Bridleless Flying

[Ninjak2k]

Asked this over on the KiteLife forum, but figured I'd get more feedback here. Tricky subject to search for as you can't put "no bridle" in the search; all the words have to be 4 characters or longer. I found a few posts discussing bridleless flying, but was hoping to learn more about it. Can you describe differences between flying bridled and unbridled? Is the kite more/less responsive? Does it seem to have more/less lift?

Cheers,

Dan

[johnnmitchell]

Asked this over on the KiteLife forum, but figured I'd get more feedback here. Tricky subject to search for as you can't put "no bridle" in the search; all the words have to be 4 characters or longer. I found a few posts discussing bridleless flying, but was hoping to learn more about it. Can you describe differences between flying bridled and unbridled? Is the kite more/less responsive? Does it seem to have more/less lift?

Cheers,

Dan

My suggestion is to go no bridle only for very light or zero wind flying only.

One of the purpose of the bridle is to distribute the stress to the rods evenly. In a stronger wind with no bridle you are exerting excessive stress on rods as specific points.

I also find that no bridle with a bit of wind knocks down the smoothness of rotations.

[jburka]

I can't remember the last time I put a bridle on one of my IIs. Indoor, SUL, or vented, I fly all of them without bridles in virtually any wind condition. Last weekend I was flying my vented II, no bridle, in winds gusting into the mid 20s on 25' lines. The venting is my own design, but relatively little of the sail is vented. The frame is a stock three wrap Rev II frame. I consider that pretty much indestructible, regardless of the extra bracing lines a bridle would provide. I like 17" handles on a Rev II. Most people find my setup unbearably twitchy.

I'll occasionally fly a 1.5 without a bridle. I've never flown a I without one.

As for what the bridle does, apart from spreading stress: it moves the tow points away from the tips of the vertical spars. By attaching my lines directly to the tips of the spars (and my attachments protrude from the ends of the endcaps, not from where the bungee is tied) I can make the trailing edge tips move much more quickly and with greater leverage than I can when a bridle is attached. This gives me far greater floating ability. Further, when 3-D flying, yanking on the top lines will cause the leading edge to pop out of the wind much faster and more cleanly.

[antman]

not to forget that a bridleless kite is good with 15 inch handles.. you can rig up your kite to be both if you wanted to by adding 2 inch pigtials to the 4 tow points 2 top endcaps and the 2 bottom ones.. its a simple thing to do.. you can use tghe bottom bridle tiepoints to wrap to the bottom endcaps to keep the bridle from snagging the lines.. this doesnt happen much but it can . i have this setup on my 1.5 the bridleless setup is great for light wind street flying as john b does..i like it foe better responce for when the winds are next to nothing .. 50 foot lines 15 inch handles is what i use for that.. anything else i use 13 inch for bridles flying

[Ninjak2k]

Thanks for all the feedback. Light winds define this area, so I'll definitely have to give this a shot.

Cheers,

Dan