After the continued interest in the pocket kite and parawing, and how the wingfoil and airchair were both thought to be novelties and not worth the time, I thought there is definitely some value in collecting novel ideas for visibility.
Ballast stabilised - move a weight to adjust based on lidar height
Stab elevators - cruise control for the foil drivers. This appears every now and then, though I guess no real market for it, I suspect rctestflight will solve this and get decent exposure for the concept. The closest to commercial was Taaroa
Foil flaps - this would increase the range of a foil. When will we see foil flaps (Americas cup even has hinge-less flaps , foiling moths, both MUCH faster and more critical foil designs. Seems scientifically sound
Surface piercing foils. For some reason this works in sailing boats well, relevant for downwind?
a few I’ve chased mildly over the years but never made any prototypes:
Canard foil configuration with a lifting stabilizer - since all of our traditional stabs now make negative lift, in theory this configuration could possibly have a more efficient lift/drag profile. Zeeko used to make a kite-foil with this configuration and people reported loving the surfing feel of it. The biggest downside is that it is hard to get clean flow over the main wing since it gets tripped by the canard.
Early Lift Flaps something that is mildly adhesive or maybe snap-fit and with a very thin line attached (fishing line?). After paddle up the rider could yank the line and stow away the flaps in a pocket. Maybe there could be a way to reattach them on the water, not sure I haven’t thought about the practical issues enough.
foildrive paddle If the foildrive motor was mounted on a paddle shaft, I think it would allow to perform a takeoff and then pull it out of the water and not have the drag when riding low on the mast. The battery could maybe be waist mounted belt. Sounds wicked dangerous, but who’s concerned about a little blood here and there?
Adjustable Tuttle if the tuttle box was twice as long with a series of bolt holes - maybe placed 20mm apart. Then have set of solid plastic 20mm shims front and back of the tuttle head. That would allow us to select from several positions fore/aft to run the tuttle foil. This is for drag reduction and structural advantages of tuttle (weight, stiffness, strencth).
Multihull boards: two super skinny hulls for dw or a modular system for wing foil where there is a center hull which is high wind board and then add two outriggers for more volume for light wind
Hybrid inflatable/rigid wing. Use an inflatable center strut for weight saving and bouancy (aluula to make it skinny) and use carbon tube leading edge for more efficient sail. Could make the frame modular so one frame can be used with different size sails.
I keep picturing a paddle-brella. A SUP paddle with an umbrella type or parawing style collapsing sail incorporated into the handle end. Like if you could slide a collar on the paddle shaft and deploy or retract a parawing or some type of sail.
In the early days of kitesurfing, they repurposed traction/foil kites which worked fine until you put them in the water. This probably led to the development of inflatable kites which would allow the kite to retain some shape so that relaunching from the water was possible.
I feel like winging has gone down the same path. Take what’s out there and tweak it slightly which is why I think we have inflatable wings. That being said, winging doesn’t have the same relaunch problem that a kite has. Some buoyancy is necessary so they don’t sink but imagine a hybrid solution where there is a rigid carbon frame and potentially an inflatable boom strut for buoyancy. The frame could accept different sized sails which could cut down the cost of upgrading your wing when it begins to bag out.
The hybrid wing may not be suitable for everyone (beginners and freestyle riders) but imagine how well a hybrid wing could go upwind? Imagine being able to pull or loosen an outhaul-like line to adjust the wing shape whether you’re going upwind or off the wind? Not sure what the advantage/disadvantage might be in terms of weight…
Actually, the inflatable leading edge concept is the lightest solution for a given required rigidity. Carbon tubes will be significantly heavier because they need to be so much smaller diameter. Some of the advanced fabrics now almost have the properties of carbon fiber, but with the advantage of a huge diameter for stiffness. Think about the weight of a windsurfing mast and you have approximately the right idea. Maybe for racing it wouldn’t matter because the wind holds the weight up, but tacks and jibes are going to royally suck with so much weight. But such a fine leading edge could potentially go upwind like a monster, probably no gain going downwind.
Hmm I like this. If it snapped onto the fuse and then removed with yank once up to speed.
If it had a slot you could reattach if you needed it. I wonder if it would work if you had it at or near the foil root, and also how precise the tolerances need to be for it to work.
The Gurney flap increases the maximum lift coefficient (CL,max), decreases the angle of attack for zero lift (α0), and increases the nosedown pitching moment (CM), which is consistent with an increase in camber of the airfoil.
On flaps, these kevlar hinges seem like a pretty straightforward way to integrate a flap with an existing foil. For actuation, maybe some control lines you could run up through the mast and board to a foot operated lever.
I think the foiling moths use a pushrod, I’d imagine you could get pretty far just using one of their foils. Come to think of it, this thing looks pretty close to functional as it is, need a way to incorporate the fuselage
I was thinking the same thing. It would be cool if one of the moth foil manufacturers did some prototyping. Maguire already has a line of foils for wing foiling so maybe they’re already on it! Foil drive already did the remote through the board so having a small electric actuator sit in the mast head seems fully doable.
Waterproof servos exist. I know this one below has been used on underwater remote operating vehicles on college team competitions, but not necessarily for a long time, so who knows how long it would last submerged in salt water conditions. Wouldn’t be super hard to prototype a pushrod inside of an aluminum mast for example an Axis red mast has plenty of room in the aft cavity for a pushrod.
You could make an inflatable top surface for the front foil, at low speed/ paddle ups you want it inflated for lots of lift. As you speed up you want it deflated for a better profile.
I’m sure you could make a passive system for this that uses a Venturi to inflate/ deflate.
I wonder how well a wand+pushrod would work. It seems like you’d only want full lift when you are off foil, and have the wand cammed in such a way that as soon as its midmast it goes into full speed mode, and then top third of the mast activates. I wonder if you tune the wands to ignore chop somehow.
I’d always thought to run the pushrod through the board and activate from the deck like a windsurf dagger board. Electronics I suppose are pretty reliable, and means you don’t need a deck fitting.
I don’t think you would use a wand at all. The rider is doing ride height adjustment simply by riding. You use the flap for takeoff and then it’s otherwise in neutral. Flap is engaged by an actuator in the mast head activated by a small remote.
I would imagine it’s class rules related. There are other foiling classes with electronic flight control. In any case, the rider is the flight control on a foil board. An adjustable flap would not be used to control ride height. It would be for adjustments to lift profile. For instance to ease takeoff. I’m also not an aeronautical engineer. I have no idea if this would have any benefit at all. It certainly adds complexity to the setup
Moths don’t have a horizontal stabilizer (the rear wing is lifting) they might be pretty difficult to fly if you just rigged up a control for the flap.
