, cut from the bright blue material.  1 front piece,  1 back,  18 fins (6 each of 3 patterns) and 11 aerofoil pieces – 31 pieces of ripstop nylon in total.

Hot cut using  a soldering iron.  Sophia has added about 5 meters of bias binding.

I need to do some maths to work out the location of some lines that will help distribute the towing  tension, but figured drinking a beer has precedence.

A new parafoil gets started…

A local childcare centre was throwing out some stuff, including a glass table top which had been a bit defaced with scratching.  But a good size to put on top of our outdoor table to use as a kite cutting and pattern-making table.

I’ve calculated all the data points for making a large, but pretty straightforward, parafoil.  It will be the fourth ‘proper’ parafoil I’ve made over the years.

The finished kite will have 10 ‘pockets’ – I’ve never made one with more than 6 previously.  The kite will be about 1.5M wide and just under that in height – it will likely be too strong to hand fly.  I’ll need to tie it down, I expect…

I’ve marked the glass with marking pens – and it can be wiped off later to start another project.  Next job is to cut some brown paper pattern pieces.

My daughter Sophia is going to be doing all the sewing – that takes away a heap of trouble and worry for me…

Pan flute kites…

I’ve never seen a pan flute kite made by anyone else…  I’ve seen photos, and plans – but never seen another actual kite.  And yet, they are an easy, forgiving kite to make.  Not a remarkable flyer, but sometimes it can be fun.

“Pan flute” really describes it well, though I’ve also heard the name “rammed air Ferrari” kite.  It consists, generally, of 7 ‘tubes’ of fabric, bigger at the top than the trailing edge of each tube.

Rainbow pan flute kite lower left. This kite is about 1 metre tall.

Though it seems it could best be made with just two pieces of fabric, it is nicer if made as discrete ‘tubes’ – and makes a more colourful design.  I’ve made these anywhere from about 500mm tall up to about 1800mm.

The kite is not a ‘high flyer’ – some that I’ve made struggle to gain height.  But others, a pull on the line results in a quick climb.

Flys well without a tail, too, with a back and forth swaying motion.