Bear dropping is probably the most fun you can have with a single line kite. Bear drop rigs come in all sorts. I wanted a climber, a vehicle that would cary the bear up and then return. I wanted a sail on the climber so the bear could be dropped with chute folded. (the easiest climber is to let the chute pull the bear up) I had made one off of plans on the web. I liked it but it was not collapsable. I wanted something i could put in a kitebag. What you see here is my third rig. The climbing and releasing mechanism attaches to the kite with tiny caribiners. The sail has a cross spreader which goes through a center T on the climber. Remove the spreader and the whole thing rolls up like a kite.
I'm
getting there. The problem that still remains is getting the
climber to come back down. It is very light and even without
the "bridle ring" attached the weight of the sail holds
it down and it catches enough wind to stay up the line. One soloution
is to weight the top of the sail so it is balanced around the
center T fulcrum. This works acceptably and is how i currently
operate. I don't like the idea of adding weight to a kite. The
next version
will have some sort
of bungie to pull the sail flat. Stick with me, I'll perfect
it eventually.
Meanwhile as you can see, it works pretty good!