SHBKF

You know you are a kite nut when you name your kites for various reasons. This topic has inspired me to name my SLE stack. It will be the "RD III Stack", the three because it's the number kites I've gathered to assemble together. They are all significant in there own way & look like they belong together. Besides, RD III are my initials. I have no middle name. SHBKF

I am located in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. You can locate many members using the map option located on the browse bar of this forum. Looking south from the nearby town of Marion, Virginia. You can see Mount Rodgers on the horizon in the right of this image, elevation 5,728', Looking west from nearby Whitetop Mountain, second highest in Virginia. The Appalachian trail is visible in this shot. Kite flying site in a hay field down in the valley near my home. Welcome to KiteLife,SHBKF

Capitalism is a wonderful thing to contemplate. What does the consumer want? What's a comfortable price point? What is the perceived value? What are they willing to pay extra for above the stock model? And what is the competition selling anyway? In 1933 the country was in the Great Depression. Many great companies were long gone. Cars were still being sold to eager consumers regardless. Prohibition ended in December of that year. General Motors had a good price on a decent automobile. Plymouth was priced a little higher but had an all steel body & hydraulic brakes. Henry had his famous V-8 and was priced above the others. My little tudor Plymouth sedan was around $490 dollars. Bumpers were a twenty dollar option! Mine still doesn't have them.

Finally, some kite time.. Had to run to town today to check on some plumbing at an apartment. A very warm Spring like day with gusty wind had me thinking I better grab a kite to take along "just in case". Down in the Kite Dungeon the Nirvana standard had just been through a little tender loving tune-up. Slid it into it's sleeve then found the dualie line set fanny pack. Things went well & on the return trip I stopped at an abandoned ball field. Not an ideal place to fly due to the surrounding uneven terrain, trees & small buildings. But it is still mowed & has a usable window if the wind is from the south-west, it was. The site was not ideal, the wind was gusty & I could only use 65' lines if I wanted to move around much. I did not care as I was actually going to get to fly. It is more challenging to fly in poor conditions but it is what I am used to doing round these parts. The Nirvana has a weight of 19 grams on the tail of the spine. It is a brass round head screw with two brass hex nuts tucked into the spine pocket & taped with a bit of white duct tape. This kite flips over far more easily than my others & is taking some getting adjusted to it's willingness. Rolled it up intentionally & accidentally both. The gusts added their own inputs at times. But also did maybe my best ever half axels. Also did some kind of weird tip wrap roll up sideways flying with a panic pop to unroll a couple times. Not too likely I will ever repeat that one. This kite also seems to excel in ground recovery maneuvers. Flew for only a half hour but made memories that will last much longer. Just out here flyin', SHBKF

I was asked to leave a mall parking lot while beginning to set up a dangerous Prism 4D attached to five meter lines in a remote corner of a huge parking lot. I had flown their many times before, sometimes with another dangerous kite, The Wala. When the officer saw how small my kite was & realized how old I was, he said "Well, just return to your vehicle & put it away." I was very apologetic & polite as I always try to remember I am a kite ambassador of sorts. When you fly in parking lots you can't really use a kite stake. Set your kite by leaning against a curb or light pole base then go to the handles. The terrain is hard & abrasive but very smooth. Someone is usually watching so fly your best. SHBKF 4D on short lines in a safer location Wala flying from our office parking lot. Sea Devil kite like Rob mentioned. First kite with which I ever did a repeatable flare to fade. A great one.

Sooo, if anyone is really upset about owning any old Revs, I can help. SHBKF

Good idea to make sure you don't get chased off. I flew at a location several times a year until the one day that a particular security officer decided I was a danger to others.... Well, it was a mall parking lot. SHBKF

Woke up about 5:30 AM Saturday to notice some activity on my property during the snowfall. This guy may be late for work on Monday as his Jeep is still parked there. See, I really do live "out here in the sticks", SHBKF edit: no one in the car when I checked. Local constables came by about 2:30 PM Saturday to see if vehicle was occupied. You should have seen the deputy crawling back up the slippery embankment.

Whew! edit: label me as an avid user & willing to help support it, SHBKF

Several years ago I was flying at least weekly in winter conditions here in the mountains of Virginia. I was just beginning to enter the world of modern high performance stunt kites including both dualies & Revs. My enthusiasm was high & I was not worried about being cautious or conservative in regards to preserving my kites. In other words I was a newbie out there flailing away & breaking expensive kites. Only broke one old stock four wrap Rev 1 tube but I lost count of the SkyShark tubes that were offered up for sacrifice. My father had spend his most of his career as a reinforced plastics composite engineer in the aerospace industry. He knew a bit about carbon fiber reinforced plastics to say the least. I had to show him some of my splintered tubes inquiring about the possibility that cold weather may not be friendly to the life of these kite parts. He said that if the composites were correctly designed & manufactured to withstand the expected loads in normal weather conditions that a little cold weather would not be an issue whatsoever. He suggested that I not abuse them so much impacting the ground or overloading them in high wind gusts. One day when I was showing him how I could fly a Rev he said, :"Isn't the point to see how high you can fly it?" I really miss him. SHBKF Don't break em so much anymore.....

I too have flown a 4D extensively. I even traded a Quantum for a second 4D last year, my first ever kite trade. A couple years ago I stopped using straps for this kite at all. I use only the sleeved loops of the lines themselves. The kite does not have much pull even when you fly it in higher winds. When the wind gets too strong the leading edges start distorting & the kite kind of squirts across the window. I fly it mostly on a five meter line set but occasionally use a 10 meter set. In colder weather I use only glove liners for the 4D which still gives me a direct connection. After years of solo winter backpacking adventures I still wear gloves in layers. If I have a piece of equipment that I can't operate while wearing thin gloves I actually practice until I am able to do so. I prefer mittens worn over glove liners for the maximum warmth. But kite flying keeps me in gloves. The boot lacing technique mentioned is also important as I have experienced my feet turning to wood due to poor circulation from trying to cram on an extra pair of socks into lighter boots. In this image of a cold morning I am dressed in a down jacket with high tech long johns & shorts. It was around 15 degrees with no wind. SHBKF

So my nearest big time kite store was too far to go to very often. There is now a nice kite in a store nearby. Might never sell but that's okay too. SHBKF

Support your LKS I started reading the kite forums with some intensity over four years ago. I had used computers for many years even back before the days of the WWW. It has been quite awhile since I’ve seen that initialism used in any context. I had previously been on a few forums of interest but I was really fired up wanting to learn anything kites. I saw mention of an initialism LKS, Local Kite Store. Out here in the mountains of western Virginia there was no such thing. Maybe a toy store with a few single line kites & a hobby shop that had small selection of dual line kites, both located over sixty miles away in eastern Tennessee. It is five & one half hours, three hundred & forty-four miles, to get to my Local Kite Store, Kligs in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I try to support the kite stores that I visit with a purchase or two & enjoy talking to the people working them. Some are active fliers, some are just working retail that happens to sell toys & kites. I have been to a store in Mystic, Connecticut that was not much larger than a walk in closet. Most seem to be around the size of a shoe store. Kligs is a very large store with hundreds of kites on display. My first serious kite came from Kitty Hawk Kites back when they had only one location. There are many on the east coast that I still have not visited. I always check for anything in a bargain or clearance mode & have come away with some nice items. I have learned to ask if they have any used or demo kites also. Scored a nice vintage Prism Alien that way as well as a Sun Oak delta & a couple Revs. Sure, these kites may not be the color I might want or the latest but I get a deal & the sale helps the cash flow of the retailer. I have bought many kites at full retail with no regrets knowing it might help them especially in the off season. Support your local store. The few bucks you might save elsewhere will never make up for a small business lost forever. SHBKF

Dang! Know Eye Deer. But I will add that I realized early on that with a Revolution Sportwing you were essentially flying the kite by the bridle, a really long bridle. After the thrill outweighed the seemingly high expense I did not give much thought to the design, just to thinking about how to fly the amazing kite. When I look at a Rev style kite I see it as two conventional diamond kites, trimmed at the top & attached at the crossbow spars. Just a couple thoughts from out here in the sticks. Yeah, I have a few Revs, SHBKF old image showing the early part of the hoard..........

Only time I have ever experienced a perfect wind or rather a perfect unwind, was when I helped someone with their new ready to fly EXP package. I unwound a little off winder & staked each pair into the sand. I unreeled the lines off the winder just being careful to keep the winder flat in my left hand & pulling off line with my right as I walked upwind. I tried not to twist the lines as I separated them & attached them to the handles. Staked the handles down, walked back & assembled the kite. It had a travel frame which was interesting as I had not seen one before. After attaching the lines to the kite we turned it over & parked it leading edge down. Back to the handles, picked them up, lines were perfect! Backed the kite up launching into a gentle roll over & so it began. Dang! it wasn't even my kite. Loved it though. SHBKF

Welcome to KiteLife & the great forum of fliers. After several years of learning more about dualies & quads I am going to explore more of the single line kites that I have neglected for a time. Enjoyed seeing kitekits.com for the first time. Look forward to becoming a customer. Thanks for becoming a KiteLife sponsor. That means a lot to many of us. Cordially, Ralph

Just came upstairs from the Kite Dungeon where I was doing wing tip maintenance on several kites. Seems like when I am flying I don't spend much time stopping to fix lose ends or missing vinyl caps. Many times, if there seems to be an issue, I just switch to another kite. Because the winds are so fickle here in the mountains I want to fly as much as possible when I can. Some kites throw off end caps often & others have retained their caps for years. Recently one side of a dualie lost it's tension on the leach line while the other side remained tight. The normally quiet sail started a gentle puttering sound. Back home I reworked both tips, leech lines & tensioning. My style of tensioning the tips has evolved over time & I noticed some kites are tied differently on either end. Ah, the randomness of life, what a great thing it is. I have not replaced too many broken nocks on my kites. The damaged ones have not resisted much or have already been knocked hard enough to loosen them. One nock was glued on so well that I just whittled it off with my ever present Swiss Army Knife. I have some kites on which the nocks are not secured by anything other than the tension of the line. When I put a new one on I generally just put a small amount of cyanoacrylate on the spar to hold the nock. A sharp rap will break the bond if I need to remove it at a later time. My favorite field repair of all time was when I only had one kite with me one day & the upper spreader went missing. I looked around a bit, found a nice straight twig, whittled on it a little & kept flying until the wind died. SHBKF

You're a brave man to admit to using the SLE here on this forum. (I actually have four sets of this infamous leading edge tube . One SLE kite I bought used came with a still in the factory wrapper spare set of SLE tubes!) SHBKF

Merry Christmas my friends, SHBKF Skyburner Solus EC UL