Wayne Dowler

Most likely the lines are dacron and have massive amounts of stretch. Dilutes your commands or at least takes way more time to get there. With your next kite - try to get some spectra lines with it. Almost NO stretch, very slick, long lasting too. Get some fixed length lines with good straps and they are interchangeable with any kite! Rewatched the video - I'd bet my life on those lines being dacron!

Congrats!!

Hey there PV!! Nice to see you on here! Ya'll say howdy to her two boys, Dylan and Cardin, a couple of our indoor and outdoor friends!

UMMMM - more like 10:15 am on Wednesday July 6th!!

Nope - not yet!! John must be sleeping or something!! WAKE UP!!

Not a big dualie flier - but do have this comment - Get Over Some Grass!! Cement and asphalt will eat your kite up fast! Wears the leading edge and any tip connectors right out! And while you are at it - let out the lines! Fly it on as long a lines as you can, in the space you have. Makes it so you have more time to respond to the kite's needs.

This whole Club 38 thing is almost making me laugh, except for watching Rev implode. Like I really need a gold star to tell me where I'm at in my flying progress. Really??

Why the extension on the bottom? Totally unneeded, it defeats the idea of a differential between top and bottom. John"s leaders came as a set - long on top, short on bottom - nothing else needed!

Bet he's using the stock setup on his handles! John has a very nice set here on KL for sale - the top leader is much longer (10-11"), the bottom about 2-3". Tops have knots about 3/4" apart starting 3" out from the handle, bottoms about a 1/2" apart. You can adjust the lines on the knots to "square up" the sail more efficiently. Might have to add a step into the takeoff routine, but it adds more control in your flying as you learn.

Not bad! Try this to reuse the same ground over and over and stop just backing up - take the kite as high as you can get it, flip it over and riding the brakes and controlling the fall, walk forward to where you started. I use a couple of stakes or markers to show me where I started and how far back I want to go. Learn to go backwards to drive the kite up, forwards on the fall. It works - give it a try! Pretty soon it becomes second nature. 2 wraps are reasonable priced, race and diamonds are pretty spendy. Will they help? Good equipment usually does, but better technique trumps good equipment everyday! A 3 wrap is not that much heavier than the 2 or race, you should be able to use it well. Full disclosure - I do use a race myself - in a std and mid! More for the flex it has, than any weight issues though.

Yep - Checked the lines before going out? Lots of new Rev fliers expect it to be perfect from the factory - far from it! Check those lines for equalization. Doing darn good too!

I don't think you need to toss them, but making add-ons will help the adjust ability. You only need top add-ons, the bottoms are fine. Saw some this last weekend and could see that they needed more on the tops. But that is the way Rev sets them up, we modify afterwards. Just make sure you make both sides as close to the same as possible!!

While not completely sure Rev isn't going to produce something like them - my suggestion is at least a STD and VTD. With those 2 Sails and the 3 frames (2, 3, 4 wrap), you should be able to handle most winds. If your budget allows - grab a MID too. While there is enough overlap in the other kite's wind range, a MID does have a sweet spot too.

He uses a diamond frame and SUL together, along with sticks and French bridle. Paul likes the Zen format, so do I, but we both use a different way to get to our liking! I use sticks, but use a hybrid frame also, made up of a 2 wrap center, bl. race wings and Zen verts. He uses sticks, a French bridle, and diamond rods in his Zen. Both work for us. I also have an SUL with sticks and diamonds - I call it my mini Zen for team flying. Jb could outfly me with a brick in his hands, so don't get too caught up in chasing equipment to solve all problems. Technique will serve you much better! Remember that in light wind - there are no freebies, in Paul's words - ya gotta want it!!

Know a friend that uses the shorter for her Revs and assorted stuff - works well with them!

Walt has gone through some personal issues and his stake and handle business are on hold for a bit! Sounds like he wants to get it back up and running, just not sure when.

Mr. Dugard? Here? I thought having LeMasters over here was bad enough! Welcome!!

Going to come from enough demand. So far, Rev has had the rod market for their kites pretty well cornered. No real competition for their products. SkyShark had the dualie market pretty much. So unless there is a financial impact on Rev's bottom line - no reason to try duplicating their products. Plus as this whole quad thing sorts itself out, a lot of other companies will stay out of the fray, afraid to rock the boat.

Sleeving was used to buffer the line and increase the knot strength in the flying line. In old days, knots decreased the strength by almost half. Sleeving restored much of it back. With the newer formulations of materials, strength is not as big an issue, lots of short lines are made with no sleeving. Still used on longer lines though.

Betting at that price - not spectra. Mostly likely dacron, maybe dyneema. EQ'ing length will help, if they are dacron, stretch is a whole other thing. Probably scratching your head over line types now - hers's a brief summary: Dacron - sold with a lot of beginner's kites. Pretty strong BUT very stretchy. Feels like a big bunjii cord to your kite. Commands seem to take forever to get there. And if the winds pick up - the stretch gets even more apparent. Dyneema - A type of spectra usually sold overseas, but also in some medium quality kite packages, Made of the best materials (spectra) but has a looser weave, allowing for stretch. Better than dacron, but not as good as ..... 3,- Spectra. Sold under the trade name of LPG (laser pro gold), Shanti Speed line, or Shanti Skybond. These lines are tightly woven and act like the kite is hardwired to your hands. You pull - the kite responds - NOW! No delays. But they come with a fair cost - not too god awful in 2 line, but expensive in 4 line setups. The good thing is that they last pretty well. I still have dualie line sets from over 10 - 15 years ago in my bag! It's that initial cost that shocks you. But think of it this way - what is your only attachment to your kite? LINES! So it comes down to the response times and costs. Depends on what is most important to you.

It's the challenge to do things precise, I find it easy to just zip around! And there's a time for that too. But Revs really shine when you start showing their precision side, I believe. Backwards, sideways, upside down - how many other kites can do that? And then there's the team thing - need control to do that! Nothing wrong with letting the hair down and tearing it up though ......

Welcome! Most likely the kite is the problem. Amazon kites are a crapshoot usually, good enough to learn on (sometimes), not good enough to progress with. Looking at the frame shows fiberglass, not the lightest material. I'm guessing the kite does 6-7 mph as a minimum wind speed needed to fly. Unfortunately, a lot of time with kites, you get what you pay for. Buy cheap - get cheaply made, buy more expensive - get better materials and workmanship. In the future look for carbon rods for framing, it will lower your wind range and they are pretty strong too. As for your request on power kite stuff - I'll leave that to others - not my thing! But I would think a foil of some kind might be a good trainer. Smaller to learn on, bigger for being pulled.

I'm impressed!! Slow flying and showing much better fine control of the kite! It is possible!

Got to believe something is wrapped or tangled. Something not easily seen at a glance. Common is a line pigtail getting wrapped - either around itself or twisted in the bridle somehow and knotted funny. That or a really off bridle! Never had one though, myself! And I've flown a bunch of Revs! Pigtails can get wrapped as you put things away. Anyway - it's a place to start. Just make sure everything is coming off the sail/frame "cleanly". Caps are not oriented to have the bridle under one bunjii and over the other. Symmetrical.

No QC is the problem! No way the same type rods should have so much variance in them. And there is a difference in the GL rods, they won't admit it. Something changed - the material, the lay up procedure, curing, etc - who knows. On their FB page in some comments, Lolly tried to pass it off as we didn't realize the rods have a "spine" to orient! I have never worried about how my rods go into the kite - EVER! Bought my first Rev back in the late 90s and never took time to "orient" my spars. Something is different and I haven't heard what!