Trick Flying
From Jacob's Ladders to Cascades, Yo Yos to the Comete... This is the place to discuss the hows, whats and whys of modern trick flying and kites specialized for that purpose!
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Well ... do you all have the popcorn? 🙂 indeed no drama or flamewar. Just some information after a call to the owner of the brand: a lot of products are named as Icarex, but the only real Icarex is owned by a Dutch company. see the spec sheet you can easily find on the internet type in icarexpolyester dot com and all your dreams come through. the rights to produce and sell are since 5-2020 in hands of a new company, the old owner Vliegerop is no more. the product was and is still produced in the factory (Teijin) in Japan. No other Factories produce the (real) product. by high demands for cloth kite builders/printers face currently a shortage. The new owner is busy to create more stock and this has to be done together with the factory. so ...... may I have also some popcorn? Please 😋 -
Today at the beach the wind was steady at 0 with puffs around 2 mph off the water. I had a blast with a Wala and a Skate. Two days ago we had a storm/wind warning so I stayed home. Yesterday was about 4...no.....10...no 2...no 20.....I stayed home as well. I love kiting!!! bt -
This is universally true, no shame in that. As you grow into the hobby, you can start saving money until the budget grows into it. Some people also build their own, choosing to save a lot of money in exchange for time, sweat, blood, and tears. Line sets cost about half as much but require buying in bulk up front; yards of kite fabric cost have some waste as you cut around, but then you've got people like @riffclown who make impressive patchwork kites from hundreds of tiny scraps of fabric. Assuming you stick with the sport, you'll have one, then another, then another, then you'll talk about your collection with pride, then you'll talk about it with embarrassment as you forget how many total kites you own. (I'm at 24, but Christmas is coming, plus I've saved up for the Djindoor when it is released...) -
That's the normal scenario, beaches are only a small part of the world. Most of us live with wildly variable wind. Stealing Paul's normal quote, there is really no such thing as bad weather, only a poorly equipped kite flier. Want to fly in dead calm air or indoors? There are kites for that. Want to fly in a gale, or in hurricane force winds? There are kites for that. You certainly can choose to fly a kite near the upper end of it's rated speed. Even if the spars don't break (they can be replaced), the sail fabric stretches and has a risk of tearing. All sail fabric stretches out over time, it's just a question of if you want to enjoy the kite for thousands of hours, or only a few. Many kites sell a range, from ultralight (UL) and super-ultralight (SUL) versions for light wind or no wind, up through to vented versions that are mostly mesh or fabric windows. Dual line kites can also have air brakes, basically a piece of fabric or mesh along the lines placed on the bridle mounts that add drag to slow it down. 15MPH is a great forecast for the vast majority of kites. Usually for inland wind there is considerable variability, so even though the forecast is 15MPH from minute to minute it may range from 8 to 15 to 20 to 12 to 6 to 10, and so on. That is strong enough to get the massive kites up in the air, and still low enough that most of the cheap plastic kites the kiddies bring can fly like a dream. Learn to use the wind window so when wind is pulling hard you are flying out on the edge, where pull is minimal. As wind dies off, fly back into the power zone. What kind of kite do you have? You may have missed an ideal flying day, or if you have an SUL, you may have dodged a bullet.
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