I am using the ROKKER of Sandro Macchi since a few years now, for almost all my KAP trips. People were asking me from time to time, if they were allowed to copy the Rokker.
You can find the answer of Sandro here below. We will try to update this document while we fly :-) :
The ROKKER
is born august 2020 as a new kite in between ROKKAKU and Pearson ROLLER
The
ROKKER shows several construction details quite similar to ROKKAKU
The
ROKKER is a very stable kite, suitable for KAP activity and covering a wind
speed range quite wide ; in the standard configuration it is from 4 to 40 km/h
and there are good chances to make bigger /light kites extending to lower wind
speed or smaller and heavy sail that are covering higher wind speeds if for
example during a KAP session the wind is increasing speed the ROKKER has a self
adaptive configuration and keeps flying at good angle without pulling too much
(while ROKKAKUs in this conditions are pulling very hard with risk of a frame
damage and line angle is quite reduced...).
The
ROKKER shows two overlapped sails :
- main -
upper sail
- lower -
smaller sail
The
airflow from main sail is flowing at a good high speed on the back of lower
sail and the result is a change of kite
inclination
The MAIN-UPPER
sail is similar to ROKKAKU construction but lower edge is straight and
reinfoced at the back by 6-8 cm of mylar with carbon fibers or another low
elasticity material heavier than sail
The LOWER
sail has a tubular shape on horizontal upper edge in order to hold the lower
bowed spar. The sail needs to be sewn over the main-upper sail overlapping flat on flat for near 4 cm ; sewings about 10 cm each side over and under spar tubular ; in the middle of the kite sewings extended about 12-14 cm centered to mid line
Spine
pockets, upper horizontal spar, bridles and bow tensioners are equal to ROKKAKU
Some other tips :
- The Sticks : I suggest something like SKYSHARK P4X ...P400 for horizontal frame and a standard carbon 8 mm Excel or other for spine.
- The lower sail needs to be kept extended to size without pulling using FSD tips (FSD slot open should be in direction line - kiter); on ROKKER it is important that tension setting of low sail and of bowing setting should be SEPARATE functions
- Bridles need to be mandatory around frame sticks (upper two points and also lower two points)
- Bowing settings suggested near 18 cm for LOW sail and near 10 cm for upper sail
- I normally use the practise of dismounting only the spine and reassembly at next flight.
"free for personal use, NOT for commercial activity"