frob

Apart from kites specifically designed around it, probably no. For examples, see this old thread. JB described some limited options in this old thread but they depend on specific conditions and have a risk of breaking a spar.

That's a great collection of building materials, either for something new or to refurbish something old. Congratulations on the win.

For the center spine there are many options. You can have a pocket the whole length, you can attach it at top and bottom and optionally run your spreader through it, have a velcro-held pocket at the bottom, an elastic loop in a nock, or attach in other ways if you want. Unlike the leading edges which can take a beating, the center spine (hopefully) only needs a sturdy nose connection and tail-point connection to keep the sail tight. For the keel, most advanced kites use a bridle instead of a keel. A keel is permanently sewn in place and isn't adjustable. A simple 3-point bridle can have two attachment points on the upper leading edge and one attachment point near the center tail. The bridle can be adjusted with knots to help balance the kite and adjust the pitch for different wind levels.

I know of places called "Shoreline" in Washington, California, Texas, Michigan, and Florida. There are likely many more. Care to be more specific? /Edit. Just noticed your profile says "Santa Clara, CA". Important detail, there.

Possible? Sure. Prism even has a yo-yo stopper kit for the Quantum. It makes it easier, but isn't strictly required. The kite can handle all the standard tricks. It is somewhat heavier and slower than many trick-centric kites which can make some tricks easier to learn. Slow and weighted means forgiving response times and requiring bigger input, mistakes are recoverable. The bigger question is if YOU can do the tricks.

There are also quad line parafoils ranging from power kites to kiteboard kites.

Call Flying Wings. I ordered several dt15 spars from them just a few weeks ago. Other shops may also have some, obviously, but they seemed to have plenty in stocks. From their receipt: Pacific Quest International LLC. Dba. Flying Wings Kites Toll-Free: 1.800.728.0704 TEL: 408-955.9804

Both kite types work best when lines are equal length, but there's a major difference. Dual line kites can have a line stretch several inches and still fly great. Quad line handles you can adjust the length slightly with leader lines but pilots will often adjust knots when the lines have stretched even a half inch, some people prefer even less difference in the four lines, being as close to equal as possible. Splicing the line, or sewing the loop firmly in place which is sometimes done, are permanent actions that do not let you untie and re-tie as lines naturally stretch with use. Those can work with duals but are rare with quads. Sleeves reduce the weakening that happens at knot points and also make it easier to untie without damaging the line braid.

You will have a hard time at the price point, if nothing else the kite line (which must be low stretch and able to slide freely over itself as the kite twists and turns) are often in the $80-100 range by themselves, and good handles are another expense. On the low budget end, the Cross Kites Quattro is in that range, it is no-frills beginner equipment with short lines, but comes ready to fly with kite, lines, and handles in the bag. The Flexifoil Sting quad is more of a power kite design but still small enough to be considered, yet at the top of the range. Offerings from HQ, Prism, Skydog, and others are outside your price range. Quad line parafoils can pull dangerously hard and are often classified as power kites, traction kites, or used in kite boarding and similar sports rather than as sport-class or speed-class kites. Most require some training and experience to operate safely. The CK Quattro is small enough it should be fine for beginners but still study the safety information and fly with an experienced buddy a few times if possible. Dual line parafoils have many more "sport" and "speed" size options in the price range, in part because you are paying 40-50 less for 2 lines instead of 4, and another 30-50 less for straps instead of strong quad line handles.

How is the sail tension? Noise can be from a trailing edge being loose and flapping rapidly in the air. If that's the cause, make sure the bungee is tight enough, and hasn't degraded needing replacement. How is the bridle compared to other kites? Is it pulled tight in the right places? It can also happen with a stretched sail, similarly letting fabric flap around. Are there signs of wear and stretch marks? It can happen with loose stitches or other additions placed on the trailing edge designed to cause noise. Any modifications there? And as mentioned, there is variety in manufacturing. Two of my five Revolution kites needed significant tuning fresh from the factory, so in my experience they have struggled with quality control. In addition to adjusting bungee tension or bridle knots, you may simply have a noisy sail that wasn't sewn to have tight edges. Maybe if it isn't tuning, consider adding your own leach lines into the seams?

Also when it comes to learning wind speed, there are the two biggest limits: The low limits are based on your skill. When yours is slow or won't launch, that is YOUR lower limit on the kite, even when someone is flying with skill next to you. The upper limit is learned by replacing a spar or patching a sail, or seeing stretch marks on the sail. Your limits may be different than someone else, especially if you hang out on the power zone or the edge of the window. With 3-wrap I estimate a STD up to about 10, a MV up to about 15 or 20, a FV up to about 20 or 25. With race rods a little lower, with 4-wrap a higher max until you start stretching the fabric. But it all varies by pilot. The factory numbers are a decent guide, but the human on the handle is a big factor. If you have enough wind to fill the sail, and you are not overpowered, you are in the range. If you feel either of those, stop and address it.

Apart from low wind and arm flailing, how did it feel and respond?

I'm curious about different density of material, very sparse at top and wingtips, solid at bottom. I imagine reverse and inverted lifts will work, but I have a hard time imagining air flow for forward drives and sideways hovers. I hope it works out.

What kites and styles do you fly?

For light wind, I typically use 50 foot or shorter. Lightest of all wind is indoors, where I have sets from 7' to 15'. Short lines mean a smaller window, meaning less legwork to work the wind window, which is often necessary on UL/SUL conditions. They are also lighter. Nothing prevents flying on long lines if you want if the conditions let you. And as for specific lengths like 85' or 100', those really only matter with groups. For dual line teams both 85' and 135' are common, so they are good to keep on hand. I flew today with two novices that happened to be in the park; their Prism Jazz kites came with 85', so I pulled out the same length from my bag as I joined and talked with them. My Kymera flew at a different pace but overall we could fly together. Having common lengths is convenient.

Same, I have SkyBond, Speed, and LPG in my bag. I have thought about getting some Matrix line for comparison, but have not. I have a slight preference for SkyBond at the beach because when I clean up it tends to have significantly less sand and grit in it, but all the lines pick it up. I soak and shake them all out when I get away from sand. Even so, I use all three. I tend to prefer LPG overall. All my oldest line sets are LPG, so they have proven to be the most durable for me, and over time they feel least scratchy. Ultimately I fly whatever comes first to hand from the bag, and when I often end up equipping the family (myself, sometimes my wife and sometimes one or two children, sometimes friends) there are plenty of days when I have 3+ line sets of different brands rolled out. They are all good line. I would love to try Matrix but suspect ultimately it will be similar: good stuff but not something that steals the show.

The good news is those short leaders effectively give the kite a lot of forward drive. It is like having the gas pedal welded down and you drive by applying or releasing brakes. As your goal is to launch and use forward movement, they can work temporarily. You will want to learn how to use all the lines effectively both forward and back, but in the first few flights having the accelerator slammed down is a relatively minor problem. You want it to "go" and it has "go" built in. Watch all the intro videos again and again, then head back to the field and try to lift the kite. Since you have no helpers it will take a while and be frustrating, maybe taking three or five or more sessions before you can reliably fly. There's a reason Rev's official "level 1" test seems so basic. Set up, launch, turn, and land. While they are basic skills for experienced pilots, they are completely new to beginners and are not necessarily easy to learn. There's a big learning curve, it is okay. Several great pilots tried it out, struggled, and nearly gave up. They eventually returned and found success.

There is a big learning curve. If you are learning from video without a guide, probably around 10-20 hours before getting consistent flights rather than exercise walking to the kite and back.. A skilled guide can help reduce it to 10 or so but usually it still takes several flight sessions. Be grateful you have videos and online resources, many of us learned to fly before them; I first learned to fly dual lines from magazines and library books. There is no substitute for time on the line. Get in person help if you can, but keep trying on your own. Record videos and share them when you need help, but don't be surprised if the answer is "more practice". Techniques like inverted flying take many hours of practice to develop a good feel for them, and many more hours to make the skill appear natural. Just like so many skills, people often discount the hours of practice. A concert pianist or basketball star spent many thousand hours honing their skill before reaching performance levels. Kites are similar. While any kid can pick up a ball, it takes hours of practice before throwing a basket is more than just luck. Similarly, it will take some hours of practice to develop basic skills with a quad-line kite. There is no substitute for time on the line.

It does provide a resource. While the teaching isn't amazing, it does offer some information and some guidance. It builds a framework of ordered skills. Sadly it is locked at each step, uses different terms, and is outdone by many other free and paid resources, but even so, it is a free resource presented in a format some people like. If it helps somebody, if people gain insight, if it helps people improve, that is wonderful.

There are some options, but they depend on how you fly. The Pro Dancer SUL version is the most recommended for a full sail light wind, but it does not trick. The Badass ultralight version is good for light wind tricks. Several other light wind options from other brands. If you switch from light wind to no wind, there are also options of indoor kites. To name a few, the 4D, Kaiju, and Echo as small indoor / no wind, the Pro Dancer SUL, Badass ultralight, Automatic Trick Machine ultralight, Prism Zephyr, HQ Shadow, R-Sky Nirvana SUL, ... Some of these kites are ultralight or super ultralight versions of a series of kites. Each flies differently, light wind kites are generally more specialized. I don't know any that handle both solid team flying and also do precise sharp tricks. Light wind means fragile lightweight parts, and little wind to work with. And some kites stay up in calm air but sacrifice both fancy tricks and tight performance to give light weight durability. Crashes can be expensive. Be sure to check their sizes put away, because one design choice is to get rid of leading edge ferrules. It saves weight and increases response, but makes for really long kite bags.

I just realized I have written about it in other places, but not here. Following up on the topic. TL;DR: Surprisingly durable outdoors, no broken parts despite a bunch of hard landings. Shakes and deforms but survives about 10 mph gusts. This bit is all about flying the Kaiju outdoor, not my indoor practices. In my lovely inland location highly variable conditions are the norm. Wind forecasts may say 5G15, and in the field wind varies from a breath's force to decent speeds from moment to moment. Often I find myself setting up a Kaiju on 40' lines as a backup plan when winds calm down and I can't keep other kites up. Often I fly the Kaiju ten minutes at a time, or friends flying it for ten or twenty minutes, then returning to other kites. Sometimes an entire hour or more may go by drifting around on the Kaiju. I'd estimate around 10 hours of flight this way since writing the question a year ago. Over the past year I've found it can handle a decent gust, probably around 10mph, but it shakes and shudders and deforms as I race to the edge of the wind window. I've had a few hard crashes, and I've also handed the kites over to beginners once I was confident in the kite's ability to handle it. (I know one beginner, a neighbor, bought their own Kaiju after trying mine.) So far hard crashes have knocked spreader spars from their fittings, and also popped standoffs completely out but they could be reassembled without damage. Attempts at slackline tricks have generally pulled the spreader bars from their fittings, although that could easily be due to my relative novice skills at the tricks. There have been several times (mostly when others have flown it) when I was certain I'd be replacing a spar, but have been pleasantly surprised that all it required was hunting for a spreader bar that had bent under tension and flung itself from the kite under a bend rather than snapped. They've always sprung back to normal. I've watched spreader bars fling themselves quite some distance from the kite but still not break. If the wind is strong enough for another kite I'll fly them instead. On light wind days I'll set up the full sail Djinn and Kaiju both on 40' lines, other times I'll set up one of the dual lines (Hydra, Kymera, ZigZag, or Quantum) for practice with the Kaiju as a backup. When the bigger kites won't stay up, I can get a Kaiju in the air to pass the time. It is sensitive and doesn't handle large input well, without pulling a spreader. It is very relaxing, I can fly one handed with lines looped around pinkie and pointer fingers, and still make comfortable twists and turns in the air with my wrist alone. It doesn't handle much more than gentle twists and turns, but at least it is airborne. It is very rare that I can't get the Kaiju on 40' to stay aloft. People I'm with also usually have no trouble with it. On the rare occasion I find myself falling back to indoor skills on those lines, or find my flying partners struggling to stay aloft, it's usually not worth the time at the park, time to pack up and do house work.

The leading edge, split at the ferrule, a common break. I have managed to find a source for the spars, plus some extra for future repair. It took a few phone calls, but found them at a decent price. I love A Wind of Change. They were my local store for a few years, and I still use them for occasional mail orders. Like most surviving shops they do a great job and do all they can to help. In this case New Tech (my local shop now) had one spar in the back which they were happy to finally sell, and Flying Wings is shipping the rest.

Neither is particularly novice friendly, both will experience damage and require repairs after hard crashes. Beginners crash hard and crash often. Both will require several repairs as you learn tricks. Plan on replacing multiple spars learning tip stabs and coin tosses. For a true beginner friendly kite go for a small parafoil or a durable model like the FW Beetle. These can still be damaged but are likely to survive major crashes unharmed. People often hand over kites to strangers knowing they are fun, willingly risking $20-$50 repairs, or hundreds in replacement costs, often because they have backup parts in their bag due to other repairs. I have had a few times when I reassure a beginner after swapping a broken spar, then handing the lines right back out. I don't harp on the money for the spar and shipping, their observation is that I pulled one spar out of a bag containing about 30 total carbon fiber spars so it must be somewhat normal. I may warn them it is the only replacement I have for that specific rod, but I encourage, tell them it happens sometimes, and teach them how to improve. And I hope they don't break another part.

Just went to the shop to ask about spars, they are definitely open as there were five of us in the shop at the time. They close in about 20 minutes if you see this right away. If you catch this later call during their business hours. The number I have is 1(512)250-9454

Also note that by being discontinued, parts are harder to come by. I just called ITW about a replacement spar for my kite pictured above. They told me they don't have any more of the original spars in stock, he described them as "more spiky" than normal, and it's a surprisingly expensive $60 for the generic (non-original style) spar which I would need to cut to size, plus another $14 in shipping. (In contrast, spars are often $5-$15.) I'm shopping around for replacement parts, but I'm thinking it may be cheaper to completely reframe the kite. :-(