Fractured Axel

I've got a B series vent and a B series standard, both bought at the same time, both the same colour. Admittedly, I fly the vent a lot more, but whenever I get the standard out it always disappoints me. The sail seems flacid, and it makes a racket in any wind speed (the vent doesn't). The kite feels very twitchy compared to the vent, getting smooth slides out of it is very difficult. Sliding with the LE up is a case of "when will the wing flip?" - on the vent I can concentrate on keeping the LE flat on a slide, whereas on the standard I am just struggling to stop a wing from flipping, let alone fly nicely. Sliding inverted is better, but not as controllable as on the vent.

I tried to give the sail some tension but pulling the elastic bits doesn't do anything apart from tension it along the spar. The bridle looks fine too.

At first I thought I was crap at flying it, but now I'm getting fairly good (with the vent) it is really getting my goat that I'm not very good with the standard.

Is my kite a lemon? Or do I require a significantly different touch when flying a standard Rev? Are all standard Revs like this?

firstly check the sail along the vertical spars to see if the sail has any slack in it
if it has you need to shorten the elastic by 1 inch at the bottom of the spar
this should improve the kite
i had the same problem with my vented till j barresi sorted mine out

I know jack-poo about Revs, but I remember in Flying Techniques James Robertshaw said he liked a lot of tension in the bungies, gives more 'grip' in the sky.

What can I say, the man knows his Revs!

Maybe your sail is a little loose?

Mark

Yes, the sail is loose, or at least looser than my vented. It's tight along the spars - shortening the bungee makes it tighter, but only along the spar (I've tried tightening vertical and LE bungees, makes no difference). I want to make the trailing edge tight (between vertical spars and centre point, the outside edge is nice ant taut), but the bungee doesn't change that. The explicit flapping reduces drive, especially at the edge of the window. I'm tempted to put in a leech line - are there any easier solutions?

The kite looks finely made - it confuses me how it feels slack in the sky.

EDIT: is it something to do with the length of my spars? I don't know about other Rev owners, but I find a worrying disparity in spar length - up to 4mm in any set (including the eye-wateringly expensive Race rods). Surely they have a rig set up for consistent spar cutting, but from the look of all five sets of my spars it seems a blind man with delium tremens has cut them. (But then again, they all work fine in my vent so maybe they know 4mm here and there is perfectly acceptable and they will continue to employ Blind Barry.)

I fink that like teh reel xpertz need tuh steppin 'ere.

I've heard of some kites going dull with age, like Pete and his SD's. Surely the big Rev boys 'n girls must have experienced something along these lines?

GL

Mark

Mmmmm....Al, check all your rod length's, the middle's should be near enough the same length albeit the ferrule. If your Rev is making a "racket" then i would say that the sail is not tensioned correctly...the bottom elastic on the Vertical rod's should not be tight, otherwise the top's of the vertical would protrude past the Leading edge, they need to be levelish , 10mm max past the leading edge.

Have you tried laying your vented Rev next to the offending one (all the spars taken out) and just check the measurements ie bridle, distances in the elastic etc...............Obvious one, have you checked your line length's?.....Have you altered your handle offset's?.....

What you will find also that the Vented will behave differently to your Std, but not as significantly as you say though.....strange one this!!!!