The indoor events and preparation
During December I’ve attended two indoors model aircraft events at an indoor football field (“soccer” to you over there). No, there were no other kiting activities there, so there were quite many basic questions regarding sport kites. Since I’m rather new to indoor kiting (give one or two DLK 4D indoor attempts) these two events have been valuable for me in the sense that they serve as deadlines – Going there without anything to demonstrate was just out of
This session I planned to:
Test the new Level One, One Eleven.
Practice QLK (B-series mid vent) with long (40m) lines.
Test the new Smithi Pro kite.
Thu Mar 29 11:00:00 CEST 2018
GF, forecasted 3-4m/s, but was a bit varying
Level One, One Eleven on 35m 75kg lines B-series 1.5 on 40m 40kg lines
Spiderkites, Smithi Pro also on 40m 40kg lines
Disclaimer: Do not consider this to be two proper reviews - it is just a first impression of the One Eleven and the Smithi Pro during a
Mars 2018, ITW Kymera 25m lines
One, lately a bit rare , pre-work session on a piece wise slippery field. This morning offered a sun dog scenery along with a faint halo.
My current DLK main focus is to get the flic flac going/start/getting a tiny bit reliable. Considering that the FAs are not 100% it is actually more than one thing that is being practiced in parallel. Sometimes even one rung of a JL just happens to come out of it (typically if the light pop when flared was uneven and
Sat Feb 17 18:00:00 CET 2018
Golf course, forecasted 1m/s, in reality possibly no wind
Vapor on 15m 20kg lines
One February afternoon my wife turned hopeful - there was a thin layer of snow - perhaps it would be possible to do some cross country skiing again. Towards the end of the day me and my wife left for the wintry golf course. I wasn't so sure, so I left the skies at home and "only" brought my Prism Vapor. We went by two cars because my wife feared that I for some reason could
Wed Jan 10 11:03:35 CET 2018
A tennis court in a sports hotel in Schladming in the Austrian Alps
Prism 4D on about 3m (10 ft set, but with adjustable length) 20kg lines
(The 4D was the only kite that fitted into the suitcase - brought it just in case...)
This reminds me of a Swedish proverb: "Som en åsna mellan två hötappar" - like a donkey between two hay feeding stations. This means here that there is a problem of choosing a preferred activity. The surface of this tennis court was
Mon Dec 25 13:00:00 CET 2017
GB, Forecasted 4m/s (gusts 8m/s)
Cross Kites Speedwing X1
25m 38kg lines
Looks small (113cm span), but is capable of surprising you (much like the Monty Python monster rabbit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCI18qAoKq4 ?). Looks wrinkled as well? Don't worry - once in the air everything gets smooth.
Conditions/background: Quite OK wind, but I still wouldn't hesitate to trick trickable kites. Rain on frozen ground... My flick flack exercising
Sat Sep 30 16:38:39 CEST 2017
GF, forecasted 3-4m/s
Fazer XL and XXL stacked on 35m 180kg lines
Two 23m (75 ft) prism tube tails
To carry stuff
After the soon 3 months on QLKing I decided to end that test/project and return to DLKs (and "at the same time" continue with QLKs). During the QLK time I got kind of "transportation spoiled". I only had two kites to carry around: B-series 1.5 std and full vent. The full vent venting holes are patched with removable thin sheets of cel
Sun Aug 6 13:00:00 CEST 2017
GF, forecasted (not applicable - didn't seem to match)
Rev B-series standard, 2 wrap tubes most of the time
Lines 25m, 60kg (front) and 40kg (rear)
Today's winds were a bit erratic and mostly weak. It was cloudy and the ground was a bit moist from recent rain. When I came to the field I realized that I had forgotten the kite stake at home (an old screwdriver with red tape wound around the handle). Normally I never deal with them, but then "normally" until
My first pre-work session
May I ask for 10 more of these sessions?
Fragments to decipher - tricking that leaves questions
These sessions were all in the tricking en masse spirit. Approaching tricking from this different angle turned out to allow me to catch glimpses of tricks that if I would have worked on a trick methodically one by one, would have been several years ahead. This once again leads me into thinking of the beginning of the Trickery Flickery video ( http://kiteli
Probable cause and image of the worn/torn Fazer XXL LE dacron has been added below in the last log entry about the XXL.
The February log entries:
An Under Powered Fazer XXL and a Somewhat Pulling Kymera
Kind of Cascading
En Masse Tricking Leading the Way to Longer Cascading
At Last the Fazer XXL in Decent Wind - or the Session of Wear and Tear
Can you relate to any contents? Am I missing a good short cut of trick learning (is there such a thing?) somewhere
In between entry: Nobody told me there'd be days like this - Strange days indeed
Something that is not supposed to happen here happened. A collegue at work asked me if I had heard the news that there had been a shooting somewhere in the area where I live. Now that area is quite large, ~500km2 (of land area), so I didn't feel directly concerned (but the thought though...). When checking the news up, there were no casualties and the victim had "just" been shot in the leg and the two suspects
The big day - First cold session with the Fazer XXL
Fri Jan 6 17:10:50 CET 2017
GF, forecasted 3m/s, (-11degC)
Fazer XXL on 35m 180kg lines
Today was the big day, the first time with the Fazer XXL. I therefore went to the big field with room for the lines - the closest field is not just big enough. This larger field is not next to a beach so that the wind is typically a bit less than the forecast suggests here. That was something I saw as a bonus when approaching the field not rea
Sun Oct 16 18:26:55 CEST 2016
GF forecasted 4m/s
Hydra on 20m 38kg and 25m 38kg lines
Kymera in 25m 38Kg lines
This blog entry blobbed and expanded and wouldn't fit into the "chunky log" format any longer, so therefore I broke it out from that log. Although KL is a forum for kiting, kiting always takes place in some kind of a context. In this blog entry I have started from the field and from what I saw and allowed myself to associate memories in one or several steps. It also serves as
Hello, the second dump of flight logs can be found in a comment towards the end - keep on scrolling downwards!
Structure:
Blog entry - Header for a longer period (e.g. autumn/winter 2016)
Blog comment - Dump of several flight log entries along with a conclusion section
Flight log entry - A part of the of the blog comment dump corresponding to a days activity
Dumps of my flight logs are made here in the form of comments to this blog entry (or header). The (at least
When being removed from your comfort flying zone you might get new experiences that you couldn't imagine or predict. This blog entry is also a vacation post card from the medieval city (in the sense that ruins and buildings from that time still exist) of Visby ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby ) in the island of Gotland ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotland ) in the Baltic Sea as well as an example of how flying during new and non-ideal conditions turned out to be educational, fun and very
Added 21st of June 2018:
So in a way @RobB was right, the repair didn’t last. Well there was no catastrophic failure, but a new fissure emerged (still using the tube though). Today I'd increase the glass fibre content. For images and the second iteration of the tube repair including heat shrink tubing (and more) see:
https://kitelife.com/forum/topic/8458-widow-ng/?do=findComment&comment=68307
https://kitelife.com/forum/topic/8458-widow-ng/?do=findComment&comment=68335
Warning: The horsing around is omnipresent in this blog entry. If you are easily annoyed by silly contents that is scattered through this text you are hereby warned.
Sunday afternoon after almost 2 days of cold rain the winds were really good for the local field/beach. The breeze was perfect, even (T-shirt) warm. I decided to get my HQ Infinity out. We have only seen each other about five times in kiting fields so far. There is a freshness about the situation. This is the first kite for me
Being relatively new here I'm not yet familiar with all the features/functions of this site. I kind of "discovered" the blog section quite recently and then figured out that ... hm... those earlier lengthy posts (like http://kitelife.com/forum/topic/7093-welcome-exult/#comment-57515 or http://kitelife.com/forum/topic/5459-what-do-do-in-high-wind/?page=4#comment-57785 ) might better had been put in a KL-blog instead? Even after a month I'm still in the process of finding my way around here.
