dragonfish

I got a significant tear in my Rev over the weekend. Need some advice on how to approach fixing it. I'm not even sure how it happened. I had left it flat on the sand in the pit area of the demo "field" at a festival and hadn't gotten a chance to put it away after the wind picked up. Here's a pic: (you probably have to click on it and make it big to see the tear) The tear is in both vertical and horizontal directions. The vertical one goes all the way to the LE screen seam. Given the location and nature of the tear, would there be repair methods that are better or should be avoided? Thanks.

Awesome! Sounds like a success. Lines will stretch, especially at first. 2 feet might be on the high side. However, if you discovered the 2' difference at the end of winding up, it might not actually be that bad. As you wind, it is easy to not get exactly the same amount of line from each line in each wind. Or you may possibly have accidentally dropped one wind on one line. That will make a big difference. So, check the line lengths again after you have unwound the line before your next flight. And when you do that, it's best to have the two loops on the far end of the lines placed together on a stake, a helper's finger, or something similar instead of being attached to the kite. Good luck.

Awesome! BASKL fun fly at Shoreline on April 14. Hope to see you there. This is also an open invite for anyone else who may be in the area.

If you use SparkieRob's method of doubling back, you would be wise to do one line at a time. I tried to double back and lay out all 4 lines before cutting, on a set of 120's no less. It seemed smart at the time to do all 4 together to get equal tension when stretching the line. Plus my (dad's) super long tape measure only went to 100'. A large, blunt tapestry needle works well as a sleeving tool too. Saturday was pretty nice for flying. I was at Shoreline for a couple hours. Now it's cold again.

@Russ Wilson, no problem. I was (and still am) kind of thinking out loud, but thought you guys might be interested in my thoughts. Was just trying to get a sense for what Synfig studios could do, since I haven't gotten a chance to play with it myself. As for maneuvers for a team of 3 vs say a team of 4, I think those would generally need to be separate items in a library (if we were to work on creating one) because kites would need to be in different positions and moving at different angles. Take a ball and burst for example. A team of 3 would have one facing straight up, and the others facing 120 degrees downward (clockwise and counterclockwise). A team of 4 would have two kites facing 45 degrees up and two facing 45 degrees down. If it were possible to create a shareable, reuseable library of maneuvers, I don't think it would be too painful to create an item for each number of teammates (e.g. 3 vs 4) for each maneuver (e.g. burst, flythrough), if those maneuvers can then be strung together and timescaled to fit into a routine. Although...it just occurred to me the starting location of the kites for the second maneuver will need to match the ending location of the kites for the first maneuver, which can easily not be the case. It's easy to make things bigger or smaller, or fly something higher or lower when working with real kites, but sounds like it might not be with Synfig. Hmmmmm....I like this idea of creating a library of reuseable components, but execution might turn out much easier said than done. Seems like I need to find some time to play with Synfig Studios to see if it might be sufficient for what we are trying to do. P.S. The routines I've written so far are each for a specific number of kites. So, the routine written for 4 kites would never be flown with 3 or 5. In that particular routine, for example, there are things that happen in sequence, one kite per beat. The music is based on 4 beat measures. Therefore, that choreography would not work with 3 or 5 kites (plus blenders don't work with 3 or 5 kites either). So, from my point of view, it would not be necessary to be able to easily change number of kites from 3 to 4 or whatever once a routine is written. Here's the routine if you're curious:

Sorry I did not chime in on this earlier. Yes, I would be interested in software to animate routines and/or maneuvers. I also do not have a good solution for it yet, although I haven't been actively choreographing lately, so I am not current on what tools are available. @frob, are you thinking about writing open source software for animating routines, maybe in javascript or something that can easily be run on browsers? I'd be willing to give feedback and toss some ideas around (although, I don't really have any good ideas for implementation right now). I just went to the SynFig Studios website and viewed their promo video. Looks interesting, but I haven't tried it yet. @Russ Wilson, is there a convenient way to share reusable building block maneuvers made with SynFig Studios? Would it be possible to then time scale the building blocks to speed up or slow down if one were to use them to create a routine set to music? If you're interested in my past experiences with choreographing routines, read on. None of these things I tried are ideal. A few years ago, when I started flying pairs and team, I was looking for a way to document routines. I needed a way to communicate what was in my head to my teammates, and to "write it down" so I wouldn't forget myself. When flying individually, it is easy to improvise if something is forgotten. When flying with others, especially with music, it's hard to improvise and quickly communicate it before the kites need something to do (unless you're as skilled as JB). I knew that some teams drew their routines on paper, but I didn't want to be manually editing, tweaking, or rewriting the routine over and over again, which I knew would be inevitable as we polished the routine(s). I knew this would take forever given that I can get a bit OCD sometimes, and I would be erasing a lot if I tried to do this by hand. I ended up trying to draw using powerpoint instead. I could copy/paste the kites from slide to slide, and draw lines to indicate flight paths with a pen tablet. And hit undo instead of erasing if I was OCD about how a line looked. It kind of worked, but it still took time, and it was not animated. The one routine I started this way, I never finished editing/drawing it, because it still took a lot of time and effort to do, and I kind of gave up. Plus, it had no indication of when the moves happened in relation to the music. Another routine I have documented is written mostly in words. This one was a quad line 4 person team routine, and the majority of the moves were common ones that have names. So, I was able to write a time cue to indicate where in the music something would happen, and then the name of the move. There were a few moves that I made up for that particular routine, so I either had to give it a name or just tried to describe it. Those things we had to remember, but otherwise, this routine is fairly well documented. But, it is also one that is easy to communicate with existing terminology. The more custom moves there are, the harder it becomes to communicate, and the more benefit an animated routine would give. None of my individual routines are documented, because I don't have a good solution for documentation. These don't really need to be documented, since I am the only one who needs to know them. I just hope that I don't forget them. I have seen some animations of routines. I do not know what software was used to create them. To me, an important part of animating a routine is to be able to have moves synced to music. In a drawn diagram, it is hard to describe when in the music a move happens. But, that is very important when choreographing a routine set to music. It is also difficult to describe musical cues in words, just as it's difficult to describe what kites should be doing if it's not a move with an established name. So, in my opinion, a useful tool for animating routines will need to not only be able to control the movement of the kite images, but also to sync them to music.

2-D flying (kite stays at end of lines with tension) should be safer. 3-D flying is questionable. I've managed to launch the YFO at myself trying to do slack line stuff.

Mine is in my quad count. I've only had mine in quad configuration though.

Wow! Very impressive, both with the Kaiju and the quad.

Oh my! Awesome prize. I'm really drooling this time. @Polo thank you for your generosity. I think I'm going to go play with the colorizer now (even though I have other things I should be doing).

If you've still got time, get yourself a document tube. I got mine from an art store. Come to think of it, mailing tube might work too. Put all your rods in there (I'd put the whole kite(s) in there) to carry it on the plane. People won't wonder as much why you're carrying sticks, and if you do get questioned you have the whole kite to explain with. Good luck and have a safe trip.

I don't think I even got one copy yet....though the magazine usually takes a while to get here, so maybe it's still on its way.

And the winner is......... #1 @GCKC Congrats! Please PM me with the address you would like to ship to and I'll get it going. Thank you all for participating.

Ok, I'm closing the entries and making the final updates to the list. Be back shortly.

One more day! I'll do the drawing after I get home tomorrow. Not sure when that will be. Might be kind of late.

I definitely will. Most of my glider flying time is outside.

Next up for the Karma Drawings: a SkyBurner Profile S.E. While it has vent holes and screen, it is my understanding that this is actually the Standard version. From what info I could find, this is an early 2000's design. Specs from the SkyBurner page on the Wayback Machine say: wingspan 90", height 45", wind range 2-20mph. Since I picked it up, I have hardly flown it, so it's time to find it a new home with a lucky KiteLifer. Kite is in good condition. Sleeve included. Drawing will take place in the evening (Pacific time) of Dec. 13, 2017. To enter, reply here with "I'm in." Numbers will be assigned in order of entry, and the RNG will choose a number. Good luck. Entries: 1. @GCKC 2. @Mike Klaiber 3. @mwp 4. @Michael E. Allen 5. @RobB 6. @hydro18679 7. @Breezin 8. @Lisa Bernard / Kiteworld 9. @Ca Ike 10. @Justin2kites 11. @Edmond Dragut Some rules and guidelines: Don’t play unless you’re willing to put up a prize and ship it to whoever wins. Shipping is paid by the original poster, the winner pays nothing. Be prepared to ship your prize anywhere in the lower 48 US States. Sorry, but due to shipping costs, we really have to limit this to the lower 48 US States. RULE CHANGE (7/31/2014): Members from Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii are welcome to enter the Karma drawings provided they are willing to pay half of the Karma prize shipping cost. The method and timing of the payment will be agreed upon between the two parties after the drawing for a particular prize. You can choose the length of the giveaway, but keep it between 1 and 2 weeks. Try to ship the prize promptly. You should be able to ship it within a week, but if you can’t, PM the winner and let them know. Sometimes life gets in the way! This whole thing works on the honor system so if there are any problems shipping or receiving a prize, it needs to be worked out between the two parties. Don’t forget…Karma! This isn’t a competition, but feel free to be generous! If you can only put up a hat, or a tail for a stunt kite, great! If you have something in your kite bag that you never fly and would be willing to ship, that’s great too. Either way, the people that join to win it will appreciate it. When you receive your prize, post a thank you to the thread where you won it. The thread will be locked after that point so the new **KARMA** stays above it. Good luck, and have fun!

Thanks all. Wayne, you are very lucky to have that indoor soccer center. I rarely get to fly indoor myself. The past few years BASKL hasn't even had any indoor events, so I get zero true indoor time here.

Woohoo! Awesome. I look forward to flying this. Thanks Richard @kiteflyr. Thanks @John Barresi for helping out with the drawing too.

Looks like Anthony and I have pretty good odds on this right now. 4 more days.

Just use the shower. You won't be the only one. And don't use hot water.

I'm in! Awesome prize. I believe I've seen these in action too. Richard, did you fly these in the Single Line Indoor competition at the Seaside convention as well?

Any updates following the teaser? My interest has been piqued.

Wow! Cool you got one already. Definitely would like to hear more about it when you have more to share. I am really interested in trying one out myself. Hope it doesn't pull too hard....I don't like hard pulling kites. But, everything else I've heard/seen about this kite seems really cool.

I clicked on the webcam link just out of curiosity expecting to see black since it's ~10:30pm eastern time. Guess what? There are a couple people flying right now!