Feedback to the author

Overall, this is a strong and technically well-developed paper, and I enjoyed reviewing it. The controller design is simple yet effective, and the idea of achieving stable circular reel-out without requiring the kite to follow an exact predefined path is both original and practically valuable. The use of the high-fidelity KM1 simulation model, including flexible tether dynamics, nonlinear aerodynamics, and realistic turbulence conditions, also increases confidence in the presented results.

It also appears that this may be the first published implementation of figure-of-eight (F8) flight using the KM1 simulation model within this line of research, which further adds to the novelty of the work.

The paper would be strengthened by including additional robustness studies, such as the effects of sensor noise, time delays, actuator saturation, wind-direction changes, different turbulence realizations, and lower airspeed conditions.

The authors mention that the controller gains were tuned empirically and follow time-scale separation principles. However, the actual gain values are mostly embedded within the block diagrams. A dedicated table summarizing all controller gains would improve clarity, reproducibility, and ease of implementation for future researchers.

It would also be helpful to provide additional implementation details, including:

• actuator deflection and rate limits (for example, flap deflection limits for the KM1 model),
• simulation sample time and solver settings,
• and whether the KM1 simulation model has been validated against real flight-test data.

The paper applies a largely unified cascaded control architecture, where most operating conditions are handled through changes in set points, outer-loop logic, or small controller extensions rather than switching between fundamentally different controllers. While this simplicity is one of the strengths of the work, it may also be beneficial to discuss whether different flight phases of the AWES operation (such as launch, reel-out, reel-in, transition, and landing) would eventually require phase-dependent cascaded control strategies beyond the current inner- and outer-loop structure.

Finally, there appears to be a typo in the equation reference on page 6, where the text should refer to Eq. (12).

please refer to the attached document