What's new?

Overview of user-visible updates in Foilbench. Comparisons between setups remain more reliable than absolute numbers — that holds for every release.

September 2026 — Setup cost

• “Setup cost” sidebar — total and line items for the current foil setup (front/rear/fuselage/mast/board)
• Sales channel — direct, partner, or mixed, with shop/dealer links
• Update prices — live fetch of the lead brand’s product URLs (session overlay, no server write)
• Catalog — commerce plus optional price/product_url in manufacturer YAMLs

→ Setup cost · Assembling a setup

September 2026 — Eight new foil brands

• Armstrong, Unifoil, Takoon, Cabrinha, North, Lift, GoFoil, Fliteboard — new rig-capable brands in the manufacturer dropdown
• Core lines — e.g. Armstrong HA/MA Mk II, Unifoil Evolution/Progression, Takoon Flow/Flare, Cabrinha Fusion X/H, North Sonar HA/MA
• Note — for some brands, spans/volumes are derived from published areas and typical AR (flagged in catalog notes)

→ Assembling a setup

September 2026 — Profile mass & slider reset

• Rider mass in profile — lasting value under “My profile”; the rider-and-water slider changes the session, not the profile
• “Profile” button — next to the rider-mass info tip restores the stored profile value
• Reset rider & water — mass comes from the profile (if set); temperature/salinity from defaults
• Home spot in profile — optional block styled like skill level (solid border, no gray fill)
• No server storage — profile data stays local in the browser only (no account, no upload)

→ Rider profile · Rider and water

September 2026 — Head photo in profile

• Head photo in rider profile — upload lives under “My profile” instead of the left sidebar; panel A animation unchanged
• Brand and foil stay consistent — on profile/session mismatch, Coach and Video analysis also reset the rig to valid parts for the lead brand (including brand:id)

→ Rider profile · Panels A–E

September 2026 — Vmax button (foil setup)

• Vmax in foil setup — button searches within the selected brand for the trimmable rig with the highest Vmax (front/rear/fuselage/mast); board, mass, water and shim stay put
• Coordinate descent — pragmatic search instead of brute-forcing millions of combos; only trimmable candidates count
• Skill disclosure — button from Advanced (same as Vmax tile and Speed goal)

→ Metrics · Vmax · Building a setup

September 2026 — Default board Ketos SKULL 80

• Lighter starter setup — default board is now Ketos SKULL 80 (1.1 kg pump board) instead of AK Arcade Duratec; foil rig stays AXIS PNGv2 1400

September 2026 — More stable pump sustain

• No false optimum — optimum grid re-checks sustaining candidates over 30 s; slow sinkers (e.g. Leviathan 1150 with a light rider) are dropped, score penalises drift
• Tighter drift limit — a settled pump counts only when height loss over the last cycles stays small
• UI pump duration 20 s — applied optimum points stay stable on screen
• Pump reset — clears the auto-optimum lock so “Reset” can find a sustaining point again

→ Status badges · Pump settings

September 2026 — Catalog dropdowns A–Z

• Alphabetical order — front wings, rear wings, fuselages, masts, and boards sorted by name in every brand dropdown

September 2026 — AXIS Surge

• Surge front wings — eight sizes (1150–740) in the AXIS catalog; surf carve with glide range
• Surf Skinny 340/50 — largest stab in the Surge pairing added (320/300/280 were already present)

September 2026 — Mobile UX

• Narrow screens — equipment rail starts collapsed; setup opens as an overlay so results stay full-width
• Language & theme — controls stay pinned top-right in the header (no longer buried in the scrollable nav row)
• Touch — larger tap targets and a horizontally scrollable nav strip

September 2026 — Sidebar defaults

• Foil setup only open — Quiver, rider/water, trim, and pump cycle start collapsed for less scrolling on first load

September 2026 — Private feedback

• Feedback in the footer — send feature ideas, bugs, catalog and UX notes via a short form
• Private — no public board, no ticket status; submissions reach the team only
• Cleaner footer — AI notice and links on one row; “Buy me a coffee” only in the footer (removed from the top bar)

→ FAQ · Feedback

September 2026 — Vmax and Speed goal

• Vmax metric — highest useful steady ride speed (trimmable, L/D ≥ 40 % of peak); adaptive speed sweep up to 25 m/s; subline power at the Vmax point
• Goal Efficiency | Speed — analysis marker follows best glide or Vmax (Advanced/Pro); persisted as pumpfoil.intent.v1
• Trade-off High speed — focus weights Vmax and total drag instead of peak L/D alone; take-off regression stays visible
• Panel D — Vmax in the note and as a curve marker
• Skill disclosure — Vmax tile and Speed goal from Advanced; Beginner unchanged

→ Metrics · Vmax · What changes? · FAQ · Vmax

September 2026 — Sustained flight and video analysis

• Ketos Foil — new rig-capable brand catalog (LD/KOBUN and more, stabs, masts, dock-start boards)
• Technique vs. setup — badge reads “technique not sustaining” instead of blaming the rig; tip that another operating point may still fly
• Auto optimum — when the current pump point does not sustain, the app once applies the lowest-power sustaining point (frequency, stroke, pitch)
• Auto mast track — when trim is unsolvable, set the track once to the balance offset within travel
• More stable height control — controller limit ±7.5°; optimum search and UI use the same simulation duration
• Optimum API — flat fields for the UI; “Find best operating point” reliably updates the sliders
• In-browser video analysis — pose metrics (cadence, leg stroke, angles, foot position, rhythm) stay on your device; the video does not leave your computer
• Actual vs. target — compare against the simulation and optimum for your setup
• Stance sweep — compare foot positions with the physics model
• YouTube via tab capture — record another tab’s clip (respect copyright)

→ Status badges · Pump settings · Video analysis

August 2026 — Quiver, profile and pump coach

• My quiver — save up to 10 named setups and load them quickly
• Rider profile — mass, skill and spot stored locally in the browser
• Pump coach — dedicated /coach page with score, tips and optimisation
• What changes? — trade-off text below panel D (even without a compare slot)
• Session sync — settings and compare state more robust across page switches

→ My quiver · Rider profile · Pump coach · What changes?

Earlier — Core simulation and guide

• Panels A–E — animation, heave/α, polar, L/D vs. speed, drag breakdown
• Multi-brand catalog — front wing, fuselage, rear wing, mast and board as YAML (AXIS, GONG, Indiana, Levitaz and more)
• Stance and mast track — foot positions and track offset coupled to the physics
• Bilingual guide — German and English under /docs/, help links in the app
• Local search in the handbook

→ First steps · FAQ