The Ribbon Arch has been an astounding curiosity, not fitting any well known aeronautical model. Along with the "flip kite", its been claimed as simply a Magnus Effect toy, but it was pointed out on the Forum that these kites use true airfoils to perform tight backwards loops. This more qualifies as Dynamic Soaring than Magnus skin-friction-dependent effect observed in spinning bluff-bodies. A neat prediction is a low-pressure vortex inside the loop balanced by the centrifugal force of the looping wing mass.

Another analytical twist is to suppose that the cylindrical flight path acts somewhat as a virtual Magnus rotor, which does contribute somewhat to lift, but crucially avoiding the huge drag of the standard Magnus bluff-body. On the other hand, see how this crosswind-axis turbine is much like a VAWT, but in a very different context, almost arbitrarily extensible, non-rigid, exploiting its handed asymmetry to cancel gravity force. Note the affinity with Dabiri's paired mirror-handed opposed VAWTs.

Thanks to Roy Mueller of the Aerology Lab, and now Rod, for keeping this ultra-high AR wing in view. The ribbon arch deserves more study. The new idea presented here, the Ribbon-Arch Ladder, is to "stack" ribbon arches by cross-tying many arches with rib-lines provided with rotary pass-thru bearings. Thus one may aggregate the output of many ribbon arches in the same land and airspace, with the same advantages of high RPM generation and simple cheap construction.

• CC BY NC SA         ~Dave Santos         6June2013              AirborneWindEnergy/message/9350

Comment and development of this topic will be occurring here.       
All, send notes, links, drawings, papers, videos, plans, safety-critical findings, and photographs!

• Terms and aspects:   
• Related links and concepts:
  •  
• Commentary is welcome:
  •   Is this in the game:  Mon Oct 4, 2010 
    • http://energykitesystems.net/Kites/RibbonBowArchRotators/index.html
    • http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AirborneWindEnergy/message/2274  
  • v