Jump to content
KiteLife Forum

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/25/2021 in all areas

  1. My new video edit, enjoy.. Sent from my iPad using KiteLife mobile app
    1 point
  2. Thanks John, I'm happy to be here! It looks like I'm one of the few Arizonans. As a kid, I enjoyed the cheap kites our parents got us now and then but wouldn't say I flew a lot. When I was a teenager, I bought a nylon Premier Kite-in-a-Bag parafoil at the local mall basically on a whim and really enjoyed flying it. That thing went on many camping trips with me and I may or may not have used it to drop things into the neighbor's pool. I knew about sports kites but was probably intimidated by the prices. College, marriage, career and kids came along and my kite and kiting mostly sat on the shelf. Fast forward about 30 years to this May. On a trip to Seattle, my wife was hit with some concerning pains and spent a little time in the hospital (she's fine now). We tweaked our plans and I needed to find some things for my daughters and I to do. I scrolled Google Maps north from city center and it showed me a single pin in the middle of a lot of gray - "Prism Kites (Temporarily Closed)" Oh cool, I thought, a kite store. So I hunted down their site and liked their designs. Father's Day was around the corner so I was going to ask my wife for a Zenith (their best-selling single line kite), but thought it might be fun to dip my toes into the waters of sports kites. The Jazz 2.0 (their started two-liner) wasn't that much more, so that's what I got. My first time flying was kind of a mess. The wind usually isn't great around here. It gusts, changes directions and dies. I spent far more time on the ground (and walking back in forth), but I did get maybe a total of 90 seconds in the air. That little taste of steering grabbed me, though. That was pretty cool. The next day, the winds were strong and I got some decent flight time. I wanted to get a picture of the kite flying but the Jazz is so fast and needs so much attention that it wasn't possible. It was a lot of fun, though. So I've been flying the Jazz maybe a month, whenever I'm free on a good wind day. I bought an anemometer, put together an embarrassing old man in straw hat outfit for flying, and found an awesome new park to fly in that's 15 minutes away. I have a Tantrum 2.2 coming Tuesday so I can hand the bar to a family member or onlooker who wants to try it (who's big enough not to be carried away - I might also get a Synapse). I already know I'm going to want an ultralight kite so I can fly on more days. I scraped the ground hard this week and splintered a lower spreader (while getting applause from an onlooker for recovering) so I know I'm not quite ready for a more delicate kite yet. There's also a true stunt kite in my future, and possibly a quad down the road. I'll hit the wall of what swooshing around I can do pretty soon here on the Jazz, but I think there's a lot I can work on with general technique and reading the air by feel. I have to confess I must be more attention-starved than I knew, too, because I really enjoy interacting with onlookers. I've gone flying when it was 110 degrees (F) and virtually nobody was around, but yesterday it was 85 and there were tons of people at the park. I could hear the conversations around me about the kite and was approached by a few families with questions - putting one Dad who was really interested on the path of buying one for himself. It was tons of fun. Well, that became a novella but I plan to settle in and be around for a while. I appreciate all the friendly sharing of information on this and other forums. I love watching peoples' videos and would love to get out to an event sometime. Thanks for putting this community together!
    1 point
  3. My adult addiction to kites started in 2013 while I was on a vacation in Nags Head NC. We had rented a beach house and I found my way to Kitty Hawk kite store, bought a Prisim Quantum and a Snapshot 1.9 speed foil. I took a break for a few years but have come back with a vengeance, still have the original kites plus 5 quads, 1 quad traction kite, 6 dual line and 2 SLK.
    1 point
  4. for testing tail use a garbage bag, cut strips and there you are. if is unstable and wobbling left to right at that shape is almost nothing to be done to stabilize except bridle check and recheck to be equal. tide the bridle on the center of the circles to give them the chance to let the wind to flow free. teste after that a tension line from left to right and have at least 2 inches bow on the center. for start i will try a 3 point bridle ,top left, right. top to be long from center of circle till to the center of midle spar (C-D). left and righr to be longs from center to center of circles (A-B and B-A), will be a tetrahedrom with base on center of the circles and 2 sides equal with the base AB and BA third one (top) CD. pointy top of tetrahedrom will be X. Take reference from last pic posted good luck and keep us on the loop A D B X C
    1 point
  5. My dad's large 5 foot delta from his father. He put it on a massive 3000yd spool of fishing line. Flew it in the park with him one day and dropped the spool. Never saw it again...
    1 point
  6. Peter Powell Stunt Kite in 1987 or 88. It had a plastic sail. I bought in at Kitty Hawk Kites In Nags Head, NC. I think it was $35 big money for an 11 year old. Loved that kite. I flew it until it just disintegrated. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    1 point
  7. An older brother who was traveling --- then age 19 with a job and money --- was introduced to kiting and bought two stackable power kites in 1985 (I believe they are Flexifoils) which is how I ended up with Catch the Wind catalogs. CTW kept sending catalogs to our house every few months, and I'd read all I could. I had several cheap plastic kites, but my first "real" kites were a single line parafoil in 1986 and a basic dual line line in 1987, both from Catch the Wind. I would fly them both in a weed-filled field near my house after school, and since I wasn't allowed to actually touch my brother's power kites and he was away, I learned how to fly dual lines as a ten year old flying by myself. I cannot begin to guess how many times I set down my lines hoping the kite wouldn't fly away, set the kite up carefully resting on a tall weed, ran back over to the lines, and tried to launch. ... then after instantly crashing, setting the lines down, walking back across the field, carefully standing it back up, running back before it fell over, and attempting again. This was before standoffs, and I had nobody to fly with, nor videos to watch. I keep the parafoil in my car and it sees occasional flight time. Last summer I flew with my brother who still has those flexifoils, while we occasionally traded off with my newer kites. I keep that old simple 4' dual line kite in my kite bag for nostalgic reasons, the elastics and seams are basically dead. I still have the old blue SpiderLine, though, it is spectra line that still works after 32 years.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...