Eric Wallace

I have loved kites since childhood. Growing up, every summer was time for a new dime store kite. Once I had my own money to spend, my first interest was how high can it fly!! It was exciting launching, but never really fun retrieving. I moved to two string kites in the 80s. Living in Kansas at the time it was high wind and how fast can you fly. The ability to control the flight path, land and launch, made kite flying a different sport. Over the next ten years I was just a casual flyer. I began flying two line foils about 15 years ago. When my wife became interested in flying, I found myself buying 2 kites at a time! As we started flying regularly, and I really began to research what was happening in the kite world, I found myself transitioning to quad line foils, which I flew exclusively until last year. While we were out flying quad foils and power quads, I found most every other enthusiast was flying Revolution quads. Last summer, I decided to buy a pair of quads from Ocean Shores Kites. I set it up and tried to fly it. Operative word - tried! Back into my bag it went, and I spent the rest of the summer with my power kites. My wife however persisted and was flying pretty good, so we bought a couple more kites, this time Revolution kites. Maybe it was the Freilein kite that made my flying experience miserable. Nope, not so much. My mantra had always been if it has strings, i can fly it. These framed quads were just not my thing. Thus year I decided I was going to learn to fly quads. Now, I have more kites than I can fly on a weekend, and am learning the nuances of the different brands and vent styles. Each kite truly has different characteristics, and I'm not sure any one brand is head and shoulders above the other, just different. I still have a couple of holes to fill, I need a vented Rev, and a standard Djin, at that point I will have a solid range of kites from three different companies to fly, compare and battle the wind with!! John, I was lucky enough to pick up a Djinn Extreme Vent from the Kite Shoppe booth at WSIKF on a day that was windy enough to fly it. This is one of the most balanced kites I have flown, and will defintely be my high wind favorite. Funny thing though, the first Djinn I bought, I could not get it off the ground. I finally figured out your bridle has heavier brake bias than Revs or Freileins. Nothing like popping a few bills down on a kite and watching it stay earth bound!!!