waveslave said...

Kitehard said...
We sell pulley kites and also non pulley kites, both fly great and we've had no problem with either.

Maybe folks misunderstood my question ?
My question wasn't....
"Are pulleys good or evil" ?
My question is...
Why do some bridled kites need to have sh1t loads of pulleys,
while other bridled kites can get away with zero ??
I mean,
if you can build a bridled kite that flys well with zero pulleys...
why would you add superfluous stuff ?

It's about where the lines sit in relation to centre of lift. If you take a 4-line C-kite, the centre of lift moves forward as you depower (hence why bar pressure increases when you are underpowered), until either you:
- run out of bar throw
- run out of lift (kite curls up and drops - this happened when my Reactors got old )
- All lift is taken on front lines and the kite becomes unsteerable (happens on lots of older bridled kites, eg X-bow)

Pulleys on front bridles allow the kite to rotate more while still keeping centre of lift behind the front lines. The kites with a continuous bridle through to the rear lines (LF Havoc, Cab X-bow, Slingy Octane/Rev ?) are extreme versions of this and maintain more steerability when depowered. I think there's some theory like this laid out in the Box patent?