Hi,
I am thinking of getting a 2013 Ozone Zephyr for the light days but I do not want to get a third bar with a different safety system. I have Slingshot bars from my Rally/RPM and my biggest one is just 3 cm narrower than the Ozone bar. Zephyr and Rally are 4 line kites, so theoretically there should not be a problem. The Slingshot depower requires a bit of finesse to operate under load which could possibly get worse with a 17m kite when it's blowing but that's all I can think of.
Has anyone tried a Zephyr with another bar and can share the insights? Thanks!
... a couple of things to keep in mind:
Ozone bar flags onto one front line so what ever bar you use, it probably should do the same as originally intended. I'm sure the kite will work fine other wise but if you don't have the same you've gone away from the design brief so probably not fully guaranteed to work completely.
Height of Y point for the front lines. Ozones Y point for the front lines is right at the bar where as some like say the Core/Bandit is up higher about 4m above the bar I think. This affects the kite in that it can cause a bit of "icecream coning" (sorta like as if the kite is in permanent jellyfish and pinched in). It may not be obvious on the surface but I found this made the kite way less effecient upwind. Some kites like say North 4 line kites have a Y point really high where as the Ozone is much lower. If the kite was designed with a low Y point then it will work best with a low Y point.
Bar throw. From memory the Ozone bar throw is set length where as some brands eg North is adjustable so what ever bar used, should be set the same as the Ozone bar. If its too long the bar can never be rested on the stopper as it will depower kite so much it looses all power and falls. Pain in the neck when taking the hand off the bar with some tricks. With the set length bar throw like the Ozone, the kite is depowered just right even with the depower strap pulled fully.
Having said all that I'm sure the kite will fly just fine but if not the same as the original bar, it might not fly just so and you may get the sh!ts with it.
Anyway, hope this helps.
cheers,
Robbie
Most likely a very good match in your case, you wouldn't want to mix and match bars of different ''Y'' configurations as Puetz mentions, I've experimented with this on large kites with poor results. If I'm not mistaken you have a single line flagging on Slingshot, same with Ozone. As you can see on the picture the front lines are splitting about the same distance from the bar on both bars. Seems you have a stopper ball (or is it an adjustable bar throw?) on the slingshot bar which is a nice feature for light winds as you often don't want your kite to depower too much when you let go of the bar. I just hope you're OK with below the bar trim...as you say not the easiest thing to operate especially with lots of pull from the kite. So yeah, I'm pretty sure these 2 bars would match just fine.
Yep, slingy bar will be fine for the reasons already mentioned (single front line flagging and low "Y"). Depending on your current line lengths you may want to get some 5m extensions. Longer lines give you a bigger window in which to turn the kite and make for a longer power-stroke to get up and going. Some slingy bars only have 21m linesets so even 8 or 10m extensions would work too.