HedgerowPete

I was up there flying on the Friday, great weather and a decent stable wind.

as a start I realise alot of people here are not going tooo want to deal with china but in the UK I do want to. WE hear all the horry stories of money lost and dissapeared and poor quality and so forth, but theres also alot of decent firms out there too. I am looking at maxi inflatables on Alliepress and banggood and the like, around the £2500 mark. I have looked but they are not for sale via european shops or sellers, ebay or amazon, so that looses my comfort blanket. Next stop is a credit card payment, so at least i get some form of money security. That just leaves the last question which firm to use. can anyone suggest a chinese kite maker firm that has a good or better quality production and security? And any tips for dealing with china directly for a novice buyer

please ask asmany newbie questions as you like, I am also new to this and the long term kite people. dont make it that easy to understand some of their skill sets

cheers, is it just the one event in denmark? for the year?

is there any kite festivials in northern europe, Germany, denmark, scandinavia etc

in the uk we get large bages of sand and builders materials, the bags are 3 foot cube and if filled with sand come in at 800kg, not sure how many bushels that is but i think in old english its 1600 pounds, but not sure if thats english pounds or lighter americian pounds, buts its certainly heavier than 3 quarts ( not sure what a quart is as they are not a local animal to me, but i have beentold their very vicious when cornered) In sandy areas i find filling a bag or a sand anchor best, once your off loose sand i go for an aurger type screw device, its the flat blade that does the holding https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-4-piece-15steel-auger-set-with-12m-rope/ after thaat when its more solid i go for the thinner screw in type of anchors for less that 20 kg pull, i think thats 40 sheckles in old english imperial, after that for weight for me its a british army 900mm long ( half a chain, usa speak) iron spike or a selection of them

whats the trick to stopping these reel unraveling and making knots in the kit bag? i end up useing electrical tape around the surface of the reel to hold it in place

cheers, no one has ever explained that point of view before

i am looking to buy my first every big kite, or should that be BIG KITE, budget and shape is an issue, where i was looking was the tube wind socks, 12 foot round and 75 foot long ( 4m by 25m in english) I was going to buy rather than make it as its way past my skill level, so questions are, is this able to be done and used as a single person kite, what sort of pull do they have and do you normally set them up with a lifter?

again many thanks all, i want to step up for large lifters and laundry to inflatables, i was looking at threeor four small ones when of course you get to see the larger inflatables, i have been told to stay away from maxi trilobites and sting rays as they can generate to much lift to deal with safely on my own. i want to stay on my own as well please, i amnot a team player and dont have the flexability to tie in with others peoples plans. I have spoken to a few sellers of new maxi inflatables as to which ones i can deal with. I had not realised you had to prebook at a show, i have always just turned up and flown what i have with me, i never knew there was set areas or set times to fly, never knew that at all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as for a large kite anchor and so forth i can sort all that out, sand or soil, but i need to work out what sort of power and lift these things can generate, as a solo flier, i also need to work out how to deflate one in an emergancy as well, some form of chicken line into the main internal support grids to fold the input area or the internal middle sections. as for anchor points i was seriously looking at the 4X4 people and the ways they tow landrovers out of muddy bogs and army truck recovery, there kit is also weight load tested and is designed for this sort of stuff. So make to the topic please, say i want to go to a show, say Berck Sur Mer in France they have five large square areaaners marked out, three are normally empty as they are used for the day time shows and events andone is normally populated with what i would call proffessional kite show people with their amazing creations and so on. the other ring has a few kites on show in it so i take it thats for the little people like me, they normally supply large concrete blocks to tie to, so for me to get permission to be in there i would need to apply before hand and get agreement. do you have to send in information on what you want to fly and its details ect, insurance details and all that jazz ?

cheers paul, thanks for some honest answers rather than the usual fluffi get when i ask this sort of stuff else where, i have a couple of large lifters and a bag of fuzzy tails and streamers as line laundry, i thought you could just go to a kite fest and just join in, but apparently not. the whole maxi kite inflatable is another subject i have a shed load of answers on but again very little public information. do you own, have owned or used a maxi kite, do they come with a written set of figures with it, so much anchorage required, wind calcs, wind speed and all that stuff?

Brand new to all this kite mullarky. Been on my own in fields and parks all my life and now at the grand old age of fifty wanted to take a couple of steps further up the participation ladder. but hit a massive brick wall of ignorance. I have gone to hundreds of kite festivals in europe and the UK, took along one of my kites too play with, single line small stuff, the odd lifter and a bag of laundry and so forth, no inflatables. And just set up on the beach or grass at the festival and just flew my kites along with everyone else, had a great day and left. I have standard kite club insurance and public liability stuff and just generally enjoyed myself had a great day out with the wife kids and went home. I recently mentioned on line, ( not a great fan of face book) that i was going to go to the Staint Annes kite festival in the UK this weekend, I was then greeted with Adolf Hitlers kite grandson and the fact i had not "registered" and that the registraion is closed and your not allowed to fly without papers, he then goes off about Risk andMethod statements, "display insurance" which i dont have apparently. and a shed load of other stuff. so questions; 1, do you need to register at a kite festival? 2, who do you call to register and when and how? 3, if i brought a maxi inflatable kite, does that mean i have to get display insurance or commercial insurances? 4, land anchor points are supposed to have a design so you know there safe working loads????????????????????? has anyone ever done this?? 5, what happened to the days of you could just turn up and join in? 6, say all this BS is true, whats stopping me walking up the beach 500 metres and just flying my kites as a public person in a public space?

I am a newbie to, tto kites. i have just transfered from shop brought cheap kites to decent but not top quality kites. The jump in costs is considerable. i can buy a 8m puss from china for £30 delivered and ready to go, i also cant buy the material to make it and then add time to sew it plus delivery and handling. I can also buy a 8m2 lifter kite from new zealand for £300 plus postage, real kites i have found cost real money and will last a real long time. my cheap chinese kite for a few pounds will only last a few flys. I brought a roko kite last year, cheap as chips to buy, after the second flight i was sewing seams back together, after the fourth flight i am now the proud owner of a roko wall hanging ordiment as it would never fly again, the seams were to thin and pulled apart, the material is a tough as wet tissue paper and the rods are made from black painted bamboo thats just as nasty as can be, even though the chinese translation of cheap nasty black painted bamboo is " carbon fibre"??????????? who knew?? With making kites, theres only two real reasons to both as its cheaper to pay and buy them. 1, you want your kite, made by you, for you,, designed by you and its a one off never to be made by anyone else, no matter what the costs and when we do it at home belive me its not going to be cheap, but its going to have that quailty level you have set your self and those design features you thing a kite should have,andbecaause of that it is going to be perfectly priced. all of the hand made kite i have ever seen are beautiful one off's that could never be made in a mass prroduced factory 2, the only other reason is to make a kite to sell it to someone else

Thanks for the welcome, i am mainly in the old posts sections reading up for now, i do have a few specific questions to ask and a few i will research

After spending the morning in the search section reading up on years worth of questions. I do have one to ask. My line strengths are way out and to go better or bigger i need to increase line strength, that means increasing the swivel sizes as well. once I get past 500Lb fishing swivels are not strong enough so I went looking else where. That else where splits into two distint paths, climbing and mountainerring or industrial and in my cass boat chain anchor swivels. Boat chain swivels are considerbly cheap than mountian one used for climbing. Is there other options to look for for swivels past the 1000lb to 2000lb marks The other thing is weight of swivels, do you still use on at the bridal attatchment point when you get past 500lb rated units and just have them on the floor?

I do realise that without knowing the exact make and shape and size of the kite lifter and laundry this is going to be difficult for many to answer. I want to talk rigging, I have been through the search section and back catalogue of posts and I cant find what I am looking for. Starting from the lifter at the top of the line and down to a perfect anchor point is going to be one single line. At the moment I use small snap hooks to clip on a single flat flag with the bottom of the flag fitted with a small adjustable line and a second snap hook. nothing special just a beginners starter. I was watching someone rig up their line laundry last week and he had a completly different set up. ok he was fitting larger inflatables but that guy had a main line from anchor to the lifter then he added a snap hook with the line laundry inflatable on it, but that then had its own main line running down to the anchour point and the second inflatable he clipped on also had its own main line running to ground as well. is it normal to have a main line for each item of inflatable line laundry? I can understand it with larger items but these were six foot ducks

as a novice i only have shop broug, Delta and sled's and a couple of bow wings all less that four foot on each side say 10 square feet. I have brought my first parafoil as my lifter kite, thats 6 foot by 5 foot, that came with its own 150# line but I have now a 300# line on it, on a spring scale it pulls to 50kg / 100lb so i increased the line to it thinking the line laundry adds to the equasion too. The laundry i have started with is 5x3 foot flags, four flags so far and i have brought a six foot inflatable yellow duck, all pretty low level stuff, i am going to post a question on kite lines and laundry rigging after i have gone through the back catalogue of posts to see if its not already been posted. as for line material choice I have Dyneema as its a soft and stretchy line, which i was told is best for single lines, prestretched and kevlar i was told to avoid only because of the fact it has zero stretch ( and its expensive)

I have only ever bought shop kites that come supplied with that small thin kite line, most of my kites are under a metre square of canvas so that's not much of an issue. I have just progressed to buying larger kites and these come without a line spool and I have bought my own, rated at 45kg (90lb in old english) which when i do a pull test is easily double the kites pull in a decent wind. But at my first ever kite display last weekend I saw a lot of the people had much much thicker line and so i think a greater rating to it. ok some of them changed kites several times from small to large but still nothing that would justify the choose of such a thick cord. why is that? and what sort of rating do you normally use? I was thinking of staying with my 45kg (90lb) for the small stuff and going 150kg (300lb) as my newer mainline. I did try to gain the pull on the kites i have and cant get much past 80kg (160lb ish) so sticking to the double the rating for safety. I did see some of the really large inflatables require 500kg or more, but i am no where near that skill level yet

Hi all, Pete here from Birmingham, UK. A late middle aged old fart that has been playing with bed sheets and bits of string and single line kites. I have tried the two line arm pullers and four line suicide bed sheets, and have reverted back to the single line kites and string, line laundry and small display stuff. looking for help and advice on singles and line laundry and inflatables. at a novice level not looking to build kites, but i do build lots of other pieces of kit and stuff.