Exult

Funny, the latest tune with auto play tendencies in my head when kiting was Black Sabbath's Paranoid ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qanF-91aJo ), except for this evenings session when music was provided externally because there happened to be a beach party going on there (quite fun to fly to real music – never/rarely happens otherwise). Also I have informed my children who Boris Karloff was btw (as my father did). I got by the first sessions as a QLK rookie by pretending that the brake lines were the right/left lines of a DLK. You also obviously got it built by now that you should release the tension when the ground suddenly decides to hit the kite 🙂 (no matter the sort of kite) - sure it will go well. ... Imagine, just having a QLK just waiting for you to use the second you need it ... handy!

Adding a thin protective layer at a strategic point appears to be a very nice fix. Bear in mind though that the bridle line core should not melt. Sacrifice the outermost 1cm of the long extended leaders to test if they can take the heat (unless you know it is spectra and wouldn't like to try). When I applied the heat shrink to a worn B-series bridle the fibres melted (and the bridle line was more or less cut in half on the inside) and I therefore replaced it with a bridle line of another type that could take the heat: https://kitelife.com/forum/topic/8841-how-much-longer-to-replace-this-bridle/?do=findComment&comment=70924 Spectra melts at 130 - 136 degC or 266F - 277F ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-molecular-weight_polyethylene#Fiber ). For a list of heat shrinking tubes filtered to display a max minimum shrinkage temperature of 115degC or 239F: https://www.elfa.se/en/cable-wire/heat-shrink-tubing/standard-heat-shrink-tubing/c/cat-DNAV_PL_090803?q=*&filter_Category3=Standard+Heat+Shrink+Tubing&filter_Shrinkage+temperature+min.~~°C=%2B100&filter_Shrinkage+temperature+min.~~°C=%2B115 With a well controlled heat source or rapidly applying the heat in short bursts (an allowing it to cool in between) could help if you would pursue the perhaps challenging task of putting heat shrink tubing on a spectra (core) bridle. Good luck with your bridle/extended leader fix!

Accepting QLKing as part of one’s kiting activities is a process (shouldn’t I be using the valuable time to learn DLKs tricks? - I just started to see that QLK tricks are not non-existent, but are less emphasized). Give it some time! As an old (did I just write that?) DLK kiter, starting with QLK gave me something of an identity crisis (yes really!) lasting close to a year. Don’t worry 🙂, it just makes me think of scifi/horror with themes of groups being possessed or replaced: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/ (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There%3F (Who Goes There …or The Thing) (or why not a good old Star Trek Borg?) Remember, there is nothing to fear, you’ll become like us eventually: 🤔 👽👾🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🐺👻😈

Totally agree, use the polyester line that came with my HQ Quickstep for other purposes than kiting, because I refuse to let anyone, beginners as well, to be subject to much inferior lines - go Spectra/Dyneema (though the brands I use differs from those commonly mentioned on KL: Climax and Liros). Are nylon and dacron lines even sold as kite lines? How about emotionally connected? 🙂

I don't do roll ups, but yet needed to add (rip stop) tape to hold them. Much differently, but wouldn't like to be without either one. The Kymera is a great and trickable flyer with a large wind window. The Hydra got a smaller wind window. Little input is required to make it do much trickwise. Pitch sensitive as well - won't get stuck in a turtle. For a beginner the Kymera would be easier to understand. In case I'd be out on an initially low wind day starting with the HQ Shadow, I could then go on with the ITW Kymera, then the ITW Hydra, then HQ Infinity (then a vented QLK).

During the last few days, while the memory of the quad clinic is still fresh enough, I’ve been trying to recollect and make the memories of useful bits and pieces of info permanent. The clinic started with a really packed long (2h or 3h?) theory session (mixed with some demonstration of kite parts) that made one’s head explode (from focused listening). I agree totally in what another participant said: “I’ve never had this much kite theory in such a short time”. Perhaps a 5 min break after 2/3 of the time? Dog stake flying. Learning by ... just doing it (well, i.e. after a demo and a few pieces of advice)! The clinic was beneficial in other ways as well. Getting crucial hints in tricks and turns, getting comments when trying these and getting started on things I not yet had assumed that I would be ready for practising, like flick flack, axel, dog stake training. Something to bring home to the home field is also new figures to add to one’s perhaps too familiar set of things to practice. Rapid sharp turns with preserved speed is really something I’d like to add to my repertoire as well. Also in areas where I thought that there was nothing left to learn I got useful pieces of advice in e.g. things like trimming the brake line length and kite assembly. Even such a basic thing as an LE upwards start could improved/varied. "Networking" the kiting way. An eight line-set “net”. After a few minutes we were all free from the line newly formed net however. Method: everyone moved together and started to undo the twists from the handle side. The group flying sessions were, you guessed it, ... intensive. Trying new things constantly in a just get going style - kind of not only learning by doing. I’d say it even was one step further because the full picture of how the figures should be performed was partly learned after we had started doing them. The two main arrangements of group flying sessions were four and eight persons (including JB). The group sessions was a reminder of even though you could do the figures in your way by yourself (after having understood them at least), the situation is different from that. You don’t chose the pace, can’t hesitate for a moment or cannot chose to use your favourite part of the wind window. The position and speed of your kite should always be matched relative to others. This is a kind of practice that I very rarely get. The evening before the clinic started was nice as well. A personal reflection or a strange sensation: I went to a hill about 500m north of the youth hostel and after an hour the others had arrived and showed up on the hill. Suddenly there were three QLKs being flown, even while my hands were resting (there are no QLK pilots in my area that I know of). Bye to you all and hope to see you the next year!

Are we talking about turns like the “Rev Tutorial - 180 with Positive Drive”? The above post seems to address the actual (start of?) turning, how easy it is to rotate (when letting the heavier LE drop down). Another thought I have is that it is easier to maintain height in light wind (and on edge/sides of the wind window?) with an inverted hover rather than a non-inverted hover. Doing a down turn resembles the inverted hover for a short time. Btw, initially I didn’t understand why you should bother with 180deg down turns (and I found them difficult as well) – the (quick) 180deg upturn was easier anyhow and seemed to maintain the height (in good wind, if performed rapidly and/or towards the centre of the wind window)… First I’d like to agree with Wayne and add there is no need to suddenly increase the tilting backwards of the kite (by extending the top leaders) - go step by step until you find the balance. It is difficult to isolate top leader trimming from general QLK flying. The main thing I’d like to point out by the below yada yada is that IMO you can’t separate the length of the top leaders from the flex of the LE. The more flex the longer top leaders you need. The below is also an attempt to put the LE flexibility into a context (pro/con/effects of LE flexibility and top leader trimming): I have used the original leaders sitting on the handles that came with the B-series kites that I got and hold the handles with the thumbs on the top end of the handles. Nowadays I only use the settings close to the outer end of the top leader (using the original leaders). So in low wind move in one or two knots so that you can hold a non-inverted hover without to much work. In harder wind if you notice that you have a constant forward drive and that you need to use some force to apply brake to hold the kite still, go to the outermost knot. Another sign to watch out for that suggests that it is time to move out a knot is that you often hear a fluttering trailing edge when powering up the sail. Now one should not forget about the stiffness of the LE and how prone it is to bend in the current wind. If out have a flexible LE (or if the wind is hard) the sail changes shape so that you might need to make the leaders longer than original. The stiffness of the LE IMO should be chosen so that you easily can bend the LE by pulling your arms back (while at the same time it still will flex back in the current wind when extending the arms). I’ve only recently started extending the (top) leaders. The thing that got me started was using the soft (flexible) Skyshark P90 LE as a replacement for the Revolution two feather spars in very low wind. When using a LE that you easily can control the curvature of (the flex) on in a certain wind and you can get a nice control of stop and starts (in the air I meant, not launching or landing) and get nice straight paths when the kite moves forward. So why ever would you like to use a bit stiffer LEs? A stiff LE is good for side slides, vertical slides or slides in any direction. With a stiffer LE I can slide the kite in a large circle with the LE pointing outwards (down spars always in the radial direction). With a stiffer LE I can rapidly/actively drive the kite downwards in a vertical slide. If the LE would bend when doing this, the straight slide instantly instead turns into a turn (away from the LE).

🙂😄! My subdivision of that club is more specifically the BLLEC (broken lower leading edge). Are we talking tip stabs here (or an actual sustained dragging of wing tip along the ground)? Tip stabs are my number one method to make sacrifices to the spar god. The cart wheels however I have yet to discover the devastating effect of 🙂. The second method to do GKM (grievous kite harm) or to get involved in kite battering is to use long lines (on Fazer XL and XXL) and hence not seeing that a line is wrapped around a wing and then do an aggressive stand off snapping start. The third way, back in the days, to feed the grim reaper of spars, was to do snap stalls when learning the trick. The unplugged (i.e. 6mm pultruded carbon fibre tubes that had no rod/end plug glued on the inside on the ends of the LS) could snap during a “keen” snap stall in mid air. (On these kites you inserted the unplugged LS tubes into the hard centre spine fitting.)

Perhaps a different perspective could be of help?: Think more on the kite instead of on your hands. In a pull turn you pull the corresponding wing tip towards you and in a push turn you push away the (other then) corresponding wing tip. Both ways will make the closest wingtip point in the direction of the turn. E.g. when flying parallel close to the ground, push away the lowest wing tip (from the ground) or pull the top wing tip (away from the ground) – Both pictures are hopefully somewhat intuitive at least.

I also reacted first against “STD vent” (instantly), but thinking of it, I think it is a better description than “No vent”, since you do have a long vented strip along the leading edge. On Kiteforge it is just called “ST (standard)”. There is however at least one commercially available framed QLK without vents: Rev Indoor - no vents there, not even along the LE. (Sorry if/when pointing out obvious stuff)

If you think that the kite is too quick trim the nose back (well, never seen the E2, but suppose you do it that way and not by some fancy sail adjustment). Add enough nose back so that it takes off from the ground easily (with a proper start), but yet so that you can make it stall/reduce speed by moving you/the arms towards the kite. Also not only practice turns, also practice speed control (and stall) - fly with moving feet and run down winds to reduce speed when necessary. If I remember correctly from a long time ago I think Dodd Gross divided the turns into three turns, pull turn, push turn and combination turn. The potential sharpness of the turn is here in increasing order with the combination turn being the sharpest. Starting with the pull turn, the least sharp one, by pulling I see the situation so that you also add a total line tension increase and possibly a boost in speed during the turn. For the push turn, sharper than the pull turn, you decrease the line tension. Three days ago in medium towards a bit higher wind with my Smithi Pro foil while flying not at the edge of the wind window and fast forward (=pulling hard), there was a need to lean backwards when pulling. When maintaining the high speed in the turns (and therefore the high pull from the kite), the push turns turned out to be more relaxing and easier to do and more controlled than the pull turns. The combination turns can be performed with various degrees of aggressiveness making a square turn all the way until you almost tear it into a snap stall (and can be performed with rather similar input). Don’t worry about your arms not hanging relaxed next to your sides as is common for slack line tricks, For precision it is more common to have your arms slightly in front of you (and you were currently focusing on turns, weren't you?).

For how long did the control feel very wrong? Did returning to normal (non dog stake) control feel confusing? How long before you could do the most basic flying? Any point in gradually approaching the kite from the side over a couple of hours to gradually get used to dog stake type control? Was there anything unexpected?

If you most of the time got problems keeping the Quantum in the air you seem to live in a low wind area (you already are doing your kiting in good quality wind on a large field I suppose, with no large objects upwind for several hundred meters or perhaps at a beach with the wind coming in from the sea?). My DLK “chain-of-kites” (i.e. what I currently most likely would chose for tricking/mixed flying in different wind ranges starting from low wind to high): Prism 4D (not for its trickability, but because it is the most low wind kite I got), HQ Shadow, ITW Kymera, ITW Hydra, HQ Infinity, HQ Maestro3 (bit smaller than the Infinity) and Rev 1.5 B-series full vent (wait that is a QLK, not a DLK, but I don’t have any vented DLKs). Funny that you mentioned the(/a?) ITW shop, they now have a very good price on the Kymera and the Hydra (used to be around USD200 or more?). Of the two the Kymera got the larger wind window and requires a bit less wind. The Hydra is especially fun when provokingly trying newish things, very little input is required to end a turtle or a fade and the Hydra was the kite that got me into axel cascading). Both kites are certainly trickable however. They will both meet a harder winds with slightly humming trailing edges. Out of the two I’d expect that the Kymera would feel most "sensible"/predictable and be easier for a beginner.

@Breezin there is absolutely no reason to delete aaany rant. Just put the rant between the rant start tag ( <rant> ) and the rant end tag ( </rant> ). Then it is automatically forgiven by eeveryone 🙂! Now if you wrote your deleted rant offline in a local saved file before the copy paste into KL, try the Testdisk program to recover a deleted file. I did this a rather long time ago when I discovered that some ordinary vacation photos just seemed to be missing. Proudly I showed the recovered files to my wife, who went “Nnnnnnooooooo, all my work to tidy up in that mess is lost!”. Especially since I try to get in contact with the (somewhat) local kite people during my Devon (UK) vacation trip, I appreciate or can relate to the meeting attempts/arrangements with increased understanding. Hope that it works out! Yes @Hiett_431 , another thing to practice while waiting for the new kites is (in low wind): the fly away, i.e. recover ground by pointing the nose down and run forward. Ideally you flare the DLK somewhat when doing this (perhaps you are already doing this?).

This video is merciless in many ways: first the sun is behind the kites, then the wind is rather strong, the surroundings are dessert like, then the metal music in the background, the metallic voice and the high pace. This video contrasts the often slow precision when learning (like clockwork e.g.), but here it is like the challenged difficulty is the “high speed preciseness”. I find it surprising that this was no routine, but instead was driven by instructions given just before each manoeuvre. (The only experience I had in group flying was much more forgiving with pauses (hovers and brief landings) to synchronize) I have much difficulties in getting (hearing) the instructions and connect it to the manoeuvres and need to see the video several times it to make some of it to match. Knowing some of the figures (mostly in theory) makes it here and there possible to “reverse engineer” the (hearing of the) instructions, i.e. to figure out what must have been said (and then the audio suddenly makes obvious sense). Just to mimic this in thought and to immediately realize what should be done if you would be holding the handles is tricky (I guess this is the punishment for what I in my youth thought about square dance). Does the high wind high make the pace a natural choice, is it initially agreed on or is it following naturally from the skill of the participants? Still find the speed of instructions/manoeuvres very impressing. So little said and so much action initiated!

Though not an answer to your question of which kite to buy (to my understanding to start tricking) – start now and don’t wait. Though the 4D is not very tricky you can certainly start practising: barely flying/stalls, snap stalls, side slides, axels and fade launches (4D is rather stable in a fade if you scale the size of the inputs to fit the 4D). With the 4D I like the flat axels you get when set up correctly. This is how I manage it: fly horizontally to the edge of the wind window, turn downwards so that the nose ends up pointing upwards (just as you would initiate a side slide) and then let the outer hand extend a bit so that the outer (hand) wing tip sinks back (and the nose lowers somewhat). Then you make the outer hand axel pull. I have never seen Quantum (only heard that it demands some wind), but I know that at least one person ( https://kitelife.com/forum/blogs/blog/17-learning-to-fly-dual-lines/ ) progressed quite rapidly on that one. Though I think you shouldn’t wait to begin to learn tricks, I do think it is a good idea to use (and get) several kites for the never ending learning. There is always a first kite you learn a trick on, because that kite is less difficult to do that certain trick on - then translate/transfer the trick to other kites (and one day you can actually claim the trick). Also, if we speak DLKs, it would be good to cover the optimal wind range between a 4D and a Quantum.

Though I have not been able to ponder over the panel design by seeing it against the sky (as @Breezin addressed) and then iterate the design a few times and I sense that the sail designer might have set his mind on this one, I do say that I today share @makatakam opinion. My subjective view is that a a small zip of colour could add to the artistic and serve as a visual spice. E.g., the Tramontana is mainly a black and white kite, no doubt, but the red wingtips are a complement to that. A possible Djinn design preserving much of the current design could be like a piece of steel that is cooling down. The corners and edges are cool dark steel gray (or black), the sides are barely glowing reddish gray, but in a few small grooves/cracks you can still see that it is still glowing inside (would work with other inner glow colour scales as well while preserving the darker grey like part). On the other hand, inner glow stuff is not as original as the current Djinn design is. …and, single theme designs without any colour like HQ Infinity and Zebra (have not seen one though) work as well. Choices, options, choices, choices, options, decisions….

Original photos with matching colours! Perhaps you could keep this one, send the would-have-been-the-new-owner another kite instead and hope that he or she wouldn't notice☺️?

I suspekt that you know this so well so that therefore certain parts are left unexplained. But "input" what (a range of the x-axis, concrete, grass, butter...🤔?)?

As I do it and have understood it no. The LE spars/sail should be chosen so that the additional pressure in the sail from your pull bends the LE and changes the sail shape. Releasing the brake lines when loading the sail can cause the trailing edge to flutter

Hello again, it is this time of the year again and I’ll be back in Sidmouth, UK. OK it is another long shot, but I feel silly if I at least don’t try as I did last year ( https://kitelife.com/forum/topic/7529-europe-uk-flyers/?do=findComment&comment=65139 ). Posted in KL and FA: I’ll be in Sidmouth (in the SE part of Devon, UK) for two weeks starting Sunday 22nd of July. If anyone would happen to be in the area and/or know a good field within an hours bus trip from there (I have no access to a car during the period) and like to share the sky and kite knowledge, please let me know. I have done a fair amount of kite practice there on previous visits, but access to beaches/fields is a bit wind, people, tide and cow dependent, especially when not using short lines. But hey, it is a beautiful village/surroundings. And nope, I’ll miss out (going home when it starts) on the nearby Exmouth kite festival. For some years I have been doing DLKs (yes (with a decent success rate): axels, landings, card flips, sleeping beauty (if the ground and wind is OK), 540, axel cascade, lazy susans, FA to fade…; learning: flick flacks; no (way José): comets, back spins, taz machine…). A year ago I started with Revs and have for the last year (winter and summer) been doing Revs (B-series “no”/mid/full vent and recently a Rev Indoor) 75% of the time (and Smithi Pro quad). The reason for the large share of the Rev was to be prepared for NKM ( http://kites.aerialis.no/memories-from-the-nkm18/ ) and now because I’m going to the John Barresi Danish quad clinic in Copenhagen in September.

My own experiences with foils are limited to the three foils I own. Hopefully there is some new angle to your choice of foil to be found in the below text. I guess it can be seen as a lengthy way of saying that quad line foils (QLF?) also can be fun: Peter Lynn 5m2 Peel quad foil. At the time, soon 20 years ago, I was much into learning to handle (framed) DLKs and the size and absence of tricking possibilities made it feel like a large mattress with brakes. Did some limited traction on skies. Yes, the comparison to trick kites was unfair, this foil was a tool of traction that also (obviously) could be used by a rookie. A small budget two line foil with very poor flight properties. It easily collapse, kind of pulsates when flying forward and is only stable and begins to pull in a tight spin. A better than nothing kite. Spider Kites 1.1 m2 Smithi pro. Sold as an extra controllable foil, including reverse flight. Can more or less be operated in two modes. You can fly it like a QLK or forget about the QLK thing and let go of the wrist control and fly it like a DLK with decent cornering (feels speedy then, but I have not much to compare it to). Some differences from a Rev(-like) perspective: It is (after not so many hours) in my hands less precise (but then compared to Revs I have only used it a fraction of the time) and demands much active input if you want to somewhat approach the preciseness of a Rev. I also get a collapsing wingtip when side sliding upwards. It also behaves somewhat differently when pulling back your arms to power up the sail. Otherwise I believe that the similarities are there so that QLK control can be learned on it (without breaking spars). If flown like a DLK (no reconfiguration of the kite – just how you use it) it can be flown just by left/right pulling without much thought (none) on how to angle the handles just having the handles in neutral with loose wrists. For that type of turn it is easier to control than a Rev. Though I’ve done several comparisons to Revs there are other properties to explore. E.g., I got two kites that I can do bouncing reverse landings/takeoffs My HQ Maestrale (due to some flexing glass fibre battens when 2 point landing) and my Smithi pro (both designed by Christoph Fokken btw). A bouncing landing takeoff is clearly not something you would like to attempt with a Rev. I’d say my Smithi pro is the most fun foil of the above ones – controllable and with some pleasant pull in non-light winds, but have not tried any other foils than the above ones. If you intend to use your new foil on a beach a couple of times per year and have no intention to move on to (framed) QLKs then it would be easier to go with a two line foil, handling only one pair of lines. On the other hand if you like to learn both DLK left/right control (obviously without duali tricks) and QLK control, Smithi Pro could be an option (and looking on the above text I do realize that it was a bit pro Smithi ).

What – leaving the kite in the car? Are you out of your mind?! You can never expect a lasting relationship if you make it feel neglected!