Yay!! First Flight

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[Dwight_Shrut]

So I gave up on the Parafoil because the turbulence around where I fly kept smashing it into the ground. Had a HQ delta 54 inches that made it into the Troposphere. It was a beautiful sight. It was a bit of a pain because slots where the spreader stick goes is not very deep and it kept moving outwards and popped out a couple times. And all the 3 bars (the spine, and the two on the leading edge) kept slowly easing out. When I brought the kite down, the top 2-3 inches of the kite was folded backwards and the spine was sticking out of the fabric a little ways. I am going to have to do some corrective surgery here and I have a question about it.
Please see the attached image. The area in red is not rigid, i.e the bars that the kite came with are a bit short. And when the kite is in the shown position these bars start moving towards the red area and eventually start sticking out.
My plan is to stitch the ends shut to prevent the bars from sliding out.
My question is should I attach something to these bars so that I have coverage till the ends, and then stitch it shut or are the bars short by design.

[attachments older than 90 days deleted by admin]

[nckiter]

Dwight, congratulations on that first flight About the spine and leading edge spars, I am not familar with HQ deltas specifically but very familiar with deltas in general.

I am surprised that the sleeves are open on the ends. Typically what I have seen is that the spine is full length and the LE spars are short. For storage you slide the LE spars to the nose and roll or fold the kite up, for flying you slide the LE spars down the the wing tips. Even with this it is not unusual for the LE spars to creep some during an extended flight.

Did you purchase from a local shop that you can check with?

[Dwight_Shrut]

Hello nckiter, thanks for the reply. I bought it from HobbyTown here in Dallas. I asked them and they have no idea about these things, because they have a whole host of other hobby type stuff besides kites. 

[mikenchico]

Ok I see a problem - the Leading Edge Spars (the two in the wings) do have to be pushed all the way down to the wingtips,  they do not meet at the nose. Although some poorly built Delta's do fly better the way you pictured it.

The spine (center spar) appears to be too short, it should run from the point of the kite all the way to the tail, there should not be more then an inch of room for it to slide fore and aft.  The sleeve it fits in should be sewn closed at both ends but near the tail the sleeve should have a small unsewn area along it to be able to remove & replace the spine.

[Steve]

Not all HQ Delta spines run the full length.  I have several that leave a considerable gap at the top.
 

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