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I lost the upper spreader for my Prism 4D several years ago when I had no spare tubes or rods for any of my few kites. It was a bad feeling thinking I would not be flying my little superlight kite until I could order a replacement part. No kite shops anywhere in my area & I did not know at that time that hobby stores stocked small diameter light carbon fiber rods for RC control rod use on the little planes. So after a bit of useless anguish, I used my Swiss Army knife to whittle a replacement twig into the guessed length. Later I thought I would make something without bark. At home I went into the shop & found an eighth inch wooden dowel to make a prettier one. I just tapered the ends a bit to make the fit a little better. The kite flew just fine. But still I wanted the proper part. Thinking about the afternoon I lost the part I remembered hearing a distinct "ting" noise as I loaded the kites into my truck. On a hopeful thought I went back to where I parked that day & there was my carbon fiber spreader laying in the gravel. These days I have spare parts, spare kites & still keep my little dowel too. I also know most dualies will fly without upper spreaders & I have flown them without any spreaders just to see if they would do it. SHBKF

Welcome to the forum, Flap Floblem. It's good to see people from the Island getting interested in kite flying. I'm not sure if we've communicated before, but I live in Suffolk on the North Shore. I haven't been out flying much this year, but I still grab a short session here & there. Where are you on the Island, and what are your flying hours ? Maybe we can meet up...

Has anyone ever used dowels? Yes, many people. There are all kinds of kite designs that can use any available rod, including dowels, bamboo, even straight sticks and twigs for their structure. Many inexpensive hobby-store and generic retail kites use wooden dowels for their cross bar. If you are searching for kite designs online, you can find kite plans that call for thin wooden dowels (or for bamboo sticks that tend to be lighter). Most professional grade kites these days use carbon fiber rods for their light weight, high strength, and extreme flexibility which helps them survive crash impacts. A few professional grade kites use fiberglass.

So glad the 100 degree weather has passed for awhile. Yesterday nice winds 8 to 12 mph. 20 degrees F with light snow falling accumulating to about 3". Gorgeous day! The BD is made of ripstop polyester. Handles the wet best out of my kites. I call it Mudder. I've stained a couple of my white kites in the wet so Mudder is the only one I fly. First time with a BD I let it go to upgrade. Missed it so I got Mudder. 3/4 kite so it's fairly fast. Kite is really responsive and wrist/finger movements are usually all that's required. Kite is really tricky but asks for smooth inputs unlike the Hydra, Nighthawk or Addiction that can be popped over and over. Out of my kites it is most similar to the Mongoose. When flying as kites get quicker with wind speed I've gravitated to holding my arms cocked, close to my side and hands close together. Issue that I've had with the kite is wing tip wraps. Because of hand position I'm late or forget to throw my arm wide. Cascade, Wap do wap, and the like end up in a tip wrap more often than not. At times even coming out of a roll up. Not very good yet so most of that is pilot error.Still. Watching tips get wrapped yesterday time and again I got pretty frustrated. The leading edge tunnel stops pretty short of the tensioning line and then the end cap. The way the knots are and the bulky end cap catch the lines in 4 different ways. I've thought about taking off the endcaps and electrical taping the tensioning lines. That still leaves the abrupt straight ending of the tunnel a serious snag point. It's worked well on my Zephyr and Hydra but they have longer tunnels . While flying I made a plan and the frustration went away.Going to lengthen the tunnel ending in a v shape a 1/4 inch above the wingtip. Put 2 holes at the end so a line can pull the dacron closer to the spar. Hopefully this will make wing tip wraps less common. Course more practice will do that too. Sure do dig having Mudder. Quite the kite.

Channeling refers to directing the airflow in the sail, deeper channels (the billow in the sail) affect how the air moves as it hits and leaves the sail. How does it affect the back tricks? Well, the sail certainly does “give in” when air hits the back, but you tell me how it works... As for new dual lines, YES, hoping to roll out some new ones under Kite Forge sometime next year - we already have the Kaiju indoor kite with plans in the works for a trickier indoor model and a “true blue” trickable team kite (balance of trick and precision)... Stay tuned.

Hi John! Thanks for the kind reply... Yes, I understand it's discontinued and suspected it was for intermediate fliers. I'm sorry, what does 'channeling' means? Do you mean tracks straighter? How would that looseness affect fades and back tricks in general? It seems the foil of the sail would change a great deal depending whether it's facing you or facing away like in some back tricks, fade, etc. Do you have any new dual line design coming out soon?

Thank you, John Barresi: I would like very much to connect with anyone local to me. Please connect me, if you can.

Added more vents, more testing this week.

Been looking forward to this pilot’s feedback, and here we have it! https://www.facebook.com/100000017798156/posts/2243431622334076/

K, I will hold off for a couple days on the drawing. Right now the are 2 in the drawing. Sent from my SM-N960U using KiteLife mobile app

I vote for spreading it around. Issue for me is I'm going to have to get another kite so I can join in. That just BREAKS MY HEART but I'll mend 😬.

White Bird Lover talked with the SDHS a little bit ago. Bubba is failing fast and would not survive the trip to Colorado. We gave it a heckuva a try though. Peace.

Just ran across this thread from last year. I have been flying indoor quads for about a year and making my own indoor quad kites. My focus has been on lightweighting the kites - so my current kite is an Orcon sail with ripstop edges and ripstop reinforcements where I’m guessing the biggest stresses will be. I like the lightweight character of Orcon but it can be fragile when I run into ceiling fans (which I do often) and I feel like it is a lot noisier than the all-ripstop sails I have made (all-ripstop is a but heavier but seems “stealthy” to fly). I agree with comments in the thread that the low mass kites are not as good outside even on “calm” days because there are always occasional gusts that come up and make the low mass kites hard to control. My current indoor quad weighs less than 100 g (3.5 oz) including fittings and spars and uses skyshark P90 tubes (three full-length in leading edge and each vertical is a full-length P90) I’m still learning a lot about flying and building indoor quads - so this thread is really helpful

Yup, that's right. I uploaded thirteen videos to YouTube in September! September REV Flyin' Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using KiteLife mobile app

However, I do have to be somewhat of a wrench in the works here. Just by looking at the Djinn in comparison to the mid and full vent Revs it appears to me that the percentage of venting of overall surface area on the Djinn is less than that of the Rev respectively, per model. More surface area generally equates to more lift. I haven't taken any measurements or done any calculations yet, but that would explain at least some of the perceived effect. What other factors may contribute to this phenomenon is not yet known and may be beyond our understanding and ability to measure. That said, I hope to try one myself some time.

Personally - I didn't get to fly the Djinn in really high wind, so no opinions there. I did fly a Full Vent in way less wind than I normally would, and it performed great. I was in a line leading with the F/V, with a STD and MID behind me! Any minute I expected either to run me over - never happened! I was duly impressed by its performance! No idea on any frame changes, I flew what was in them at the time. Pretty sure it was whatever comes stock. If it gives any frame of reference - I was flying a Phoenix STD or Ashes I believe, when I tried the Djinn.

T in WI if the question is for John or Wayne the discussion is about Dijnn which have more flexibility of the wind range than Revolution. Any way a REV full vent in how you say "capable hands" may cover some wind range of mid-vent and extra-vent.that capable hands must be readed and i think all will agree like "experienced". Most of us will never have the "capable hands" of John but through experience we do good enough

I'm honored.. To keep from splintering your for sale topic, I'd suggest starting a new topic with your builds over in the Kite Making section of the forum. https://kitelife.com/forum/forum/120-kite-making/

Just wanted to share the news from the Mile High Kite Fly at Beech Mountain, NC. There was a kitebuilder's comp there this past Saturday (Labor Day weekend). My modified edo, Koi Pond, took first place. And Esinger's Brasington 3/4 Stealth delta took second place. Winds were too light to get a decent flight picture so I'll add one we took before leaving for the festival.

I assume it is the landing and takeoff by Mr Aughenbaugh beginning at about the 3:55 mark on the video that caught attention. I am not familiar with the move, but in addition to the kite comments (may be in part kite specific), I note three things: 1. See how Scott runs forward to decelerate the kite (and appears to throw his hands forward to accentuate that at the very end); 2. It is on sand - may be easier on the landing and 'slipperier' on the takeoff; 3. It is The Scott Aughenbaugh.

Since I got the White Widow I believe I'm now at level 4. Taken me longer to get from 3 to 4 than 0 to 3. It'll take even longer to get to 5. 8 could be as much as 3 years away .Maybe more. Gets harder the higher you go. Iv'e always admired the skills of watching a great flier.As I get better the appreciation for the finesse it takes to make things look smooth and seamless keeps growing.As does the respect for the time, effort and dedication that it takes.It's not nearly as easy as most of you make it appear. I've been a little intimidated by this kite. Not because of it's nature but because how I got it and who had sewn the sail.It's the one kite I truly cherish. My basic skills are just recently improving to the standards that this kite demands. It is the least forgiving kite I've flown but the most elegant and rewarding. Not the high exciting fun factor on other kites. More like the Lam kites. Something that seeps into your being and is just so incredibly satisfying. I've not read anything from someone who has a Tapp sewn sail with the wing tip tweaks. If you have one please chime in. I'd read quite a bit about WMPs sewn by Heads Up Kites and I'm sure some of the reads were from WMPs sewn by Jon T or someone else. The info I'd gathered was from doing research on the Widow ng. I was more than startled to say the least when I didn't feel the same in comparing the 2 kites. Been some chatter about the Premier Widows lately and been thinking about it. Today winds were running between 10 and 15 mph. This morning towards the low. This afternoon towards the high. A little gusty but very nice winds. Couple hours this morning on the WMP and close to 2 this afternoon on the Nighthawk.Started getting tired. Had such a good day quit early so I didn't ruin it.The end of the day is when I'm most destructive. This is speculation so take it with a grain of salt. Had to sell my 1st Nighthawk to get the WMP. Knew I'd miss it the most and did. My new one has around 12,13 hours in the air. I believe the Nighthawk and Widow Maker were designed around the same time. To me their shape and flight are far more similar than to the Widow ng. Nighthawk being obviously faster and easier to over steer . Due to size easier on the ground work.The Widow ng was designed as part of a series. Don't think it was built to be a cheaper version of the WMP. Designed to be the big sibling in the spider series using knowledge gained from the WMP development.I say this because the smaller Jewel I had seemed more like the Ng than the Pro does.Read the Wind of Change review of the Jewel. 100% agree. Haven't flown a Wolf ng yet.I'm guessing Pam and Dennis started sewing the WMP around the middle of the Spider series development and promotion. Life happens and Steve showed up adding another layer of magic to the kite. Read Steves tweaks on the Blue Moon Elixir. Having been here long enough to realize how much kite people love and appreciate the innovation and progress of others makes me think the tweaks on those 2 kites put a big smile on the faces of Ken and Jon. Now a newbie has a very different opinion of the Widow Maker Pro except that most of us think it's just awesome. Really keen on hearing from the folks who get the next batch of Blue Moons and Sky Burners.Tweaks will have been made.It's what masters do. Hydra has to be replaced because of the way I fly. Love that kite. Don't know what to replace it with other than the Benson Superfly. Been wanting one of those anyways. Watching videos it doesn't seem to be much like a WMP. Now Ken has a next gen Mamba and a couple other kites that I haven't seen disclosed yet up for grabs. I've become pretty enamored with the older kites and how things have evolved around the world. Blew my budget for the Superfly on classic kites and just starting to get it back. Then along comes a run of Blue Moon sport kites. AHH desicions. I'm so confused 😁.