Flynhi (PipaKite)

Nice. Always love your videos. So relaxing.

Very nice.

"Leading with the brakes", try re-focusing your hands *just* slightly lower than your elbows when you make your sideways or inverted inputs, this will favor pressure in the center of the handles, more balanced into the bottom lines, less hard tilt into the top lines (which results in forward flight + loss of pressure).

The tell when looking at the video is a sense of "holding your hands up", or "holding the kite up with your hands"... After a while, your hands should spend most their time in front of or just above your solar plexus.

@John Barresi Is the sail farting at 0:25 a sign of not 100% control of the sail? or just too much speed?

I notice I do that occasionally, and am trying to figure out if it's not having properly tensioned lines that is causing it, or something else.

Great question - that sound is the result of "over sheeting"... Not enough tension in the bottom lines, and / or holding your hands too high (which favors the top lines).

Solutions...

a. Lengthen your top lines (more brake)

b. Move your hands lower down on the foam of the handle (just above center).

c. Experiment with keeping your hands much, much lower by default.

Ah, thanks for the insight.

So I guess in a dive, you want to add more tension to the top lines so the sail doesn't flop and still allows you to divestop.

Yes, but it may not be a an outwardly noticeable (abrupt) movement - just think about being dominant with the top lines when you want to drive and not letting the back edge run loose or totally free... Again, do this by:

1 - lengthening the top lines

2 - keep your hands lower

3 - moving your hands down the foam a bit

Exercise - in a sideways hover, try barely slacking out and then snapping down on all four lines at once so that you generate a clear pressure on all lines but the kite doesn't surge in any direction.

The style of movement would be like a "one inch punch" with both hands, then snap all four lines tight.

When you get it right, the sail should make an audible "pop" (slapping its face evenly against the wind).

Another sign of success is that in that same time, the resistance you feel in all four lines should noticeably increase.

This is the "whump" you may have heard about... That impact also changes the shape of the kite, powering up the kite and exponentially increasing the power available in that short window, kind of like a nitrous boost... ALL FOUR lines, not just the top ones.

Imagine a marionette puppet, strings and X control above it... Similar to a Rev, with fluid dynamics added to surface area(s)... A skilled puppeteer doesn't let one control line out of mind, even while working specifically with others.

Once the 4 line tension is established with the whump, the backward movement needed to keep the tension is exponentially less - if you start soft, there isn't anything to hold onto, random edges of the kite aren't loaded  for the job at hand.

If you once again skim the videos of the top performance quad fliers around after our chat here, you'll start to see this perspective more clearly.

The other thing you might experiment with from a holistic perspective, is getting a little "float" into your feet... Control lock ups often happen when our lower half stops being dynamic and settles flat footed.

The name of the game is tension and sail pressure is an ever fluctuating thing by nature, if your roots (feet) are static then your line tension will oscillate without your participation... If your feet are always moving or transitioning, you'll be participating in your line tension more deeply than the basic "back when I go up" and "forward when I go down" footwork.

Thanks for the expansive answer. I'll definitely keep this stuff in mind next time I'm out flying.

I think I remember Terry telling me one of the reasons he likes the rev vs a dual line, is that flying one is much more of a dance. I think that is summed up by your "don't be static" answer.

I think the "don't be static" idea applies universally to multi line kites, if we're talking about ideal performance - some people just want to stand there and that's ok too, but it won't ever be more than remote control.