Since I've been doing a fair bit of low wind and street style flying lately, I decided to apply my nerdy side to my kite flying and do a little weight comparison between various bits of Rev kit that I have to see how much weight makes how much difference.
Apologies to all you imperial Yankees, but in South Africa we use metric measurements, so my weights are in grams.
I started with the benchmark for light Revs - the Indoor Rev, then the SLE I started with and then my new full sail B series. Both the SLE and the B had a full Race Rod frame in it, the Indoor was obviously standard with it's Race Rod frame.
The weights came out as follows...
Indoor Rev - 153g
SLE (Race Rods) - 195g
B series (Race Rods) - 170g
It seems that the 42g and slightly larger sail on the Indoor Rev makes a fairly big difference in the ease of no wind flight, float and glide.I was also very surprised to see the weight difference between the SLE and the B series. Both had identical frames, end caps, bungees, etc - so the difference has to be in the sail area. I'm also assuming the leading edge and leading edge mesh are the same. My SLE is the one just before the change to the current cheaper sail material, which means my SLE material is the same or similar to the B series if I recall correctly.
Anyone got any insight as to why the B series weight is so different to the SLE?
With time on my hands I took to weighing the rods I had. The weights below are for the rods without ferrules in...
Race Rods - 13g
3 wrap - 20g
4 wrap - 23g
SLE - 32g
Obviously this is just the weights of the rod and speaks nothing of their flexation and rebound characteristics or other flight characteristics. I didn't have my 2 wraps with to weigh since I have Race Rods and don't fly the 2 wraps.
Finally, to satisfy my own curiosity, I compared 12' of LPG in 50# and 90# line to see if the weight difference was there at all. The 50# line is unsleeved on the kite side, where the 90# is sleeved on both ends. Both sets came from Theresa of The KiteShoppe, so I figured they would make a good comparison.
The weight difference between the 2 sets was 1 gram.
For me that would indicate that any difference in performace between the two is as a result of the different cross section and resulting line drag moire than any kind of weight dirrerence.
Anyway, thought that might be useful for anyone else who has ever wondered about the difference. Anyone know where the difference between the SLE and the B series comes from?
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kwmf
Since I've been doing a fair bit of low wind and street style flying lately, I decided to apply my nerdy side to my kite flying and do a little weight comparison between various bits of Rev kit that I have to see how much weight makes how much difference.
Apologies to all you imperial Yankees, but in South Africa we use metric measurements, so my weights are in grams.
I started with the benchmark for light Revs - the Indoor Rev, then the SLE I started with and then my new full sail B series. Both the SLE and the B had a full Race Rod frame in it, the Indoor was obviously standard with it's Race Rod frame.
The weights came out as follows...
It seems that the 42g and slightly larger sail on the Indoor Rev makes a fairly big difference in the ease of no wind flight, float and glide.I was also very surprised to see the weight difference between the SLE and the B series. Both had identical frames, end caps, bungees, etc - so the difference has to be in the sail area. I'm also assuming the leading edge and leading edge mesh are the same. My SLE is the one just before the change to the current cheaper sail material, which means my SLE material is the same or similar to the B series if I recall correctly.
Anyone got any insight as to why the B series weight is so different to the SLE?
With time on my hands I took to weighing the rods I had. The weights below are for the rods without ferrules in...
Obviously this is just the weights of the rod and speaks nothing of their flexation and rebound characteristics or other flight characteristics. I didn't have my 2 wraps with to weigh since I have Race Rods and don't fly the 2 wraps.
Finally, to satisfy my own curiosity, I compared 12' of LPG in 50# and 90# line to see if the weight difference was there at all. The 50# line is unsleeved on the kite side, where the 90# is sleeved on both ends. Both sets came from Theresa of The KiteShoppe, so I figured they would make a good comparison.
The weight difference between the 2 sets was 1 gram.
For me that would indicate that any difference in performace between the two is as a result of the different cross section and resulting line drag moire than any kind of weight dirrerence.
Anyway, thought that might be useful for anyone else who has ever wondered about the difference. Anyone know where the difference between the SLE and the B series comes from?
Steve
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