cbabbman

Just give it up Kent... Sit for all your business...

Kent... this is a great idea.. CONGRATS! December 19, 10:25am

I totally agree that someone needs to do a video with Rush - Hemispheres as the background music!

The advice of always winding your own lines is very valid. I'm a lefty and always hold the winder in my left hand, both for winding and unwinding. I let a righty wind my lines once ans spent a good 1/2 hr untwisting my lines. As for lines ending up being different lengths at the end of a wind, I gave up on that and just accept it as part of life. I'm usually off by an inch or so at the end which I attribute to the lines crossing over each other on the winder. Also, when I finally connect my kite up, I ALWAYS set it up with the tips down and forward of the leading edge. This way, there is tension on the top of the kite which helps me unwind anything left over from the setup process. As mentioned above, it is NEVER as bad as it may initially seem and a few wists of the handles takes care of 99% of any problems I have. Also, I rarely ever have to walk back to the kite to stand it up again before flying which to me, is the ULTIMATE walk of shame. For me, I have 2 pet peeves though. I hate the crazy 8 winders as the lines constantly unwind irregularly and snag as I unwind. Sometimes I have to pull the line off by hand as I walk rather than just walking and allowing the line to fall off the winder. It doesn't add much more than seconds to my setup but is irritating. The laser pro winders on the other hand do not do this to me. Because of the larks heading of the top and bottom set, there are times when the lines fall through each other when I initially undo the bungee to connect to my handles. This is also a pain and for some reason, I have real trouble visualizing the untangling process as usually one side of my pair has 5 or 6 twists in them that has to be undone before winding the handles through each other to straighten it all out. Again, this only adds a min or so to my setup time so I just deal with it. In all, by adopting a consistent and unthinking process for setup and tear down, these problem are minimal and setup time only a few mins. For all my Ozone power kites, I simple parapack my lines and have never had a single issue with them... ever. Now once... and ONLY once, I wrapped my lines around my handles because I was in a hurry and it was a spectacular catastrophe as my lines were so unbelievably twisted that it took over an hour to untangle. Never again will I deviate from my ritual.

Thanks for all the photos...they confirm that I got it right. Right after I left my last message, I figured it all out and then spent the next couple of hours taking pics of it and all the rest of my kites... Here's The Deca

I larks head top and bottom to each other on each side both at the kite end and handle end. I then take each pair, stick a finger between them and start winding. When unwinding, I hold the winder in the same hand, unwind from the handles to the kite, take the pairs and stretch them out at arms length as mentioned above. Never had a problem in the year I've been flying by doing it that way.

thanks for the pics... I don't know why pictures are so deceiving on this thing... Let me ask the question this way. I have a Deca UL which is very similar to the deca 6 as far as I can tell. I have a logo and kite name on the sail. The permanent vertical spars are on the opposite side of the sail from the logo. I have a tangle of bridle that no matter which way I seem to put it, looks twisted... 1) Which side ends up being the front of the kite facing me as I fly? Logo side or vertical spar side? 2) Which side of the kite gets the spars that run to the wingtips? (silver tipped spars) Same side as the vertical spars or opposite side? 3) Does the curved long spar go on the back side of the kite? 4) When the kite is facing me, should the outside wingtips be pointed towards me or away from me? Maybe this will get me going in the right direction. I had this thing together once but I'd like to be sure I have it right this time.. Thanks!

mainly the assembly instructions. If anyone has a good shot of one put together, it would be helpful.

Does anyone have a Deca Synergy manual they could post? I recently acquired one and would like to have it as a reference.. Thanks!

I've used Cool Edit for about 7 years now... they were purchased by Adobe about 2 years ago and the program is now called Audition. Awesome program...

I do... I use them on everything, I like the control and I like only packing 1 set of handles..

I didn't go quite that far but I have started using my Blast handles to fly all my Revs... longer than the standard 1.5 handles and much longer than the speed series... I find that they give me much better control over all my Revs... and one consistant thing amongst all of them... Now, if there was only a way to get rid of all the knots at the handles as that's where I have all my problems...

I love my 2-4... especially when winds are marginal and I still want some decent pull.. I do have to say that living in Chicago with the crappy winds we get, I have become adept at flying something in the low winds... usually my 1.5 with the SUL rods in it... Of course, having a variey of Revs to fly helps out a lot....

I got my sonic vented a couple of weeks ago... I've had the winds to fly it in about 5 times now and I am loving it... in the heavier winds, it really doesn't have much pull but is a quick as hell and great fun.... For precision, I'm going to have to get a vented 1.5 Here it is below... thanks to Lolly for the custom sail... it looks awesome in the sky.. A vented Blast? That would defeat the purpose!

Bat kite.... black vinyl with black & white eyes... made bloodshot with a red crayon...lots of string... lots of it... the higher you put it up the better it was... to the point where you couldn't even see it any more..... When I go to the park that I used to fly at, I can't believe that we even tried let alone succeded... it's so small... When my 4 year old saw Mary Poppins, she had to fly one... of course, me being me, I had to get one too... a 2 line Premiere Vision.... within 10 seconds, I was done... Now it's a couple of deltas, 5 revolutions and 3 ozones.... and I'm not done yet...

And here I thought this was one of those gags where you tell someone to look at something all the while there is a great looking chick that everyone focuses on... that's a cool kite... hillarious

I have all the above and a sonic vented coming in ups tomorrow... I'll let you know what I think

I LOVE my Blast..... I have the 1.5, Shockwave, Blast & Power Blast 2-4 (and a sonic vented coming on Thursday!) For me, I am into power and I love to see who's stronger, me or that damn kite... I've been flying my Blast almost exclusively lately as my shockwave is down for the count (it'll be back up Thursday thanks to Kent & Lolly... thanks!). I already know that the Power Blast will kick my butt but the Blast is just right for my weight vs. wind speeds What I love about the Blast is the raw power, speed and ability to fly in a wide range of winds... here in Chicago, we have winds of all speeds... all within a few mins of each other... The ability to float it for a few mins before the winds pick back up is awesome and makes me look like a pro...lol... well, sort of.... if you think a 44 year old man fighting a kite like a child having a tantrum across the field and laughing hysterically is all that pro... lol... but it sure is fun... Because I've been flying it so much, I feel that I've gotten pretty good at controlling it. Spins, hovers, etc... have all become pretty natural. As of right now, I would have to say that the Blast is my favorite.... Now, I just want to stack a few of them...lol

I find that no matter how careful I am winding it up, every once in a while, chaos ensues good luck! I've had a few instances of tangled lines while flying. Once, a piece of paper on the field got in the lines and created a birds nest that you wouldn't believe. I don't even know how it happened, it just appeared like that giant pan of noodles that Michael Keoton made in Mr. Mom...lol The best thing I have found to do in this case is to relax and just start teasing the lines apart... never pull hard and just get it all losened up.... at that point, it damn near just falls apart... piece of cake (knocking on wood) I've also found this works on tangled and knotted jewlery.... I was joking to my wife about my untangling abilities and she handed me a knotted freaking mess of necklaces that you wouldn't believe. There were about 10 different necklaces in there and all kinds of dangling thingies on them.... I took 2 banboo skeweres, laid the mess on the table and by carefully pulling everything loose, I had them all undone in about 45 mins... The look on my wifes face was remarkable.... I get no more crap about kite flying.... also lost 2 " on my waist cause of this obsessive sport....

Give it a chance in the higher winds if you like power. I fly my blast most of the time these days and have really come to love it. My favorite wind speeds are 8-12mph... the pull this kite generates is pretty awesome. One thing I've noticed is that the Blast is very similar to the Power Blast 2-4 when it comes to locking in the power. It's a very small range in how you hold the handles. When flying without the power locked in, I get a good amount of flapping noise and while there is control, it's a lot of work to fly the kite. Typically, I watch the leading edge and when I finally do dial in the power, I get a healthy bow on the LE, a change in sound and incredible pull and speed... at that point, I'm getting pulled down the length of the field laughing my butt off... For some reason, it took me quite a while before realizing the potential and characterists of the Blast and I have to say that it is really one of my favorites... Don't give up on it and give the higher winds another shot with it.

I spend most of my time on the basics as I understand how important they are to anything beyond them. It's frustrating at times though as I'm fighting the crappy winds here more than I'm fighting the learning curve... As I've said to others... if I can learn to fly in crummy winds, I should be able to fly good in good ones... Then again, maybe I should stop buying kites and buy tickets to good wind places...lol Thanks John..

speaking of videos.... I'm in the Chicago area and there doesn't seem to be much kite activity on the West side of Aurora... (or good winds, for that matter) I'm a quad flier and while I have actually been able to figure quite a few things on my own, I'd love to have something to help me along.. I have several of the Rev videos (the power blast video is the best of the lot), but I was wondering if there was something else (other than other fliers) to help me along. Any suggestions of good quad videos that I should consider getting? Or maybe some online videos that would help me along. I've watched most of the videos on the Kitelife site. I keep forgetting to ask Kent about this when I have him on the phone... Let me know, thanks...

Sorry to regurgitate this one but I was flying my Blast today in 12-18mph winds and discovered some things... Connecting to the outer lower bridal really allows this beast to power up and generate some serious pull... I decided to see if I could smooth out the performance a bit by connecting to the inner lower bridal point... This pretty much changes the Blast completely... what I found I needed to do to get it to fly better for me was this: I've added 1 additional knot to each leader on the handles, about 1" in from the original knot. I did this to both the top and bottom leaders. I attached the brake line to the last knot and the power lines to the new knot I added... this made things much more manageable for me. Still lots of pull but an overall much smoother performance. It was really interesting how much different things work when attaching to the inner bridal point... Kite was much more sensitive to everything, especially the brakes.... Has anyone dropped a lower bridal on this kite similar to the speed series with the connecting point in the center? I'd be interested in knowing what it would do....

I learned on the 1.5 SLE and that's what I would recommend.... it's rather forgiving and tons of fun. When I started, everyone told me to just cough up the extra $50 or so to get the SLE.

Kent is knowledgable and just a plain nice guy. I refuse to buy anything from anyone else at this point. Everything I have ordered has been sent out that very day and every kite that Kent recommended over the phone turned out to be the perfect kite that I was looking for....