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Sometimes a little help goes a long way.


SparkieRob

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Boxing Day 2015. I was going through the recyclable bin in search of some instructions that were reported missing from my littlest girl's "Frozen" Lego set. I kid you not! I noticed a guy with his two kids and a kite at the park. I paused to watch, like any kiter would do. I watched them struggle to get it into the air. I saw the kids lose interest. I had a déjà vu from exactly 4 years back. Quickly told my wife I was just going to help them out and over I went. Went and introduced myself and offered some assistance which he readily accepted. I gave the kite a once over. It was a cheapo dualile, would've cost $20 at most. Plastic sail, cheap lines. First I gave him a basic run through, let out all the lines when it's down on the ground not in the air. Give to the kite if you heading South to the ground. Small hand movements not massive arm yanks. After a couple of minutes of successful flying, there was a gust that just stretched out the sail in a very unkind way. 

 

I quickly ran ran back to my house and grabbed my SKD Seven Std and 80 foot lines. Quickly set up, explaining what AND why I was doing. A quick flight to make sure the bridle was dialled in. Then handed over the straps. All the frustration just melted away from his face. Sure we didn't do any tricking, just flew around. But! He was flying and not struggling. His kids called out to him that it was time to go so he handed me the straps back and I flew a few figures, stalls and slides for a bit of fun. We talked while I packed up. All about kites. I think I opened his eyes to a lot more than a $20 dollar kite. Then, and there is always a then, he asked me how much my Seven was. The smile didn't disappear totally from his face when I told him... I explained that it was an investment over a few years. Break the cost of kites down over a few years and most people see the value. I pointed him towards Kitelife.com as a portal into kiting. Gave him a website for a kite shop here in Oz. Gave him my details. Hopefully there was enough of a spark to keep going. Only time will tell.

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A good example and an inspiring story about sharing kite knowledge! It makes me think of the following quote I got from the quote of the day server ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QOTD ) on alpha.mike-r.com:

"Linux - because Mommy taught me to share"
  -- miracle69 on slashdot

(Disclaimer: no, I'm not a guru hacker nor exceptionally good in this area, but QOTD-servers offers a moment of distraction when needing a short break). The mentality of sharing is the same. This adds a dimension to kiting and generates memorable moments when it happens. Perhaps a more suitable quote for this forum would be:

"Kiting -  because Mommy taught me to share!"

But then, a SKD Seven, really, how could you?! Weren't you terribly nervous? Perhaps choosing some other good kite with less of an impact on your kiting if it broke would have been safer (and cheaper) to hand over in this case? I've given it some thought (loosely) if a Seven could fill the wind range gap between my HQ Shadow and my HQ Infinity, but also feel that I need more time with my current kite armada, to make tools of them rather than discovering new features and to keep the flight time to kite purchase ratio high enough. But it is kind of tempting. I wonder if my wife wouldn't agree on that as a Swede I really ought to get a Swedish kite (yes, now I know, the expected low shipping costs would make it a bargain!)...

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Not nervous at all. I've lawn darted it before... Holes can be patched. Sticks can be replaced. And it was the easiest to grab at the time. 

 

Even my Rasta Jammin is capable of more than me at the moment but the Sevens are just really nice to fly. 

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