i was wondering, what wud happen if i fill my kite bladders with helium???hehe

Exert from song...Prodigy, Hot Ride...Up up and away in my beautiful my beautiful ballon.

U get my drift

dats the whole idea buddy

Well assuming your kite has a (optimistic) volume of 0.75m3, the helium would produce 0.84kg of lift...in other words shit all buddy, keep dreaming

Honestly?

As the helium would be coming out of a compressed tank the bladder would go BANG cause at those sort of pressures it would only be a touch on the tap to go from inflated hard to inflated popped...

Well say you do add an inline regulator to drop the output pressure to prevent the big bang you'd very likely find your baldders go soft after a short while. The size of Helium molecules are very small. So much so that it actually leaks out through the skin of normal balloons that would hold air, around 80% nitrogen, without problems.

On the other hand it's not about having a kite that floats by itself and doesn't stay down when you land it and all other issues associated with that. The theoretical benefets of actually reducing the weight and inertia of a light wind kite might even allow you to kitesurf 1 or even a whole 2 knots lower than you normally could! :roll: OK I'll stop being sarcastic now.... :twisted:

Useful if you're at the North pole!

www.kite-surf.com/galleries/index.php?ca...mp;table=manu_bertin

:shock:

Ah... the ol perennial Helium debate

Check out www.kiteforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;amp;postorder=asc at the international Kiteforum. This is just one of many Helium related posts.

ill tyr it out haha, one problem, who has the helium???

$1000+ for a compressed tank of helium, that might last for 20 or so sessions? Trust me, I've looked into this one.

Plus the bladders would leak. There goes that 1k worth of helium back into the air....

1000+!! stuff that

for $40ish at the wharehouse you can buy a bottle of helium to fill 40 party ballons... how this translates into kites i donno

Most party hire places rent tanks + balloon filling gear out. We got one for our daughters birthday, did 200 balloons for about $200 if i recall correctly. But if you really wanted to try the whorehouse $40 kit should have more than enough in it to inflate your kite for a play.

But as AndrewN says, it will lighten your 5kg (what does an inflated kite weigh) kite by a whole .84 kg, not to mention it would change the balance and feel of it (ie the kite designer decided to design the steering/angle of attacks around that weight)

Helium is for pussies. Real men use hydrogen. Ask thrasher...

thatd be a good idea untill somebody drops a cigerette butt on it... :shock:

i think the 0.75m^3 volume is very optimistic.
i once counted the strokes i needed with a 2litre per stroke pump to pump up my xbow 12m leading edge to a usable pressure.

102 strokes it took.

so the weight saved with helium filling is more like 250grams....
plus price and leaking issues... forget it!