Greg Brouelette

What? Who? Nah, I was just sayin' that it would be an incredible coincidence. I guess I'll have to drink it by myself.

OK guys, I don't have ANY Revs. So obviously, I should win the kite. And if John happened to receive a fine bottle of aged bourbon after I won it that would simply be an amazing coincidence.

I would love to win this. I'm still a dual line guy and would love to try quads.

After all the troubles I've been having with light winds, no winds, and then really heavy winds (which I underestimated and ended up breaking my new Kymera kite) I finally had a good day with decent, and consistent, wind. We've been having a lot of small storms up here and of course, before and after a storm you get wind. A few days ago the wind was moderate, not sure what the speed was but it was not too fast and very consistent. I decided to try the newly repaired Kymera in the same park where I broke the Kymera over a month ago. This time things where much happier. As I was practicing figure 8s, loops, squares, and flying horizontal close to the ground I realized that this was probably the first time I've really flown a dual line kite in decent wind in over 15 years. It was fun to get to know the wind window again, to actually fly the kite instead of constantly trying to save the kite. It was odd to have that sensation of experience from my flying days decades ago and the sensation of being a newbie at the same time. I learned several things: The Kymera is a very quick kite. It's really easy to over steer when trying to do 90 degree corners. That's a reflection of my skill limitations, not the kite. Just doing a simple stall at the wind's edge is harder than it looks. Sometimes it would just happen and I had to try to "rewind" what I just did to figure out why it worked this time. It seems that a lighter touch and a lot of anticipation of what the kite will do is required. I was only able to get a side slide a couple of times for a few feet. And it almost happened by accident. The kite can definitely do it if I give it the right input. It's just going to take more practice. I only got it to do one backflip and I was amazed at how much slack I need to give it and how quickly it needed that slack. I'm glad I watched and rewatched the section on recoveries on the Freestyle Pilot DVD because I had to recovery from unplanned landings a lot. Overall it was a great day. It was really nice to actually fly the thing instead of constantly fighting to keep it in the air. This reminded me of why I use to fly so often. Greg

Times like this I really miss living in San Diego.

If it's still available after Christmas I'll probably take it. But I have to watch my funds until the end of the year.

Go to awindofchange.com and check out their Revolution parts. They have individual spare for each model of Rev.

I can see how that would make sense. While it's frustrating having to search to find any consistent wind or a non-tree lined flying area up here, once you get the kite in the air that sense of touch really comes back to you. Even though I'm not doing impressive tricks in these light winds, I love the feel of dancing with the kite. It really is such a subtle thing to control the kite. That's certainly something I'm experiencing with the 3D and light winds which I don't remember experiencing back when I use to fly in big winds in Huntington Beach or San Diego.

For the past two days we've had all sorts of wind, but we've also been going to family and friends houses for Thanksgiving. Today, when I have time to fly, of course the wind died down, but there was still something blowing around. I drove down the hill about 30 miles to the town of Rocklin and tried scouting out another park. There was a lot of open area which wasn't assigned as a soccer field and there was some light, spotty wind. I pulled out my new favorite kite the Prism 3D and got it up in the air. Once again, the 3D saved the day. Although there were times when the wind completely died there were still times when I could fly it for several minutes. At one point I must have had the kite in the sky for 10 minutes or more. I tried to learn to do stalls at the end of the wind window but the kite wants to pivot right and left. I found that I really have to anticipate the kite's movement to stop that pivoting. A couple of times I even got the kite to do a small side slide. I was feeling confident so I decided to try a 360. The wind was really low so I brought the kite down and turned it to the right and parallel to the ground. I swung it around to the right and started walking backwards fast. It was working great and I got it just past the 180 degree mark where I'm actually facing into the wind (if there was any). Of course, that's when the wind decides to pick up and knock the kite down. I flew a couple more sessions until the wind just stopped utterly. I wrapped up my lines and was putting the kite back in my new kite bag when, of course, the wind really starts to pick up AND it's coming from the opposite direction. All day it's been blowing from the mountains towards the ocean. Now it's suddenly turned around and blowing back up the other direction. It really does seem like the best way to make the wind come up is to put my kite away. On the off change that the wind will stay strong I rigged up the newly repaired Kymera. No sooner did I get the kite in the air than the offshore wind died and the super light onshore breeze came back. I decided to wrap it up. As I got to the car I realized that what I thought was 20 or 30 minutes of kite flying was actually 2 and a half hours. That's probably the longest time I've flown since I got back into kiting a couple of months ago. If I can just find a clear flying field with no trees on a reasonably windy day it's going to be a blast.

Oh good, that gives me a chance to go back and repost and fix my spelling.

Wow, very nice.

Awesome Barry! Be sure to let us know how you like it, how it flies, and so on. Oh, and if you hate the color, I can store it at my house for you. No problem, I'm here to help. Seriously though, congratulations.

That explains a lot. I was wondering how making the kite heavier would make it fly better. But the inertia concept makes sense. The Kymera (which I now have to repair) has 2 optional 5 gram weights which I'm going to order from Into The Wind. But I didn't understand why I would add weight to a kite. These answers are making sense to me though.

I would love to see a video on how adding or removing weight to a dual line kite affects it's flight characteristics. I've heard that changing the weight will help a kit do Yoyos. But which way? Adding? Subtracting? Placing the weight where? I just think that would be a great video lesson. Thanks.

JPhelps: Actually, I cut 10 feet of of the original line which was around 40 to 45 feet long. So I have a li e set that's about 30 feet long now. For really light wind that feels pretty good. I can imagine it being much harder to deal the extra slack of a 40 foot line. So maybe my little leaf tangle helped me out in the long run.