RobB

NYC has got everything... even wind ! Too bad we don't have any kite fliers here to take advantage of it ! You would think out of a few million people, there might be more than a dozen kite fliers... 8(

I really like my old New Tech Firestorm. It's also 10' across, but geared for tricking rather than power flying... Good luck with you new big wing !

Doesn't look like a trick kite, but the battened wingtips hint that it might cut good corners... Big Kites Rock !

Oh, it could... I'm a 2 time winner ! RNG wouldn't be stupid enough to pick my # again...

I saw the Plutz, the Wala, the Zero G, and the Emong on the Highline site, but no iFlites. I will say the Highline is a great store to deal with, Tom has helped me get a number of my rainbow Prism kites, and he's a super nice guy.

Hey Walt, That's an elegant looking wand you've come up with. I have a couple of wands for the gliders that I currently have, but I just read about converting old dual line kites into gliders... I'm thinking I could use another wand when I get around to this interesting project. Please let us know of your plans to offer these for sale... ~Rob.

I was surprised to see how powerful this small foil is. Dodd recently posted a video from his buggy whizzing along, pulled by this same kite. Looks like a great chance for someone to get into power kiting ! I know the RNG isn't stupid enough to pick my number again, so good luck, all !

Here's the wand that come with the Guildworks kites, it would be pretty easy to make one of these yourself... And yes, I keep a glider hanging on the wall for the moment the mood strikes to fly...

Vegas has a pretty decent sized crew of enthusiasts that meet up and fly all the time. You're lucky enough to have people around who fly. My wife & friends used to fly kites with me, but that was just casual, beer drinking fun at the beach. Once I decided to really try to learn how to fly, I lost everyone else. You're not alone in scouting every large field as being a 'good spot', and I'll bet that you're a lot more interested now in flags blowing in the breeze. I can't pass one without noting wind direction & speed ! ~Rob.

If you fly on a wand, a glider should require zero footwork. It's not a good indoor glider if you have to move any to keep it in the air. I never fly anyplace big like an auditorium, but I can glide away from me 15'-20', spin, do an up & over... all without moving one step. Maybe using a wand is considered cheating, but that's the way my Guildworks gliders came equipped, and that's how I've flown them. So much cleaner than leaving the hoop & line all over the floor, too. BTW, the last time I looked through the 'yard sale', I thought Rob had a GW glider listed. Because Guildworks is no longer making kites (as far as I know), they bring top $$$. I've seen some Decas go for eye popping numbers.

While you are talking to Rob Banks, ask him if he has any Guildworks Gliders. He did have some in the Yard Sale recently, and they are very hard to get. I've been flying mine for years, and love it. The Guildworks and Plutz designs are much more interesting than the flat ones, I think. I don't know why gliders are just getting popular now, these have been around for a long time. ~Rob.

I fixed my issue by switching all my personal web sites to my Chrome browser. So now I open IE, and it's just business sites, open Chrome, it's just personal interest sites. I had maxed the number of tabs that IE allowed me to open, anyway. Come to think of it, it was probably one of the funky settings that I have to set in IE to make it work for one of the corporate sites that messed up the Kitelife site.

There are a few RTF quads out there, like the Volksquad, Mojo, Spirit. I have only flown the Spirit, and can say it's OK. There are many more experienced quad line fliers here than me that would have a more valuable opinion than mine. The problem with the cheap quads is that they're not built as well as a Rev, and the linesets that they come with will have to be fiddled with more than a quality set. I know you can get a Rev for just a few more $$$ than one of these other quads, but then you have to get linesets and handles, which pretty much doubles the price of something like a Spirit. The Spirit still seems be be for sale on eBay, BTW. You could also post a wanted-to-buy add on one of these sites once you decide what you'd like to fly...

this should fill you in on the whole glider thing... http://www.kitelife.com/industry-news/the-glider-craze/ I fly my glider in my living room when I need a quick fix !

Well, guys... I'm sorry. I changed my mind due to lack of interest, and John's going to put the kite back in the prize box for a future drawing. Anyone who was hoping to fly it might still get a chance, cross your fingers when it comes up for a drawing again ! ~Rob.

Try a New Tech Spirit. They're half the price of a Rev, and you can learn the basics on it. One good thing about the Spirit, it's rare that it will land in a position that it can't take off from. I enjoyed mine, and I only broke it once trying to fly in too much wind. That's why I have a vented Rev now, as well. I've resisted getting into Revs full on like a lot of these people, but I undertstand the appeal. I wonder if you've considered a single line glider kite, as well. They're a little more fun than a single line that you just sit there and fly. Plus, you can fly them almost anywhere. I fly my glider kites using a wand, which would work well for someone who doesn't want to move too much. ~Rob.

Try this to start... http://www.kitelife.com/general-topics/buy-sell-trade-used-kites/

I would agree... a four line kite like the Rev or the Spirit (there are others I haven't flown) would be your best bet. They're pretty easy to learn to fly without crashing, but will challenge you for years to learn fine control. I comfortably fly my vented Rev in 20mph winds while sitting... you wouldn't be doing that with a foil kite.

I'm a big fan of the French Military kite, a double French Military was my first 'real' kite. I still have that one , but lost the basswood spreader somewhere along the way. This is one that I picked up recently, and it's got PLENTY of pull. I fly it on 500# line. As far as attaching the flag, one carabiner at the top of the flag, one at the bottom. You just wrap the flying line around the carabiner 3 or 4 times, it won't slide up or down. I attach an inflatable that has considerable drag using this method... Good luck ! ~Rob.

Hi Marcus, Here is where I would start looking... https://www.gkites.com/store/ Check out the Super Sled. Lots of lift for the $$$. I know it might be cost prohibitive to import, but the package would be pretty small, at least. You will find all the supplies you need to setup the flag on the line, as well. A couple of carabiners should do. Good luck, and post some pictures ! ~Rob.

WOW ! I can't believe I won... what a prize ! THANK YOU KITELIFE ! This all leaves me feeling very conflicted, though. I all ready have a Widow Maker (it is one of my favorite kites, I fly it ALL the time) So, this kept me up last night... quite the boggle. So excited to win, but also I know that someone else who's never flown a Widow Maker should get a chance. Especially you quad guys... the WM is good enough to get some converts. This is what I'd like to do if anyone's interested... After seeing & flying it myself (yeah, I've never seen a NEW Widow Maker, mine was used) I would like to send it along to anyone who's interested in flying it. I think each person should get some time to get to know the WM, then send it along to the next. It would be cool if people took a picture with it, signed it, that kind of thing, maybe tracked it on a Google map. What do yous think ? It's either that, or pass it to an enthusiastic newbie...

Hi Spence… The magazine does work in IE 8, but slowly, and has the ‘error on page’ marker. The forum doesn’t work at all... all I see is… and the text of the error on page is... I’m running Win7 pro 32bit with IE8. I’m not sitting behind any kind of fancy firewall, just a cable modem & Cisco router. I can get the site OK with either Firefox or Chrome and would use one of those as my default browser if they’d work with my Exchange webmail and other business related sites. I’m not looking for you to get this fixed for me, it’s more to get it fixed for you guys. You’re cutting off a huge potential viewing audience assuming that everyone has Win Vista or newer, the latest IE, or knows how to download & install Firefox or Chrome, or for that matter even knows what a browser is. If I see that the Kitelife tab in my browser starts working again, I’ll let you know. ~Rob.

Hey John... The new site looks pretty nice, but doesn't work in IE. I get a blank page, and the typical 'error on page' in the lower left. The error details are... Webpage error details User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; Tablet PC 2.0; BOIE9;ENUS) Timestamp: Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:32:27 UTC Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917) Line: 0 Char: 0 Code: 0 URI: http://kitelife.com/forum/ Message: 'null' is null or not an object Line: 227 Char: 3 Code: 0 URI: http://kitelife.com/forum/public/js/ips.board.js Also noticed after I signed in, I got an error 404 in my Firefox browser. No big thing, I just clicked on 'Index' and the forum came up. ~Rob.

Whoever wins this one is a lucky flier ! I flew my Widow Maker almost exclusively last year, and it helped me a great deal to clean up my flying. Stable & predictable, capable of every trick I know how to fly. Not to mention durable & well built. Good luck all... ~Rob.

Thanks... flying in the cold beats waiting for spring !