dragonfish

Thanks for bringing this up and reminding me about the washers. I should go find some weights. Don't have washers, but do you suppose beads with large enough holes would work? Our approximately once a year indoor event around here is next weekend! (Sorry for the thread derail.)

No, a full vent Rev is not 15 just to fly. An experienced Rev-er can probably fly a full vent in 5 mph or possibly less. A beginner would probably want 10mph or so before going to full vent. (Note my use of vagueness terms, I'm not the best when it comes to estimating wind speeds.) I think what Wayne meant was if you have 15mph+ when you want to fly a Rev, you shouldn't really be considering anything less than full vent. Regarding dual line kites, maybe the confusion is between flyable wind range vs. trickable wind range? Sounds like you're thinking trickable wind range whereas most of the rest of us are probably thinking flyable wind range.

Coming up this Saturday!

I hope I helped someone on his way to catching the kiting bug today. I saw him looking frustrated with his lines and reprimanding his kids to stop getting in the way of his lines. I hesitated for a bit before approaching them, since I couldn't really tell if he was new to sport kites or maybe he was just having a bad day, but eventually my desire to help won and I went to say hi. Turns out, they just got the kite yesterday and asked if I could teach them how to get started. Sure, I was happy to. Even told them about BASKL's clinic next Sat. Well, he finally gets the kite in the air and it keeps turning right, ok...maybe lines need to be equalized. They were just a little bit off, might not really have needed equalizing, because once we went to reattach the lines to the kite, we discovered one of the bridle legs was wrapped around a spreader. Duh, that will cause the kite to turn right. Anyway, sorted that out, and he was keeping the kite in the air in no time. Don't know if he will catch the bug, or disappear after a while, but we can hope right? He did say he was about to give up before I showed up, so I think a little help went a long way in this case.

The Bay Area Sport Kite League is putting on a casual Learn to Fly a Sport Kite workshop/clinic on Saturday Feb. 21, 2015 at Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina (San Francisco Bay Area, CA, just to make it explicit). This is the same location that the Berkeley Kite Festival is held. If you are in the area, feel free to drop by any time between 11am and 4pm. For anyone curious about sport kites and who maybe doesn't have a kite of their own yet, this will be a great opportunity to see what sport kiting is all about and try it out. For those of you who have a kite or are flying, this will be a great opportunity to pick up some tips from the local experienced fliers and experts, or just to fly with others. Who knows, if there are enough people interested, some spontaneous team flying could occur.

I'm in! Thanks Rob for the great offering. This is going to be a tough drawing to come after.

FYI, the EXP does not use heavy rods. They are the same as the 3 wrap. I use my EXP frame and my other 3 wrap frames interchangeably (whichever one is more convenient to get when I need a 3 wrap frame) in any 1.5 sized kite.

Basically, but don't literally drop the lines. You'll eventually get a tangle and a mess that way. What I usually do is wind the first few feet of line onto the winder, secure it with the bungee on the winder, and gently set the winder on the ground. Then I break down the kite and pick up the winder to continue winding lines. Also, with Revs, they will almost never move if laid flat on the ground with the leading edge facing directly into the wind. If the rest of my stuff is near my kite instead of near the handles, I have no problem leaving the kite assembled on the ground, winding lines, and coming back for the kite. Of course, I do not know if the same is true for your kite since it has a different shape for the leading edge.

Excellent videos. Thanks for sharing snippets of your trip with us. Just one little thing.....are we going to see more of TK flying?

Happy holidays to all. Hope everyone gets a chance to fly one last time before the year is over.

Damn. I'm less than average. You don't know the damage that causes to my psyche. I have to buy 4 more. I ran some more numbers...median is 5 and mode is 2. So, you're not less than "average" by other definitions of average.

So....Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are both Wednesdays. How about we shoot for Tuesday those weeks, and keep the regular "chat night" on Weds for now? Or too confusing? Well, some of us are on whenever we feel like it anyway, so just hop in whenever.

Congrats Barton.

Well, chat's been going on for more than a year here, and I'm really enjoying it. Wednesday has been designated as "chat night" for most of that time, in an attempt to get more people in the same place at the same time so to speak for a livelier chat. However, the numbers have been dwindling lately on Wednesday nights. I know there are a number of you who still frequent chat; I've chatted with you recently. Are Wednesdays no longer the best day for "chat night"? Is it time for a change? We're no longer getting anywhere near the chat record of 15 people on at the same time. For example, it's Wednesday today, and there are only 2 of us in chat, whereas yesterday there were at least 9 over the course of the evening with 5 in the room at the same time. So, should we move "chat night"? And to what day of the week? Or possibly get rid of a designated "chat night" altogether because it's too hard to predict when people are likely to be on and chatty? Fill out the poll, and feel free to discuss.

I'm in. Oh wow. This is cool. Would be useful for team/pairs practices. Right now we're using a "plain ole" bluetooth speaker that we put on the ground. It works, but would be nice to not have to worry about putting it in a ziplock bag for the beach or accidentally stepping on it. Also, I don't actually have one; we use my teammate's, even though I run the music off my phone. Looking forward to this drawing.

I would so be there if I weren't 600 miles away.

Didn't look too bad to me....or maybe it's hard to see the cringe-worthy stuff via video. As winds pick up, the kite will become more and more sensitive to inputs and wind gusts. You have to be a lot more careful not to overdo the inputs and sometimes you have to compensate for the gusts as they hit (not react after they hit) to fly precisely. Venting helps a lot here. I don't feel too bad for the kite. X/V - 4 wraps - 17 mph?? That's it?? 17 mph is when the X/V comes out with either 3 wraps or my green race rods!! Had it flying in 25 mph solid with 30 mph gusts!! BUTTAH!!!! I've had my full vent with 4 wrap frame out in 25mph and gusting higher once. That was fun (not!). I was barely holding my ground and got dragged forward every time a gust hit. Kite survived. Not doing that again if I can help it. The next time I had to fly in those conditions (at a festival), I borrowed an xtra vent. Time to get a higher wind kite.

Is this......what I think it is? I don't even know what it's called. The colors and your description (BIG) make me think it is though. Please do share more once you get a proper flight.

Ugh, sick is no good. Hope you get better soon. Thanks for getting a prize up despite being sick.

Alright, final list is: 1. RobB 2. bbailey49 3. makatakam 4. Amexpmh 5. Reved 6. mtgrizzly52 And the RNG says: 6 Congratulations mtgrizzly52!

Thanks everyone for the congratulations. Just in case you haven't noticed, I've already posted the next drawing 2 weeks ago, and it will be drawn today! So, if you want in on it, you have a few more hours to reply on that thread. For some reason, this one just hasn't been locked yet.

Ok, done! Finally. Front Back Oops, I forgot to include something for scale. Well, I remembered on the work in progress picture, so you can look a few posts up for that. It is about 2 1/4" tall by 1 3/4" wide. And sorry, no tail. I figured it will be one less dangley thing to get caught on stuff. Drawing will be late this evening, so there is still time to enter.

Definitely can't beat the view, but next time try Ocean Beach too. Winds usually straight off the ocean.

Just picked up the package from the post office today. It got here last week, but I missed the delivery and wasn't able to go get it until today. Looking forward to giving the kite a fly this weekend if the winds cooperate. It looks like there's a bow line or something at the top of the kite? PM with questions coming your way, Marshall. Thank you again.

Soooooo.....I'm slow and didn't work on this as much as I should have, so it's not done yet. But, I thought I would post an update and a work in progress picture. I was on a roll just now until I needed more thread, so hopefully I can get back on a roll after adding a new piece of thread and make some more progress tonight. Oh yea, I updated the first post with entry numbers, too.