windofchange

looking to leave on Thursday night and should be there Friday and the rest of the weekend. I am not going to be able to work it out to go any sooner. Looking forward to seeing you in Clearwater. Keep the updates coming and let us all know if you spot any new-cool-way-bad-awesome flying things when you get there!!!

Happy new year to everyone from all of us at A Wind Of Change. May you be blessed with good health, happiness, and good winds! Special thanks to you John for putting together a wonderful online community for everyone to enjoy.

You can contact me directly at: customerservice (at) awindofchange (dot) com You can also contact our shop at 702-736-1476. This info is also listed on our website in our contact info pages. Hope to hear from you soon!

The Fury is a great kite, all of the Ozone kites are extremly well made and will last you a long time with very little trouble if any. Super stable and easy to learn. I highly suggest starting out on a 2-3 meter kite to learn on. That size shouldn't start to get to crazy until the winds get above 13-15 mph. Great kite to learn on and will teach you tons about power kiting. Just be cautious when launching in stronger winds because even that small of a kite has plenty of power in the right conditions. The great thing about that size kite is that you can learn on it in the lighter winds without getting dragged too badly....but you will still keep it around after you get experienced for those days when the wind is nukin! A 2-3 meter Fury is a great buggy kite for winds from 15-30 mph (depending on your weight, buggy, experience, terrain, line lenght...etc....) So even though you are purchasing a small kite to start out with your money is not lost at all later on...I am positive it wont collect dust in your kite bag and will get many years of good quality use out of it. Just about every one of the pilots in our buggy group carries at least one quad line power kite under the size of 3.0 meters in their bag....I have a 1.5 LD Stunt, 2.2 Yakuza, 3.4 Yakuza, and 5.0 Yakuza for the smaller sizes in my personal bag...these are my most used kites. Our most used demo kites for training and beginners are the 1.5 LD Stunt, 2.0 & 3.0 Fury, and the 3.0 & 5.0 Riot. Let us know how it goes!

The best thing to do is to get in contact with any local groups that are currently buggying in your area. By talking with the local groups you can get a better source of information for the area that you will be buggying at. Here in Vegas, we have access to many large flat dry lake beds, the surface is very hard and similar to sandpaper, so grip is very good. We dont need much power to plow through soft sand or mud and speed is usually the key to a good buggy kite, standard wheels are best and usually pumped fairly firm on air pressure, larger buggies work best for high speed stability but the comp's work great too. This type of advice will kill you if you currently buggy on surfaces that are muddy or with soft sand, or in a park with grass and obsticals to maneuver through. Your local group will be using what they have learned to be best for their areas. Contact your local kite shop and they should be able to point you towards a known local group or group of kiters that get together regurlarly. Your local shop should also be able to tell you what equipment is good for your area. Your local shop should also have demo equipment that you may be able to use. You are correct in thinking of getting the kite mastered before the buggy tho, the more experience you have in flying the kite - the easier it will be for you to learn to buggy. I highly suggest using a quad line kite right from the start as it gives you the best control and the ability to depower when necessary. There are a lot of kites available that are a lot less expensive than the Flexi's but in power kites, you usually get what you pay for. Remember that when you purchase a kite, it is a purchase that will last you for many years - dividing the cost out over that lenght of time makes the purchase very affordable...even on the most expensive kites. I know many buggiers in our group that fly kites that are over 5 years old and still do just fine on them. Other brands besides the Flexi's are the HQ Beemer, JoJo, Peter Lynn Rebble, and of course Ozone kites, just to name a couple other options for you. I have buggied on all the above kites including the Flexi's and they are all at the top of their class for performance and quality. Start out small at first, something in the 2-3 meter in size and learn to fly it well and then expand from there with either another size or a buggy. Hope this helps you out. Happy Winds! Kent www.awindofchange.com customerservice@awindofchange.com

Scott, For your first traction kite, I would highly suggest going for a quad line over a dual line. The quad lines are only slightly more money than the duals but will give you a lot better performance and the ability to depower the kite. Quad line kites are also very simple to learn so dont worry much about the learning curve and difficulty. Most of the time you can fly a quad line ram-air foil kite just the same as you fly a dual line kite, you just have brakes on it now. Advanced pilots will incorporate the brake lines with the main flying lines to help with turning and also controlling the power and depower of the kite. For starters, I would look for a kite in the 2-3 meter range, you dont really want to get much bigger than that to learn with because the power can be very difficult to handle as well as dangerous when learning. A 2-3 meter kite had plenty of power for you, so dont get too discouraged in the smaller sizes. At 225 lbs, a 2 meter kite can still get me off the ground in the right winds and is a total riot to buggy with. As far as brands, the Ozone brand is one of the best built and most durable kites we have used. The Prism Stylus is also a great kite. There are also many others Flexifoil, PKD, etc.... and also the Revolution Power Blast 2-4 is also an excellent traction kite to play with and to buggy with. Hope this helps with your search.

I think that would mostly depend on the size of your backyard and what you are trying to do while flying. My backyard has a block wall all the way around it and several houses on all sides and loads of trees, bushes, shrubs etc.... The wind can be 15mph outside but because of all the buildings, trees, and other obstructions, you would barely feel it in the backyard at all and kite flying would not even be worthwhile from the turbulence and circling winds created by those obstructions. But...if you are lucky enough to have a large grassy meadow in the middle of nowhere for a back yard, that would change everything. Again, the current winds would determine the kite used. If you normally have ultra light winds in your backyard then an ultra light or indoor kite would be the choice. If your winds are a steady 8-10+ then the sky is the limit. There are thousands of kites to choose from that are incredibly fun to fly. It all comes down to your skills, what you are looking to do with your kite and where you want to go.

Howdy Smokes, I belive the kite is a Peter Lynn Waterfoil. The waterfoil would not have been my first choice for ATB (ground boarding, kite boarding or whatever you want to call it)....not first choice but still will work fine and is a good kite, the rest of your equipment sounds great and will work no problem. A couple things I see are missing: HELMET Knee pads Elbow Pads additional body armor (BMX guards work great) and did I say a HELMET? While we are talking bout helmets....a sports helmet costs very little, usually under 50 bucks for a really good one. Cheaper ones are available as well and can save you thousands on emergency room visists, ambulance rides, stitches, lacerations, concusions, broken bones, lost teeth, etc....and, if you do get injured there is a chance you wont be able to fly again for several months until you heal. After you get a helmet, I would suggest putting the board away for the first dozen or more flights until you get good and comfortable with the kite. The kite will have a tremendous amount of power when flown in the right winds, if you cant control the kite and you try to master your board, you put yourself in a stituation that could cause some serious injury to your kite, your board, other people, or yourself....and usually it is to all the above at the same time. Fly safe!!! Watch out for others as well as yourself. take some time and learn how to control the kite, especially how to land the kite and keep it out of the powerzone. Know the area you are flying at and pay very close attention to the winds you are flying in. If at all possible, try to learn to fly the kite in light winds - advoid the stronger winds until you have good control. Learning to fly the kite is not boring at all and can be very exciting, take your time, plug in an MP3 player, head to the park and enjoy! After you get the kite mastered then move on to the board and put it all together. Start with the kite in the air and under control. Put the kite at zenith (12:00 position) and put your board at around 45 degrees off of down wind. Step onto your board and then slowly drop the kite down in front of your board in the direction you want to travel. Once you start to move, take the kite back up to the noon position. Continue to do this until you can keep constant speed on your board. Once you get moving, start to lean back on your board to initiate a slight turn until your board is pointing 90 degrees from downwind. If done properly in the right wind your kite should end up parked at an appx. 45 degree angle from ground to sky and out in front of you giving constant pull. If the wind is on the light side you may need to continue to "sine" the kite up and down in front of you to increase the power and continue to move. To change direction take the kite back up to zenith and lean back on the board so that it turns up wind and you slow to a stop. Your board should now be facing about 45 degrees upwind. Rotate your body around to the opposite direciton you traveled and you should be lined up exactly to drop the kite down on the other side and head back to where you started from. Thats the basics....if you get that mastered you should have no problem moving on to other things at will. Check with your local kite shop and see if there are any other kite groups or other pilots in your area that you can meet up with to fly. Most kite flyers are very friendly and can give you some very valuable first-hand information about setting up your kite and flying as well as what winds are going to be best for you and what areas are good to fly at. Hope this helps you out!

The Ozone kites are some of the most durable and best built kites that we have flown. You may want to look into one of those for your next foil.

So sorry to hear, my heart and prayers are with you and your family. I hope for the best. Please let us know how your grandma is doing.

We have put together a page for bridal adjustments on our site and use a Premier Addiction as an example. Adjusting the bridle is very easy to do and can be done in just a few minutes. Here is the link for the page: Bridle Adjustments The Addiction is an excellent kite. A few simple adjustments and you should be having a blast.

Walt, I am sure we met up. Still part of the buggy bastards and we still meet every friday out at the silver bowl. Just got back from an epic session out at Ivanpah this last weekend. Night buggying is a totally awesome thang. Dave, Marty, Brian, Mike, Ian, Ron and a couple new bb's Chuck, John and Ray all came out for some buggy time. Had a feast that woulda made grandma proud with dutch oven strogonoff, pot roast, and berry cobbler for dessert. Temperatures were in the tripple digits all day but got nice and cozy around 70ish at night. You'll definatly have to hook up with us next time you are in Vegas, I am sure everyone will love to see ya again. There is a great group of people on this board, all very friendly and very knowledgable. Hope to see you sometime soon. If I get up that way I will surely get in touch with you.

Are you by Reno or Wendover? I have been dying to get out on the Salt Flats to do some buggying. Hope this link works: Bonneville Salt Flats - Got Room to Buggy?

Depending on your wind, the Prism Stylus can provide plenty of power to pull you around on a mountain board. Spend as much time as you can flying the kite and learning to control it before strapping wheels on your feet. The more control you have on the kite the easier it will be when you do finally move into a Buggy or Board. Buggying is much easier to learn than mountainboarding (in my opinion). Biggest difference between the two is your center of gravity. In the buggy you are low, when the kite gets downwind of you you will side drag, sliding the buggy towards the kite while still pushing it forward some. On the board the footprint is very narrow and your center of gravity is very high (at your waist with a harness or on your shoulders if using handles). A downwind pull on the kite can yank you off of your board and getting the board to side slide is very difficult without a lot of experience. Still.....it can be pretty easy to learn once you have good kiting skills. We have a couple of pilots who use the Stylus for a buggy/board/rollerblade engine and it does work quite well. Another option for a beginner foil is the Ozone Imp. The new IMP comes in three sizes now - Small 1.0 meter, Medium 1.5 meter, and large 2.0 meter. The IMP is the beetle of ram-air foils as this kite can take some major abuse without sustaining any damage at all and it flies incredibly well! My kids have beat this kite into the ground on numerous occasions on grass, hard pack dirt, even asphault and they still fly awesome without any damage. We are currently compiling an online lessons area and will be uploading a mountain boarding section soon (if the wind stops blowing we will probably get it done quicker). You can read through the buggy section and it will give you some good pointers that will work with the board as well. Buggy Lesson Info Hope this helps you out.

One of the simplest ways to discover the power of a foil kite is the Ozone IMP. This kite is now available in small, medium and large (1m, 1.5m, and 2.0m). It is a dual line parafoil and comes with everything, the lines are already attached to the kite. The larger one can have enough power to pull you around quite a bit in the upper wind range (15+ mph) But all of them can be flown with serious amounts of the fun factor in anything over 5 mph. Starting price on the IMP is 99.00 for the small and 130.00 for the large which makes it a very affordable kite to play with. As for enough power to get some lift, you will probably want to go with one of the larger sizes and I fully agree that the quad line foil will be your best bet. The added lines will give you some form of depower and much more control. Learning quad line parafoils is extremely easy - if you can fly your beetle without crashing much, you can probably fly a quad line foil just as easy. Controls is still the same, pull left - turn left, pull right - turn right. Just remember that you will need to pull much more and a lot harder than you would with your Beetle. After you get better on the foil, you can start to incorporate your brake lines (bottom two lines) into your turns to get even more control from your kite. I don't advise land jumping unless you have the proper training and equipment as it can be very dangerous. We do a lot of land based jumping on our mountainboards but we always use the proper gear (brain shield - aka helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, chest protectors, butt protectors, heavy clothing etc...) Power kites do put out lots of power, be careful and always respect the wind or you may end up getting spanked (or worse). Hope this helps.

Lines can stretch a bit, especially on the stock ones supplied with the Beamer (as well as some of the other brands out there). Stake your lines on one end with a good firm stake and then stretch them out on the other end to see how much stretch and line difference there is in them. Usually, once they stretch good and hard they will stop stretching (well, not totally but not nearly as much as when they are new). Untie all the shorter lines and slide the sleeve up the line and then re-tie them so they are all equal length. You can also add short leader lines on your handles to help with line stretch. Get a piece of heavy line and put a loop on one end, larks head that loop to your handle and then put a couple knots in the other end at even increments. I have found that 2 inches apart works best. Start at the end of your leader line and work back towards your handles with as many knots as you can fit. Make sure to add the same distance on every leader line (all 4) and that the knots are all equal lengths from one handle to the other. The distance between the knots is not that important (2 inches or 2.5 inches or 3...etc) Just make sure that if you have 3 inches on one line you also have 3 inches on the other. Once you install your extended leader lines on your handles, simply attach your flying lines onto there using the same larks head. As you fly and your lines start to stretch out, simply adjust them towards the handles to the next knot to take up the stretching. This also helps to quickly adjust your lines for different wind conditions as well. Final note: Your lines make a huge difference in how your kite can perform. If you can, don't hesitate to get a good high quality line set and swap out your stock lines (you can save them for emergencies). Look into Shanti, Laser Pro Gold, or Q-power for some of the better line sets out there. Any one of those will have ultra strength with very minimal stretch as well as excellent glide when the kite is looped several times. You will be amazed at how much better your kite will fly with a good high quality line set on there. Bring on the buggy!!!

The addiction is a wonderful kite that is very affordable for what this kite is capable of doing. We have a lot of local pilots here that absolutly love the addiction. Another kite you may want to keep your eyes open for is the new Nighthawk from Premier. This kite was designed by Jon Trennepohl and Wayne Brunjes (Also designed the new Magnum as well). Premier Nighthawk Info This kite is brand new for this year and retails right around the $100 mark. This is a very nice kite and initial reviews have been great thus far. For the $50 dollar range, the Addiction would be my recomendation.

Like most things in life you get what you pay for. I agree totally with Ikky and his suggestions listed. The Beetle is really an awesome kite that is really not that much more money than the 10 dollar junker. For beginners, this is the kite to have. The best thing about it is that it can take a major beating without hardly any damage at all - - which means that you will be in the air more than you will be in the kite shop getting replacement parts. I have witnessed my youngest daughter (7 years) drive the Beetle nose first, full speed into the hard packed dirt on our dry lake beds so hard that the kite actually bounces off of the ground about a foot...only damage was to the ground....and a little dust cover on the kite. They have nearly worn out the side of the sail by dragging it across the dirt surface at very hard speeds but to this day have not broken a spar or leading edge. I love it. Granted the Beetle will not do many of the tricks as easy or precise as some of the other models out there, but it fly's excellent, controlls nicely, makes a fun buzz when really lit up in the air, can trick if you want to work it and costs under 50 bucks for the whole package. Anytime someone wants to try a dual line stunt kite for the first time I have no worries at all about them launching up the Beetle. Makes it nice especially if I have one of my PKC's sitting on the field The Beetle will last you a very long time, once you get one I doubt you will want to get rid of it....even after you get yourself some of the more advanced kites. The Beetle will stay around for that one time that another beginner or even yourself just wants to put a kite up and have some stress free fun.

He he he...basically did the same thing. Just made an animated GIF file using Corel PhotoPaint. Cropped the picture and then rotated it about 5 degrees for 8-10 frames then reversed it. Was going to try and make one in Flash but didn't know if the avatar could be accepted as a .swf file. There are a bunch of free animated gif programs on the web that can help. Here is a couple links for some free or trial programs. animated gif programs Bunch of animation programs. Hope this helps ya.

Persh, I got the video out to you, you should be receiving it pretty quickly. We have been totally swamped here so sorry for the delayed posting and lack of more information. The wind has been awesome the last two weeks and I am stuck in the office - life can be so cruel sometimes! Hope I can get out this weekend and get my fix! Let me know how things go with the video, excellent tool for any Rev pilot. As always, post any questions you may have here and there are plenty of us "dark side" flyers here that will help ya out.

Personally...I think the whole Llama thang is kinda wierd.

Persh, Contact me directly with your shipping address at customerservice(at)awindofchange.com and we will get you taken care of.

If you can get your woman some time on the 1.5 you will probably not be able to get it back. Really an awesome kite! The SuperBlast's are also awesome, excellent power when you want it as well as depower when you don't. I would recommend test flying the 4-8 before you buy, it is an expensive kite that does take quite a bit of time to learn to control. Very touchy on the handles. It does require quite a bit of Rev experience to be able to fly it (not to mention a lot of strength when powered up). I would suggest the SuperBlast 2-4 instead, unless you are looking for a lot of power in winds that are constantly under 10mph. The 2-4 will give you excellent buggy power in winds from 10-20 mph and will still be fun to fly in winds from 3-10 mph. The 2-4 is also a lot easier to control than the 4-8 is. The 1.5 is an excellent choice as it is such a great kite and will definatly teach you everything you need to know about the larger SuperBlasts. Be careful tho, once your woman gets a hold of it you may not see her or your kite again.

3 inches is too much for sure. I am very familiar with the firebee and it is a fairly good traction kite, the 1.0 is quite small and will be a rocket ship in the higher winds (where it needs to be flown) so control could be a little difficult. Coming from stunt kites the speed shouldn't be that bad for ya (assuming you have flown stunts before). Okie.....first thing first. You may need to stretch out your lines and get them all the same length. I am not familiar with the actual lineset your firebee came with so I will just list some of the basics. Most quad line foils will come with two different sets of line of different test strength. Make sure the lighter lines are on the bottom of your handles. If you put the lighter lines on the top (or mix and match the sets) you will stretch the lighter lines more than the heavier lines making your sets very uneven nearly every time you fly. So heavy lines on the top, lighter lines on the bottom. If your linesets are stitched then you may have no other choice but to cut the loops off of one end and re-sleeve the sets to make them all the same length again. If they are sleeved and knotted just untie the knots and slide the sleeve up the line and re-tie them to match the shortest line of the set. Unlike a Rev, nearly 80% of the control of your firebee will be on the upper lines. When first learning to fly a quad line foil, the rear lines are not much more than a brake or used for landings. Keep the rear lines very loose and in most cases, act like they aren't even there (so loose that they are drooping during flight). Most pilots will put their pointer finger (first finger next to thumb) on top of the flying line so that the top flying line runs through the pointer finger and index finger. This usually gives you better control of the kite and allows you to hold most of the power from the top lines directly in your hand. All power kites will stretch the lines out eventually. A very easy way to be able to adjust your lines without having to re-tie them all the time is to add a series of knots to your leader lines (lines coming off of the handles that you attach your flying lines to). I usually add knots in 2 inch increments. The distance between the knots is not really that important, just make sure that the knots are equal from one handle to the other. Here's a cheezy graphic (hope this works) ||-----X--X--X--X--X || || || || .\\ ...\\ .....\\-----X--X--X--X--X each X would represent a knot in your leader line. Once you get the knots in your leader line it is very simple to adjust your line lengths by connecting your larks head to the next knot in or out to shorten or lengthen the line. If you find out that your brake lines are too tight and your kite will not get off of the ground, attach your leading edge lines in to the next knot towards the handle (shorten the leading edge lines which lengthens the brake lines). If you find that you have no brakes and can't stall the kite down, attach your brake lines in to the next knot towards the handle to tighten the brake lines up a little (and lengthen the leading edge lines). You may need to adjust your kite several knots until you find the correct setting for flight. Every person seems to feel comfortable holding their handles in different postions so your adjustment will be very personal for you and may vary quite a bit from someone elses adjustment. 15 knots/mph of wind should be plenty of wind for your 1.0 to get off the ground and fly - should give you a little bit of power as well. Fly it just like a two line kite - pull left to turn left, pull right to turn right. After you get comfortable with that then start to use the brake lines to really whip the kite around (like a Rev). Pull left and tighten the left brake and the kite should spin on its axis instead of making a larger loop. Hope this info helps you out. Quad line is really not that difficult - I would imagine your line lengths are what are giving you the headache and not the kite itself. Once you get your lines set up right you will have a blast.

If you don't have one Penny I am sure I have one here that I can send. Let me know. As always you can post any questions on this board and there are tons of very experienced pilots here that will be more than willing to help you out. Welcome to the group - you found a great bunch!