Kite trains serve much like rocket stages to reach higher altitudes. The upper limits to Earth kite operation are somewhere beyond the Martian surface pressure altitude of

Here's an improved remodelling of previous LINK work

The Forum follows human freefall methods in the context of AWE operations and as a recreational adjunct of AWES structures. From fall-cushions, ziplines, and bungees to base-jumping in wingsuits and many other emerging skydiving specialties; the varieties of human-free-fall methods continue to proliferate. Even very old people and dogs jump for fun, along with cars, pianos, and ironing boards.

The use of passive structure for freefall apps has grown, while powered aircraft in the role are in relative statistical decline. Its a DIY "sweat-lift" climbing renaissance (by mountain or stairs). We climb the sky "because its there". Powerful wind-enabled or wind-enhanced versions of Freefall Sports are incubating in our kite circles.

Kids dream of everyone on Earth jumping up at the same time. A New World of aerial adventure is born. Lets now dream everyone jumping far higher :)

Very nice sim... It will be interesting to extend the network unit count higher to see what sort of harmonically ordered patterns emerge across various wind velocities and turbulences, but the computation will slow, and the program statistical mechanics model may be somehow unsuited. Semi-loose pilot-kite units will probably damp response, and not likely support max resonance.

While modifying kPower's 22m2 PLPLs, a surprise was to find internal draw-lines with an instruction label, for the purpose of adjusting the tack (yaw) angle of the kite relative to downwind. Kites often lean both by asymmetries in structure (bad sewing or loss of form) and wind field (like common Ekman Spirals and terrain disturbances).

It will be interesting to test this feature, which acts by modulating cell camber from side-to-side. It might be a place to add small servos so that these kites could be "tacked" for traction apps.

tag for the above:  FFAWE

The study involves free-flight of a kite where the anchor set has a member which is a wing in free flight while anchoring another wing in free-flight.

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Kiting in the high atmosphere may be done by a kite where its anchor is an earth (or planet) satellite, and then a wing in the upper atmosphere is tethered to such anchor. The result of such kiting would result in a slowing of the satellite and de-orbiting the satellite; but consider powering the satellite to keep the d-orbiting from occurring.  Explore having the earth's Moon as the anchor in a kite system; tether a wing set in the earth's upper atmosphere from that Moon base; strategic handling of the location of the Moon ground station may be needed.

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Good detail-

The vintage Goodyear dropstitch ("dropyarn" [sic]) tech report JoeF found contained a nice weaving glossary suited to our AWES interdisciplinary reality. Learning specialized "sub-languages" is essential to recombining domain expertises into inventive leaps. 

As a teen, I apprenticed as a traditional Mixtec weaver in the remote mountains of Oaxaca, from washing and carding raw wool to spinning yarn, and finally weaving elaborate native designs. Later, in computer studies, I marveled that machine programming (the IBM punch-card) directly emerged from the Jacquard Loom punch card (which built on the "dobby"). Over forty years later, below is my remedial lesson in English weaving terms, some ideally suited to envision novel cybernetic "enchanted looms" in the sky that weave energy and control information-

file:///C:/Users/KiteLab/Downloads/AD0274309.pdf

GLOSSARY (formatting lost in pasting)- 

AIRMAT A Goodyear Aircraft Corporation (GAC) trademark denoting a type of double-woven fabric containing interconnecting drop threads. AIRMAT samples produced with the two fabrics parallel are referred to as Flat AIRMAT. Where the samples have a curved or tapered shape in either the warp or filling direction, or both, it is referred to as contoured AIRMAT. ALGINATE A water soluble textile yarn. Made in England. BEATING UP One of the basic motions in weaving. It consists of forcing the filling - which the shuttle has inserted in the shed-up to the fell of the cloth. This is accomplished by the lay. BEAMING The process by which the warp yarns are wound onto beams. Sometimes referred to as warping. BOBBIN A package on which yarn is wound. Bobbins are used for both the filling yarn and drop yarn supply. CLOTH The structure resulting from the crosswise interlacing of two groups of yarns. It includes any pliant fabric formed of any textile fiber, wire, or other material. COMBER A long narrow board extending across the full width of BOARD the warp and located beneath the Jacquard machine. It contains many small holes and serves to keep the Jacquard harness cords in order, one cord passing through each hole. CREEL A framework arranged especially to hold the various packages from which the yarn is drawn to supply a given machine. The drop yarn is drawn from a creel. 33 GeeutAKAR AI RAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (II) GLOSSARY (Continued) DENT An opening in the reed through which the ends of the warp and pile are threaded. The dents per inch determine the ends per inch in fabric. DOBBY A mechanism attached to a loom for controlling the operation of the harnesses. Dobbies are made so that they can operate up to 25 harnesses. The action of the dobby is controlled by an endless chain set with small iron pegs which program the lifting of the harnesses and determines the fabric weave. DOUBLE END A defect in plain woven fabrics caused by two adjacent ends un-intentionally weaving alike. Also called a flat. DOUBLE PICK A fabric defect caused by having two picks un-intentionally in the same shed in the filling direction. DOUBLE -WOVEN PILE FABRIC A kind of pile cloth woven as two fabrics one above the other with interlacing ends joining the two fabrics that are rater cut to form the pile. DRAWING-IN The operation of entering the warp ends from the warp beam through the eyes of the correct heddles on the respective harnesses. DROP YARN The interconnecting yarn between the two cloths of an AIRMAT fabric. Sometimes referred to as pile yarn. DROP YARN DENSITY The number of drop yarns per square inch of fabric. DROP YARN The distance between the top and bottom AIRMAT HEIGHT fabrics. If fabric is contoured, this dimension will be variable to form the contour. 34 Q098EAR AIRCRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (IIp GLOSSARY (Continued) DROP WIRE A thin flat metal strip used in certain warp stop motions. It has an eye through which a warp thread passes. If the warp thread breaks, the drop wire is released making an electrical contact and stops the loom. END One thread of the warp, either before weaving, or in the cloth. FABRIC A collective term applied to cloth no matter how constructed or manufactured and regardless of the kind of fiber from which made. In the commonest sense, it refers to a cloth made by weaving. FABRIC The essential details about a fabric. This usually includes CONSTRUCTION width, ends per inch, picks per inch, weight, and yarn size. FABRIC The actual number of ends and picks per inch in any woven COUNT cloth, Sometimes referred to as thread count. FALSE PICK In an AIRMAT fabric, a pick woven on the face of the fabric over which the drop yarns are woven. Upon removal of the false pick, the drop yarns held by this pick are released allowing the AIRMAT fabric to increase in depth. This is a limited technique for producing higher pile AIRMAT than the loom is otherwise capable of doing. FELL (of The edge of the cloth which is nearest to the reed while cloth) being woven. FILLING The yarn which interlaces with the warp yarn to weave a woven fabric. The filling runs from selvage to selvage at right angles to the warp. Also known as a fill, pick or weft. 35 AIRCRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (III) GLOSSARY (Continued) FILLING STOP A mechanism applied to a loom designed to stop the loom MOTION in case the filling breaks or the shuttle becomes empty. HARNESS The frame containing the heddles through which the warp threads are drawn prior to weaving. HARNESS A long cord, usually of linen, fastened to the lower end CORD of a Jacquard machine. The harness cords are threaded through the comber board and at their lower ends are attached the Jacquard heddles and lingoes. HEDDLE The part of a loom harness having a small opening near its center through which one or more threads of warp or dhp yarn are threaded. Heddles are attached to the harness frames. INTRA-WEAVE A method similar to the false pick method for producing high pile AIRMAT. This system employs the use of additional warps and filling referred to as intra-warp and intra-pick, respectively. These yarns are not woven into the AIRMAT sample but provide a means for weaving with the pile yarns and upon removal of the intra-weave yarns allows the AIRMAT fabric to increase in pile height. JACQUARD A shedding mechanism, located above the loom, by which a large number nf warp ends may be individually controlled. P roira.Aming of me weave is accomplished from prepunched cards which c, ntrol the raising and lowering of the Jacquard heddles th.,ough which the warp ordiop yarns are threaded. Elaborate fabric weaves can be accomplished with this mechanism which are beyond the scope of a Dobby mechanism. JACQUARD The manner in which the harness cords are connected to TIE the Jacquard machine and threaded through the comber board. 36 QW01fEAR AIACRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (111) GLOSSARY (Continued) LAY The term given to the collective parts of a loom which oscillate to perform the operation of beating up. The most important parts of the lay are the lay swords, reed, and reed cap. LAY SWORD The legs or support for the lay of a loom. There are two swords, one on each side of the loom. LEASE The method of arranging the threads of a warp in an orderly fashion so they will maintain the same relative position with respect to one another. It is done by passing the threads over and under lease rods, alternating odd and even numbered ends or in some similar manner. LEASE RODS Rods inserted between the warp yarns to prevent them from clinging together and crossing each other. LET-OFF The mechanism on a loom for regulating the delivery of MOTION the warp yarn from the warp beam and for maintaining the desired tension on the warp. LINGOE A slender metal weight attached to the bottom of each harness cord in a Jacquard. Its function is to pull down the harness cords and connecting parts during the operation of the Jacquard. LOOM A machine for weaving fabrics by interlacing two series of yarns at right angles to each other. MECHANICAL A method for producing flat or contoured AIRMAT to any DROP YARN desired pile height or shape. This technique employs a EXTENSION straight or contoured bar that is inserted across the warp, near the fell of the cloth, at the position where the drop yarns are placed into the fabrics. This bar is horizontally moved against the drop yarns which are displaced to the desired length. 37 GC@00irEAR AIRCRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (In) GLOSSARY (Continued) MISPICK A defect in the woven fabric caused by a pick of filling failing to interlace in the desired sequence. PATTERN Any of the pre-punched cards used in the Jacquard to CARD program the lifting of the Jacquard heddles. PICK One thread of filling placed between the warp threads in one passage of the shuttle through the shed, at right angle to the warp. PICK GEAR One of the gears in the train that operates the take-up motion on a loom. When changing fabric construction (picks/inch), this gear is changed. PILE The interconnecting yarns between the two cloths in AIRMAT fabric. Also known as drop yarns. PLAIN WEAVE The simplest of the fundamental weaves. Each filling yarn passes alternately over and under the warp yarns. REED A closed metal comb fixed in a frame, keeping the warp (and pile) ends evenly spaced. It forms a guide for the back of the filling inserter mechanism and beats up the filling. Also determines the ends per inch in the fabric. REED MARKS Uneven warp yarn spacing in the cloth usually caused by a faulty reed condition. RENE' 41 A nickel-cobalt super alloy developed by General Electric. Has a maximum useful temperature of 1800OF and is not easily oxidized. Can be welded, sewed or woven. 38 G0EAR AIRCRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (MII) GLOSSARY (Continued) SATIN WEAVE A weave consisting almost entirely of warp or filling floats, as in the repeat of the weave each thread of one system passes over all but one thread of the other system. The intersection points do not fall in regular lines but are separated from one another in a regular or irregular manner. SELVAGE The lengthwise woven edge of a fabric. SHED The opening formed when some of the warp yarns are raised by their harnesses while others are left down. Forming the shed is the first action in weaving. SHEDDING The operation of forming a shed. The lifting of the harnesses may be controlled by cams, a dobby, or a Jacquard. SHUTTLE The implement that carries the filling through the shed during weaving. SHUTTLE Streaks or marks on the warp threads caused by a MARK dirty or greasy shuttle, as it passes through the shed. SMASH A major fabric defect where the warp yarns have been ruptured by breaking a group of yarns caused most commonly by the shuttle being trapped in the shed during beat-up. SMASH A mechanism designed to prevent the shuttle from being PROTECTOR trapped in the shed as the reed beats up. It consists of a series of micro-switches or solenoids which will stop the loom if the shuttle is not in the shuttle box at beat-up. SLEY The number of ends per inch in a cloth. 39 CG0mAEAR AIRCRAFT ASD Interim Report 7-904 (III) GLOSSARY (Continued) START-UP A fabric defect consisting of a fillingwise streak extending MARK clear across the cloth, usually occuring when a loom has been stopped. Also calleda set mark. TABBY Another name for plain weave. TAKE-UP A mechanism on a loom for taking up the cloth as it is MOTION woven. The number of picks per inch determines the rate of take-up. TEMPLE A device on a loom located near the fell of the cloth, one on each side, the function of which is to hold the cloth out as wide as possible during beat-up. TWILL WEAVE In a twill weave, each end floats over or under at least two consecutive picks and the points of intersection move one outward and one upward (or downward) on succeeding picks. This causes the formation of diagonal lines in the cloth. TYING-IN The process of joining the threads of a new warp to those of a former warp by knotting together the end of a new thread with an old thread. This saves drawing- in and reeding the new warp, but it can be done only when the two warps are alike. WARP The yarns that run lengthwise in a woven fabric. WARP BEAM The large spool-like device upon which the warp yarn is wound, and is fitted in the loom at the back. WEAVE The programmed interlacing of warp and filling yarns with each other to form a cloth. Plain, twill and satin weaves are the three main types. WEFT Same as Filling.

Joben has not given up on aviation, and is partnering with NASA to further explore the many-propeller concept, which offers thermal cooling and mass advantages by many small motors over fewer large units. A plausible variant is to adapt many small motors to somehow drive fewer larger propellers, much as multi-cylinder IC engines do (but with a reduction gear needed). The winning trade-offs are too complex to fully predict, but will inform AWES design-

We are seeing a lot of long skinny wing concepts in the race for high-altitude gliders, but the very low pressures involved are in the low-Re range, and simpler wings of lower wing-loading become favored by theory. A good analogy for flight at extreme high altitude is to visualize the sparse air molecules as ping-pong balls impacting the underside of a suitable wing seen as the lightest possible paddle to area (lowest wing-loading).

Thus its no surprise that student team designs eventually tend toward the theoretic ideal. One can see this very clearly in the following link, where yet another NASA-mentored student team has redesigned its Mars Aircraft concept more towards a low-AR delta planform from an initial long skinny wing assumption. The same principles will hold for kites and manned gliders to the highest Earth altitudes.

With enough pull, soft tube torque works ... albeit with the provision that enough radius of the rotary lines exists.

Had to stop the rig when a poorly tied back line on the top hat came loose and  started wrapping round the lift and compressing the rig to ground.

The World's largest event on energy harvesting technologies and their application, Energy Harvesting & Storage USA External Link, to be held in Santa Clara on November 18-19 features presentations from companies covering both high power and low power energy harvesting solutions in addition to the applications of these technologies. Speakers discuss applications of energy harvesting, ranging from presentations on IoT, automotive and sensors from companies such as Hewlett Packard, InvenSense, Volvo, Bosch, and × United Technologies Research Center United Technologies Research Center is presenting at Printed Electronics USA 2015 Santa Clara, CA, USA 18 - 19 Nov 2015 United Technologies Research Center. Energy Harvesting Technologies are then covered in sessions focused on different technologies, such as high power thermoelectrics, airborne wind energy, electrodynamics and photovoltaics. The photovoltaics session alone covers technologies from the highest PV efficiencies ever achieved to lower efficiency but flexible devices offering new integration opportunities. Wireless power also features heavily - from powering consumer electronics to presentations on wireless charging of electric vehicles
Read more at: http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/8508/energy-harvesting-usa-agenda-launched

A nice taste of the fear and/or exhilaration of DIY AWES R&D in high wind. The worst part is the vague dread setting up a tricky experiment in wind that is already trying its best to thwart you. Even if you don't get hurt, the joke reward is usually some new problem revealed, indefinitely delaying naively imagined quick success. Being unable to safely bring down a rig stuck aloft is a strange and dangerous aggravation. The one cure is to keep coming back until one's designs and skills are essentially perfected. Few ever get that far, but its worth it after all. A few seconds of triumph instantly negates years of struggle.

Lei Zuo of Virginia Tech is entering AWES field from a research interest in vibration energy, which until now has only been studied in small scale applications. Nevertheless Lei sees great potential to scale up vibration harvesting just as Open-AWE has lately set the empirical and conceptual foundations of large-scale AWES "vibration harvesting" (MW class bulk oscillation cycles), subject to formal validation by academia. Lei is seeing explosive growth in vibration harvesting research, which bodes well for pumping AWE schemes.

Lei's initial AWES thinking will be presented at the Energy Harvesting Conference, but this paper from 2013 is a good background to how he will frame the engineering challenge-

You're right though... We are not seeing validation of long skinny AWES driveshafts with rigid structure aloft....

Programmed rotary patterned tug actions, played as waves around a network of kites over a circular rail, could cause some cool fast ground driven rail apps & interactions. especially if we can set a wave form lift rail guide on a train so that kite after kite can ...squirt the train along to the next ready kite.

Recalling Robert Lumley ("Kitefarms") from the early Forum, with claims toward AWES automation solutions, but a violent allergy to open-AWE thinking ("pure evil") competing against conventional business assumptions, like IP stealth. Now Robert has "de-stealthed" [sic], as AirLoom, with grand claims for cost advantages ("15x") of the AirLoom over conventional wind power.

A huge certain advantage for Robert is that he is located next to the finest gap-wind resource in the contiguous US, just outside of Laramie, Wyoming, with major trunk lines planned to the golden California clean-energy market; so he could conceivably bootstrap AWE production, provided he hits on a workable method (or attracts partners with working methods) to develop capacity in the "superb" blue zone near him (NREL wind map in linked thumbnail image)-

Only kPower and the KiteLab Group have stood for broad comparative testing ("knowledge-quest" as the true AE pro biz strategy). WindSwept & Interesting is following the high-risk model of a pet early downselect (Daisy), like too many other narrowly down-selected AWES ventures. Lets fly all the WECS together as a competative plan to outlearn developers who only promote one pet scheme. If large lattices are in fact a broader breakthrough than just as a Daisy host structure, its not reflected in W&I's concept narratives. Dense-array techniques are general to all WECS, rather than a special advantage for any one WECS. 

All this bears repeating just as often as anyone proposes any a-priori AWES down-select.

Note that's a lattice phase concept ... nothing like a daisy... and not a lattice PTO concept which Dave S has suggested.

But he fails to highlight the possibilities embedded within that stance...

e.g.
1) Can a Daisy host selsam spinning rotors on the tensioned lines between blades?.. thus driving the lines of spinners into apparent wind just like a Makani Selsam Daisy LINK all in one net mashup... This is fine by me if you only want to use the power for work aloft... It needs more than 1 Roddy to launch it...Which is where we finally get back on topic...Launching a set of linked AWES Rings slightly faster than apparent wind so that they arrive in place, in tension, fully unfurled and ready to work.

but why stop there...?

2) Can Pierre's spinning and Daisy be mashed together ... yes. Have an inner driven, anti rotation, chained set of rings, ride, on the ring, of matching outer driven rotating ring chains... Don't let them snag together though. Also this configuration is available to faster than apparent wind speed launch up a guide line.

or maybe...

3) Stacked lattice LINK with various PTO configuration groundgen available. Whole group swirl over tripod spread feet sounds super powerful .. and maybe not to hard to control given existing kite control tech.

However lets face it nobody admits they read about AWES in this toxic unprofessional atmosphere where Self interested trolls like Dave Santos are allowed to discredit any work that niggles their unscientific sensibility with impunity.

Saying ... Only kPower and the KiteLab Group have stood for broad comparative testing ("knowledge-quest" as the true AE pro biz strategy). WindSwept & Interesting is following the high-risk model of a pet early downselect (Daisy), like too many other narrowly down-selected AWES ventures.

What a crock of utter self indulgent fantastic SHIT!

It seemed, based on your book chapter draft, that the Daisy was not being groomed for specific comparative testing, say against the common reeling systems of AWESCO, at the 600m target altitude for utility-scale AWE, or any other baseline design. Your scoring matrix, that the Daisy naturally won, defined your personal standard of judging how the AWE field stacks up, rather than the full-blown AE standard, which has never yet been applied to AWE.

Sorry that you find my opinion less acceptable than your own, but I mostly commend your efforts on behalf of the torsion concept-space to end up tested against all other options. "(My) plan" would simply require you be ready for a broad fly-off phase at a professional level, which implies all-soft Daisy scale versions, given obvious problems scaling torque ladders up. You don't have to "test everything" (from flygens to flip-wings), which is very hard work. 

KiteLab and kPower really have tested more broadly than anyone else, for maximized experience, but still depend on many others to field various pet architectures to test against,

daveS

Linked below is further admirable effort by Christof Beaupoil to make early sense of the current AWES engineering thicket. It would be great to merge previous knowledge efforts within his growing framework, which include NASA's compilation by MarkM, JoeF's vast collections, the Springer AWE book, and EdS's kPower spread-sheets. Such an expanded team-project will likely need support by a well-funded academic player like AWESCO (which may be generating its own possibly duplicative knowledge-base). 

The high-stakes outcome would be the first AWES knowledge study to soundly and convincingly predict what particular system architectures, from the large pack of contenders, will ultimately prevail in major validation testing and energy markets-

So Makani's long-standing "perch" design claim, to have essentially eliminated the wind tower, is baldly contradicted by Richart Bangert's local "docking tower...dwarfs...workers" reportage in the Alameda Sun, so its no longer just our remote impression. The proper direct structural mass comparison is with a 600kW HAWT (now considered small); or three or four M600s compared to one large HAWT in the 2MW range. Another anomalous claim is how many houses can be powered by a 600kw AWES confined under 1000ft, given nameplate-rated capacity-factor will be less than 50% in most all wind locations.

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* "The docking tower for Makani’s propeller-driven wind turbine dwarfs a pair of workers at Alameda Point last week."

60M outside of air traffic control zones (30M @ my house) (noflydrones.co.uk) is my current practical scale limit. Now what was the advantage of parametric soft kite scaling again.. doh - scaling. If you want to collect a team big enough to prove a Daisy can't operate at 600m go ahead, please!. you'll loose.
full-blown AE standard (Fool Blown is all I'm hearing) Go on then again Dave Bloody S. Don't wait for me apply the full-blown AE standards to AWE.