Breezin

My 1st kite was a Widow ng. Could be the kite or maybe I'm just special but I learned 3 tricks on it the very 1st day . Nose dive left, nose dive center and nose dive right. 2nd day I learned how to repair a broken LS.

What would you name a kite with that fabric? Bubbles Galore (OO7 reference) perhaps?

OOPS. 8 feet 4 inches might be a little long for a I Flight and a bit short for a Kaiju. Been snivelling about how abrupt my Nitro framed kites power up in 15 to 20 mph bumpy winds for as long as I've had them. Today winds were cycling 3 or 4 to a bit over 15. Used my LP 100' x 150# set. Instead of the unsettling yanks on my Widow Maker at times the 15+ hits were a blast with fast smooth contolled whooshes. Issue hasn't been the Nitros it's been the crappy lines. Ya think I would've figured that out long before now. Hate to admit it but sometimes I'm just a complete dumbass.

Wasn't long into flying before I had sets of 50# and 90# LPG. Couldn't really tell the difference from Dyneema for quite awhile. Especially in 20+ winds. For the last year and a half 90# x 100" LPG has been my go to set. Wed measuered 8 to 16 mph pretty fast cycling winds. Big gust hit breaking 1 line and fraying the other pert near in the middle. Set was getting pretty used but dang. Don't remember the last time I flew my 80# x 100" Dyneema set. SHOCKED at how much they sucked. They felt heavy with an awful rubberband effect. Danged if they didn't stretch out about an inch again too. Good thing is I must have gotten a lot better since the last time I used them. Prestretched my LPG and never had to adjust that set it's whole life. Doubt I'll have to on the new set either. Maybe once. Yup buying by the spool is the way to go. When high wind flying I've been using 130# and 150# Dyneema mainly to get the use out of them. 150# LPG has been hanging on the rack. Not anymore!!

Tues. morning wind forecast was up to 50 mph gust in the afternoon. Figured I'd be fine and headed for town. Went over a slight rise about 4 miles from my house and a wall of dirt was headed right at me. Lasted about 3 minutes blasting the front of my car. No paint left on the license plate, pitted and broke the windshield in 4 places (replaced) and broke left headlight lense. Off to the body shop this week. Don't know how high that straightline hit was but guessing 70+. Sure glad I was sheltered. If I'd hung my ear out there it'd come back a nub. Still be digging dirt out of the hole LOL.

Man that looks nice. Still need better skills to really justify my Lams. Hoping it doesn't happen to you but on any given day I'm absolute crap on mine. Friday was SUL time and flew both my AC and Tekken. Stayed at it for several hours but blah for the most part. Next day Mind Trick vented and same oh hum. Just couldn't quite connect. I like to think if I lived where winds were smoother more often I'd have less days like that. Balarky though cause the best flying I've done is on those kites. I was told before I got a Lam that on a bad day you'll look really bad. Good thing is on a good day ya look really, really good. Thats a frustrating fact for me but I'm getting better. Seen some folks give up on Lams IMO to soon. If you don't connect right away give it some time. I've had to call Lam a couple times for a bit of schooling. My Benson Superfly is very tricky and built really well. Kite has a slight backwards bow in the spine. Having some difficulty doing flic flaks because (I think) that bow makes the nose tilt higher in the flare. Once I get that figured out think I'll be better at the trick on all my kites. So impressed with it I'll be getting a Supernova too.

No help here. Forums full of a bunch of enablers. My guess is anyone who joins KL to help people overcome their kite addiction thankfully gets run off 😇.

I've had my Mind Trick vented for close to 2 years now. Most technical kite I have and on any given day Taz and Rollups are hard to come by. In a stall the Hydra and Nighthawk back flip almost without thought. Pretty easy to front flip too. MT needs the nose to be canted abit to one side or the other. Still difficult when stalled and works best when kite is moving. Sometimes I can hit when fully powered in 15. It's more by feel and I still don't get how I'm doing it. Kite sits very deep in the turtle making it's release points unlike any of my others. Doubt it and the Tica have much in common but try the back flips with some movement and tilt in the nose. Might also be a 2 popper kite. Another way I try to catch the groove on the MT is throw slack from horizontal. As nose tilts up there is enough momentum to keep the kite moving thru the turtle. Catch lots of tip wraps though. Crank the kite back the other way and you'll get out of them. 2 wraps suck but 1 leads to some pretty fun stuff. DO NOT let the kite spin to the ground. Drop a line if you have to cause LE repairs suck. Got cocky a few weeks ago doing that on my Psycho in 20+ mph and the sudden sag to the left kinda broke my heart. Cool that you've had the Tica in it's max range. How a kite handles the gusties always grabs my attention. Anyone else been flying a Tica in fast cycling winds?

Doesn't need to anymore. He's flown so much a organic one grew inside his left ear that actually TALKS to him . Using my meter has become a headology thing(Granny Weatherwax). I'm not as bold as JB though. Something starts growing in my ear it's getting cut out.

YAY

Thought I was pretty good at judging wind until I started flying kites. My wind meter is always in my pocket. Forecast gives me a general idea on preparing for the days flying. I've got a tendancy when in the groove to just go with the flow and take some of my kites to they're limits. Not good. More often in the spring/summer but winds at 10:30 can be between 5 and 10 mph. By 2:00 pm hitting 15 to 20. Deal with a lot of gusty winds. Measuring those peaks and how rapidly they cycle determines how I'll attempt to fly. Last Sat. winds would cycle from 5 to a bit over 20 at times within 10 or 15 seconds. They'd change direction by about 20 degrees too. Really difficult stuff. I wandered around for an hour with my meter getting the moxy to fly. Excellent day and didn't break my kite. Wednesday same type of winds but somewhat lower and a tad smoother. 3 times I went out to fly. Nope no moxy. 2 years ago I would have bulled my way thru and probably broke something. For whatever reason when winds are nasty I depend on watching my meter to focus. Envisioning moves as I watch the ebb and flow of the wind. Somedays though I just go back to the house and pout a bit.

Careful in dealing with those fickle gods. Yesterday winds would be around 6 or 7 mph then jump to 15/20 in a matter of seconds. Spent close to an hour wandering around getting the moxy to fly in that bumpy stuff. Swear the wind gods were snickering at me the whole time. Nothing broke though so HAH I got the last laugh.

30" lines . Are you KIDDING ME!! Last week after 2 years I finally had 2 good days on 50' lines with a sul. Dang it, dang it, dang it now I gotta go short line my Widowmaker.

Nope I wait for it to rain LOL. Mongoose and Widowmaker Pro fill pretty specific spots. If I didn't have those 90% sure I'd have a Supernova and Nirvana. Spending wisely is hard to do because there are so many cool kites. SKD kites are pretty stunning but cost an arm and a Lam. If I ever post a 300 word rant complaining about a bad day in awful 7 mph smooth winds ignore it. I'll have lost my freaking mind. When first starting I kept a diary but it didn't last long. Interfered with the fun and got boring. EVERY time I fly I try to perfect my axles and slides no matter the wind. When struggling with something returning to those 2 moves helps ease the frustration and think. Doing that is how I accidently learned to Taz and Slot before I could Cascade. Superfly and AC sul Taz almost at will. Nose at 10:30/11:00 around they go. Mind Trick starting at 9:00 needs a LOT more precise inputs. It's a kapow marching forward kinda thing. The other 2 are rather floaty and elegant. I'd read early on that the slide is one of the easiest tricks to learn taking a lifetime to perfect. I agree. Took me awhile to grasp that you can slide anywhere in the window. Transitioning from trick to trick catching a slide in between for me aids in setup and adds some pinoche. In higher winds it might only last 2' or 3' but it signals a fairly proper controlled dumping of the wind. You can see it but it's more of a feel then visual. Thinking of it as a moving stall has helped. Superfly slides really, really well in the higher winds. On my 1st slide I knew I could learn to fly the dickens out of it with a fairly short learning curve. It hasn't replaced my Hydra at all. Well except for the way it's going to be banged around.