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John F

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Everything posted by John F

  1. I like to use nylon washers. They last a lot longer. Have not seen any detrimental wear on the shock cord.
  2. Did anyone watch Jeopardy tonight. It was college all stars I think quarterfinals. One of the categories was Kites. Scared the kids. They avoided that category until everything else was gone. Clues were about Hargaeve, Cody, Eddy, Franklin, and all the stuff we are familiar with. I wonder whick AKA pub they got the clues from; or did they call Kay Buelsing the Kite Museum. John
  3. To get the feel try learning the fade launch first. To me that is easier than learning the fade in the air. Do a pancake landing. Relax. Put your hands by your hips. Pull back to flip the kite into a fade and then give slack line to let the kite settle into the face. Most kites react better to a more even pull as opposed to a jerk pull. By starting from a pancake on the ground you take the pressure off your self to time the fade. Once you can do that reliably then go to doing it in the air. It is a minor adjustment to doing in the air. Don't forget to give slack to let the kite settle with the tail deep. John
  4. I was just checking out a video that I had posted on YouTube that had muted because of the WMG Google fight. This was of Reid Walcott at Summer Heat. They took the mute off. So I think the problem is now solved. Here is the video of Reid flying in MIB to Robert Buble singing Feeling Good. He took 1st. Enjoy and post those videos. John PS. You might check others that have been muted.
  5. Duane seems like you could make a nice short 4 line set out of that. Short line flying on the rev is a hoot.
  6. Here is a great interview of Barb Hall at AKA Convention. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/10/10/welch.flying.kites.at.80.cnn?iref=videosearch Enjoy John
  7. Just saw this http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090929/ap_on_hi_te/us_warner_music_group_youtube LOS ANGELES - YouTube said Tuesday that music videos from Warner Music Group Corp. will return to the video site in the coming months after a nine-month dispute over splitting ad revenue. In reading the article it looks like things will come out ok for everyone, including us kite balleters. John
  8. I was just checking my YouTube videos and a couple more were idicated as having "Copyright Info". Checked them out and they played. Both had music owned by Sony. The info only told me that they were owned by Sony and I noticed that both were block from MP4 download. This seems very fair. My policy is not use WMG music but use Sony music. Not only that there was a pop that allowed you to buy the music on Amazon. What a great way to handle the problem. Hooray for Sony. I bet they sell a lot of music this way and we get to use their fine music in showing off our kiting prowess. YouTube example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-nsq8m3-g
  9. Here is a an article on the fight between You Tube and WMG. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090720/tc_nm/us_warnermusic_youtube_3 There is hope that there will be peace in the valley someday and us kite videographers won't be on the short end of the stick.
  10. I am in Long Beach now until after WSIKF. Was down at Bolstad Approach yesterday for the Sansations. The beach is huge this year. I think the depth is about 700 to 800 feet to the high tide line. I mean I had a hard time seeing the shelters for the waters edge. During low tides there is a huge pool of captured water. Think of the water fun with that. There will not be a dry REV on the field. I am picturing a big water show at low tide with about 30 REV's flying side side over this pool creating tip wakes and dives and explosive exits from the water. Monday is the best tide situation so get here for som fun on Monday. This is my 5th WSIKF and I think this is the most beach I have ever seen. John
  11. John, I agree that this manual needs work. I would be willing to do some work on it next winter when back home and getting a lot of gym time in. I am wondering if the best approach would not be along the lines of what Watty has done. Bunch of short YT clips with some voice over or text over. One of things I found is there a big difference in kites from the likes VIP to a Reflection. The breakdown in the manual could be an outline for a project of this sort. Let me have some suggestions. It seems that indoor flying is growing as people are exposed to it. I have sent out several of the manuals. Btw the name is Farrell not Ferrell. John
  12. One thing I have learned with light wind flying is that pumping is more of a desparation move. I do it but it is the last resort. Keeping a steady pressure on the sail is more effective. Forward motion of the kite seems to give it lift as it reduces pressure on the back side of the sail and that is the same as having wind. So what I do is launch by extending my arms, step back to bring the lines under tension, take a breath, then step back and pulling the hands back to the chest in a solid steady motion (this simulates what a steady wind does). Then continue steppping back to gain altitude. If I do pump I do it at chest level as opposed to hands hanging down. This reduces the length of the pumping stroke and seems to make the motion smoother (think of it as your arms putting wind into the kite as opposed to jerking it higher). As soon as some altitude it reached then turn letting the kite gain speed with gravity and then turn up. If you maintain some speed on the kite you will create some lift. Also shrink your flying window vertically and horizontally. Maybe as little as +- 30% horizontally and no more than up 60%. This gives you more use of whatever wind there is. Almost every trick I have learned, I first executed in light wind. Things slowdown nicely and you can get input sequences and timing down. In fact I love low wind ( a good SUL kite helps too).
  13. Happy Birthday Tristan. You must be old enough to fly a kite now. Missed flying with you last summer. Hope you will be at WSIKF or some of the other ones. Say hi to the family for Mary and me. John
  14. No ROK battle with these kites. We will have a demo battle with some worn and torn kites. No one in this town know what a ROK is much less a ROK battle is YET. John
  15. We got some ROK kits from Rhonda B for the upcoming festival. We gave several to local artists. These are not kite people but regular artists that have a good local reputation. They decorated the ROK's and here they are ROK Art for Fort Collins These will be auctioned during the festival for a local after school kids program. John
  16. Back of the neck. Thats all folks. Can keep my eye on the kite or other great beach scenery.
  17. Gave it a try the other day in relatively light winds (4to 5) and concentrated on getting the flic all the way to back facing flyer. That seems to be a give it slack to allow it to go 180. The flac is still unreliable. I think the key might be to get all of the input on the bottom lines so that kite is only rotating. Got to get this one down as it is cool in ballet especially in the kind of music I like to fly to. John
  18. Like any thing, there are many different methods. My logic behind pulling on the top lines at the end is that the other end of the top lines is farther away from you than the other end of the bottom lines. So, it's a little easier to pull on those top lines. Do you see what I mean by this? Plus, when the kite is in the "Flic" position, I guess we can call it, the top lines are being lied over the trailing edge, so when the top lines are pulled, not only is it pulling the leading edge up, but it is pulling the trailing edge back down. John when you are flicking you are getting a partial wrap if I understand what you are saying. The big difference is giving enough slack with a step forward to allow the additional rotation. Is what Watty is showing what you call falling leaf or something similar. This is what I have been doing and it is ok but it is easy for the kite to rotate horizontally in lighter winds. Tomorrow I will be trying your flic flac. Has anyone ever achieved a full wrap? It seems like the structure of REV is not conducive to that.
  19. Ap;ril 25 at the foot of the Rockies 35 miles from Rocky Mountain National Park, Fort Collins, Colorado will be having its annual Kites In The Park. Here is the info on this http://www.aka.kite.org/cal_dtl.php?event_no=4423. If you ever wanted to fly at a beautiful inland spot this is it. Send me a message if you want more details on our fest.
  20. Wen I hope you and your mom are coming to WSIKF this year so we can work on these things. I will let you know what progress I have had
  21. Wen I tried the fade at the gym today on my REV 2. It is easy to get to the fade. I still don't understand how you get out of it. But while playing with I can imagine a lot fancy things might be done from this position. It is like the fade on the dual line, platform for more moves. Have you tried this outdoors. If you could spin a half turn in the you might be able to pull out from there. If you did then you are doing JL's with a REV. Then the REV has gone tricky. Or if you do a full spin it would be equivalent to a back spin. You might have started something here.
  22. It is nice to see the young ones starting to define REV flying. Think what they will add over the next year. I will learn from them.
  23. Very very cool. How difficult is it to use the software. Is it nongeek capable? Is it appropriate for outdoors dualline?
  24. I have an indoor how to manual for flying dual line kites. I originally received this from Bram in Holland. It was authored by Harold Slit. It was in Dutch. I did a rough translation and then tried to bring into some sort of readability in English. It is an excellent manual in content. Many manuevers are broken down into their component inputs. I used it to learn how to fly indoors. If you would like a copy please send me an email. John B if you like to store a copy somewhere for free download, that would be great. I have had permission from both Bram and Harold for free distribution of this. I still have the original Dutch version for primary reference or for whoever would want to dive into the refinement of this document. This is put out in the same spirit as Randy's tutorial, Watty's new efforts, and IQuad style of teaching. Share your knowledge. John PS The file is about 10MB
  25. Merry Xmas, Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday Cliff. Look forward to seeing you this summer. You and Lynn are some the special people that make kiting so much fun. Take care
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