dragonfish

Hi and welcome @FierceCritter. Hope I'm not too late to add my 2 cents. The circular kite (inventory #102) looks to be of the style of an AirYo or Lee Sedgwick YFO. It's spars may have gotten separated from the sail. Look for some rods of maybe 1/8" diameter with a total length that is the circumference of the kite and flexible enough to bend into a circle. Those black tabs on the edge of the sail are "loops" that the rods would slide through. This style of kite can be set up as a single line on a "wand" or as a quad line (but not in the same way as a Revolution). Here's a picture of my YFO as a reference. Given that you've selected a few Revolution kites, I would highly recommend keeping a standard sail as well, e.g. inventory # 82, 84, or 86. Vented Revolutions are generally for higher winds. If a person can only have one, I generally recommend a standard sail. Looks like you can probably have at least 2, so I would recommend a standard and a vented. In the list of kites you have selected to keep, the one that says both Vented + Super Ultra Light sounds a bit like an oxymoron. Could very well be some kind of specialty setup, but I can't tell for sure from the size of the picture. I would venture a guess that a standard sail would work better in lower winds than that one though. Happy flying.

FWIW, my EXP came with rods with EXP labels on them, but it is from around 2010. I couldn't say if they had labels or not in 2000.

Oh no, is there a high likelihood of the parking lot being full on the weekends now? I've always been unsure about parking in that big lot outside the gate. Sometimes it seems roped off, sometimes there are cars there. 🤷‍♀️ And sorry, I don't have an answer to your question.

Whoa, @Sardonycus I just realized your Shoreline is the same as my Shoreline (though I haven't been out there much lately). Been following riffclown's build of your kite. Welcome. And I didn't realize there are so many other Shoreline fliers on here too. Hi everyone!

Definitely a Mantis. Check the tail strap on the back side of the spine for more identifying information. Mine is a UL. Black Diamond 3pt lower spreaders, P200 spine, P100 lower leading edge. Sorry, don't want to de-spar the kite to see what the upper leading edge is, but that should be enough to figure out if you have a UL or standard.

Cool mod. Curious, how tight are these T connectors? Does the LE spar slide through them fairly easily? They would seem to need to for assembly/disassembly since you don't have a large opening like on dual line kites for the connectors to move as the spars are inserted/removed.

I appreciate your concern for safety and your efforts to understand the kiteflying culture in your area before diving in. Compared to the local kites, a dual line foil may seem like a massive target, but compared to framed dual lines, they are not. Given your local culture though, I understand why you would want to try something perhaps smaller and less expensive to start with. The principle behind how a fighter kite works and how it can do all that with a single line is that the kite itself is inherently unstable. Most single line kites are designed to be stable, so once the flier puts the kite in the air it stays there. However, fighter kites are not like this. They tend to want to spin or turn. This is especially true when the line is being let out. But, when the line is pulled in and the kite is being pulled on, the kite will fly in a straight line in the direction it is pointing. So, the trick to controlling the kite is knowing when to let line out and when to pull on the line. This is definitely easier said than done. As I said previously, smaller kites tend to move faster, so if you build a smaller version of your local fighter kites, just know that it could be even harder to learn how to control it. Once again, good luck.

Hi and welcome. If you are open to any kind of kite, a soft kite will probably be the easiest for you to manage. They do not have any spars that you need to worry about. Small single line soft kites will easily fit in a backpack. There are also dual line foil kites. These are still frameless, get their structure from the bridle and filling up with air while in flight, and you can control their movement. They come in a variety of sizes as well. I'm not sure if there are commercially made quad line foils that are not power kites, but if you really wanted a quad line, here are instructions to convert a dual line foil into a quad line. You probably don't want to start out with a power kite (sometimes called a traction kite) since they are designed to pull hard enough to pull you around on a buggy or board. If you are not interested in soft kites and want a framed kite, you will need to cut the spars to make them shorter and add connectors. This is something that people have done with the commonly seen framed quad line kites (e.g. Revolution, Djinn, OSKUSA Freilein, etc.). The most common size of these kites have 5 spars of 31 inches, and what you would do is cut each of these in half and attach a ferrule to one side. (I don't know why we call them ferrules, they are more like dowels.) You would end up with 10 spars of 15.5 inches + 2 inches or so for the ferrule (not all 10 spars would have the ferrule), giving you a total length of less than 18 inches (about 45 cm). While I haven't really seen anyone do this with single line or dual line kites, it seems like the same idea would work. It would be more annoying to do on the leading edge of a dual line, since those spars are harder to remove. I would not recommend building a miniature kite, because in general, the smaller the kite the faster it moves and the harder it is to control. Good luck.

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You're going to have a stack done in no time!

I have tried flying a Kaiju on 75' lines as an experiment. One of the festivals I go to, there is next to no wind in the morning and the advertised start time of the festival is usually a little before the wind picks up. So, I was experimenting with what I could fly a routine with in those conditions. Given that I only had 90# line, the 75' lines created a lot of drag. The kite itself was rather floaty, but I could not control it very well because I would lose "tension" in the lines. They were too long (and heavy) so they felt too spongy. Granted, the wind was also not coming from a steady direction, so the kite would get pushed around in ways I didn't want it to and I couldn't give it the direct inputs I wanted to. 50# line probably would have helped, but it's still a lot of length to drag around for a kite that you don't want so much wind that it pulls hard enough. Can it be flown outside on 75' lines? Yes. Will it help a beginner be less frustrated? Not likely.

Ooohhh, I'm drooling now. A little bummed that there's only one purple now, so a good purple fade is not possible anymore. But, I found inspiration elsewhere. Anyone recognize it?

Ooooh, I really like this one, especially when backlit. It's my favorite of all your diamonds so far. Any chance you'd sell it? (And yes, I've still been lurking on this forum, just not posting much lately. Logged in just to come comment on this.)

Welcome! I occasionally fly in Berkeley, usually when there's some event. You've probably heard of the Berkeley Kite Festival that happens in July. The Bay Area Sport Kite League also has a few events there. I fly at Shoreline park in Mountain View more often (although I haven't been flying much lately, other than at events). There are a number of regulars at Shoreline, some of whom are also on this forum.