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by cdeonier
1685 days ago
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What's the reason for the emphasis on weight? From reading the technical reports (from Makani), there were larger issues with the design unrelated to the weight. As an example, Makani's Y-bridle design to attach the tether to the kite introduce stability issues during hover, and limited their control when the kite was aloft making circles, which in turn limited their power generation. |
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It's quite possible that if their kiteplane was much lighter that these tether issues would have been much less of a problem. Remember that the Makani tether also had to include some copper cable for power transmission to the ground. That makes the tether itself heavy as well.