RobB

New Widow Maker, eh ? The last one looks great to me. Modern, asymmetrical design, nice colors. The asymmetrical design will help you keep track of the kites orientation while tricking...

OMG... there are only 9 people in on this ? The rest of the kiteheads must be hibernating ! Good luck, innies !

No worries dealing with Dave. Top notch vendor. I've bought lots of stuff from him. Call him, you'll be on the phone for at least a half hour... Never met him in person, but I hope to attend one of his Kite Parties someday & shake his hand.

Sad to hear. His was one of the faces that I looked forward to seeing at the few festivals that I go to. Cancer certainly does suck.

And learning the locations of ALL the flags in your area, can't help but to notice which way they're pointing. HINT... if they're pointing UP, don't even think about getting the bag out...

Yeah, that's a nice one. Always wanted to take a turn on the lines with one of those.

My observation is no. At least with how cold it gets here. I really don't fly in temperatures less than 20* F, because it really doesn't get much colder than that. I would say that I've spent a few hundred (or more...) hours flying all different kites in the winter, which is kite season where I fly, at least for me. I've only had one winter break in the recent past, which was totally due to an unplanned water landing, I would say the cold had nothing to do with it. *edit... notice the kites above are Fearless Tattoo SSUL, Skyburner ProDancer & Rev 1.5 with Black Race. Skinny sticks... no issue with breaking.

HS... congratulations on your Virtual Freestyle entry. When I first started with VF, my first two entries to VF were rejected... one had too much OOF (out of frame) and the other was just not up to acceptable standards at the time. Congrats on winning a prize, too ! I'm never there to win it, I think it's just fun to stand & fly on the same (virtual) field with the best pilots in the world.

You need a powerful PC to edit video. Lots of hard drive space, too. I use Power Director, which is a pretty good tool for the $$$. The Adobe products are supposed to be the best, but they were hundreds of $$$ when you could buy them, I understand the they're all subscription based now. I am not a fan of renting software... I believe the handbrake software will work to convert your files, I just use the software to squeeze my videos when they have to be less than 25megs... But you can save in any format.

Nope, there are more rocks under the rocks. It will all be sand soon... geologically speaking !

When I order repair parts, I like to order lots of extras. Plenty of nocks, assorted sizes, for example. I remember making an order once, and asked for 25 end caps. THe supplier asked what I was going to do with all those caps... I'll lose them eventually I told him. Well, looking in my spare parts box, there are maybe 5 left at this point. Broken nocks ? Very common where I fly. The grains of 'sand' are pretty big on my beach...

I think after a while of flying, you stop paying attention to what your handles are doing... They become extensions of your hands, and they just do what they do....

It is difficult to transfer to a standard sized kite after flying BIG. An SUL would be very difficult. But... Big kites fly in surprisingly low winds. I can fly the Firestorm in SUL winds, and won't fly it in winds much over 5mph.

BIG KITES RULE !

The bottoms of my handles rotate out to the side when I do an upside-down hover. I don't know why, but the handles end up horizontal.

I had a bunch of vented kites, and although I love to fly duallies, any wind over 15mph has me grabbing for a Rev. Yes, I flew my vented duallies in winds up to 30mph, but it just stopped being fun around 15-20mph. A full-vent quad is perfectly comfortable & fun to fly in 15mph wind. If you're looking for a good duallie to take care of the 10-20mph range, I never flew anything better than the QPro VV. It will fly a little lower than 10mph, and up to 30mph if you're willing to stand out there in that kinda wind. I was never able to break mine, it's built like a tank. You might appreciate the familiar Prism feel, and I think the QPros are still made in Seattle.

That self-built Rev is awesome. Good looking & big ? My kinda kite. As far as the mesh... Get those ''mods" done on a REV. My 2013 mid-vent mesh only lasted 1.5 years before needing repair & reinforcement. My 2009 full-vent lasted 5+ years. Granted, a small sample, but that's my observation.

Seriously ? I'm definitely saving my kite bucks until this hits the street ! Hope there's a super-mega-ultra vent design in the works...

Skyburner Widow Maker. Very forgiving, durable, and a wide wind range.

Widow Maker...

Those leaders look plenty long enough. Certainly longer than the stock Rev leaders. I recently switched to JB leaders, and I'm still trying to find the adjustment that I like. I got used to flying in all conditions on stock leaders for years, so the change to longer leaders will take some getting used to.

The Z is a really good kite, tough to do better for the $$$. I flew mine to shreds. Mine's almost 10 years old now, and still flies great, even if the trailing edge is coming unravelled.... The wind range is excellent, and it can do all the tricks. Two thumbs up !

An indoor Rev might be the answer, if you're trying to fly in REALLY low winds. I bought a Zen, thinking that would be the answer to my low-wind blues, but found that my 1.5 with Black Race rods was actually easier to keep in the air. I can fly the 1.5 in pretty low winds, but the 1/2 mph wind mentioned above ? That's a big NO. It's not that I don't have low wind experience or haven't been flying that long... maybe I just don't want to spend the energy running around while I could be just standing there, easily flying one of my dual line SULs. I figure that an indoor Rev would deliver that experience, but I never felt the need to buy yet another Rev. Revs are for big wind, duallies are for little wind... BTW... I've seen indoor Revs for pretty much the same $$$ as a diamond frame...

That's nuts... I have the impression that things are so civilized in the UK. I haven't been there in 20 years, maybe that's changed ? I have no problem leaving my cameras & kite bags (worth way more than the cameras) on the beach here in New York. I even leave everything there to run back to the car or to the bathroom. Maybe I'm just too trusting ?

After thinking about this today, maybe a tow point behind the existing one is the answer. If the kite is overflying you, it might all ready be too nose-forward. If it were me, I would pop a grommet ahead and behind the existing tow point and experiment. It can't hurt, and you would then have 3 tow points for all different kinds of wind.