Captainbob

I had some confusion about connecting the two lines that go from the T connector on the front of the kite to the red and dark blue leaders. I couldn't see where exactly the larks head knot would properly attach to the leaders. I posted this question on another forum and got this answer this morning. Turns out there are two places to connect the line, and apparently an apparently some prefer the the alternate placement over the standard placement. Here is the link to thread. http://www.gwtwforum.com/index.php?topic=10786.msg95307#msg95307

Came home today and my new Red 4D was waiting for me. Love to try it out, but there are wind warnings for tomorrow gusting to 35 mph. Guess I'll have to wait awhile.

Exactly, my feeling.

People will be upset if you decided what ? Whatever way you decide to use is good. Just don't give up............. I was replying to something else, and that wasn't supposed to be on the top of that question that I asked. I corrected that post.

Just for clarity... Are you asking about twists (spins in the line) or tangles (tightened loops around loops)? Different animals, totally different causes - might help the discussion to be fairly specific about this aspect. The few times that I used the 4 line winding method, I had twists, and tangles, both. The third time I tried it, I was almost to the point of throwing the resulting tangle of lines in a trash can and getting a new set... I must have walked back and forth for over a 1/2 hour and finally got each line separated from the others, one at a time, before winding them all together. I admit , this was most probably due to not being careful enough in winding and unwinding and the mistakes that could be made doing either of both incorrectly, although I tried to follow the tutorial step by step. The next thing I did was to read forum posts some posters difficulties with 4 line winding and unwinding, and I saw that some other folks also had problems. Some posters even mentioned using two holders or winding the line on the two separate handles. A couple of posters even mentioned that they gave up flying four lines, because of the line hassle factor. This is what got me to thinking about my experience with 2 lines at a time, with zero problems. I tried to pinpoint why the 2 lines at a time method for a quad, would be problematic in any way, and couldn't think of any negative, other than having to get another line holder, and one more trip from the stake to the kite. I then decided that a comparison between the two methods might be interesting, and I could prove to myself which method would be more efficient " for me". I am going to give the 4 lines at a time method some sufficient practice, to make sure I am not making any possible mistakes, and giving it a fair chance. Then I will try the two line method, compare problems, and time spent, and then figure out which one I will adopt. The ultimate goal I want to achieve, is unroll my lines, hook them to the kite, pick up the handles, and fly. I always like experimenting... Now if I can just figure out how to keep the earphone cords on my Android phone from getting tangled up in my pocket. I'm going to guess that if you had taken a pair of lines in each hand and opened your arms into a cross position, most of that would have come right out!!! I had a team member with the same issue of what he thought were tangles and an hour of set up in front of him! Could hear him cussing before he even got started!! I grabbed his lines, separated them and POOF, the twists, tangles were gone!! Looked at me like a magician or something!! It really can be easy!! PS: on the earphone problem - I use "behind the neck" earphones!! It seemed last year when I started I was always on 50 lbs,and had a heck of a time with those thin little boogers. I agree that majority of the time the tangles and twist look worse than they actually are...but when just learning to set up, they look really bad. Fighting lines seems to be extra frustrating because of the anticipation of flying, but forced into groundwork. As the experience of setting up and take down grows I am able to see details that I didn't know about just starting out. Also, the embarassment factor came into play with my decision to use 2 winders. I would have folks stop to watch , but I would never get in the air..... I have only flown by myself and did not find Kitelife until I was ready to throw in the towel. So my decision to switch to 2 winders at the time I did was instrumental to me in sticking with it. I literally would drive 2 hours to the beach, untangle lines for 1 hour, crash and burn for and hour or 2, fight lines for a while more and drive 2 hours home..........then I found Kitelife Why did you have problems using 2 winders? Seems pretty impossible to me...

Oh, and I know you didn't ask me, but I've never had a dual line to mess-up ! Actually, it's pretty hard to mess up just two lines. If that works for you, then use the two winder method. It may take a bit longer to set-up / take-down, but if it will put you in the air easier, go for it. As JB, and many of us have said, first, you've got to understand what is happening, and why, and then learn to manage it. Nothing like time spent on the winder, to accomplish this. (I know, we sound like a broken record) When I do this comparison between the two methods, I am going to record the average two line setup time, and compare it with the average 4 line method, and see what the difference is.

Just for clarity... Are you asking about twists (spins in the line) or tangles (tightened loops around loops)? Different animals, totally different causes - might help the discussion to be fairly specific about this aspect. The few times that I used the 4 line winding method, I had twists, and tangles, both. The third time I tried it, I was almost to the point of throwing the resulting tangle of lines in a trash can and getting a new set... I must have walked back and forth for over a 1/2 hour and finally got each line separated from the others, one at a time, before winding them all together. I admit , this was most probably due to not being careful enough in winding and unwinding and the mistakes that could be made doing either of both incorrectly, although I tried to follow the tutorial step by step. The next thing I did was to read forum posts some posters difficulties with 4 line winding and unwinding, and I saw that some other folks also had problems. Some posters even mentioned using two holders or winding the line on the two separate handles. A couple of posters even mentioned that they gave up flying four lines, because of the line hassle factor. This is what got me to thinking about my experience with 2 lines at a time, with zero problems. I tried to pinpoint why the 2 lines at a time method for a quad, would be problematic in any way, and couldn't think of any negative, other than having to get another line holder, and one more trip from the stake to the kite. I then decided that a comparison between the two methods might be interesting, and I could prove to myself which method would be more efficient " for me". I am going to give the 4 lines at a time method some sufficient practice, to make sure I am not making any possible mistakes, and giving it a fair chance. Then I will try the two line method, compare problems, and time spent, and then figure out which one I will adopt. The ultimate goal I want to achieve, is unroll my lines, hook them to the kite, pick up the handles, and fly. I always like experimenting... Now if I can just figure out how to keep the earphone cords on my Android phone from getting tangled up in my pocket.

http://kitelife.com/forum/topic/5830-winding-and-unwinding-quad-lines-possible-solution/ See this question I just posted. I have yet to have any problems with 2 lines. So my thinking, is that two sets of 2 lines, should be just as trouble free as one set of two lines laid out twice. I use 2 winders and two stakes....someday I may experiment with one again... but for now I have reduced my set up time and reduced my frustration level. I don't feel so cool unwinding 2 ...but now I don't feel stupid fighting tangles for half the time I that I have available to fly. Exactly what I was anticipating. I want something that is quick, foolproof, and simple. When I lay out the 4 lines, two at a time, I don't want to have to do anything at all but connect them to the kite and handles and launch. To me, that's cool...

I see your point, and those are all things that I will check on when winding and unwinding the lines from now on.

A question to you then, when you were using your initial method of of 2 holders, how many times did you wind up with any type of tangle when setting the kite up?

One of the things I did prior to retirement was to take a technical procedure ( I was a Training Manager for a very large multi-national company teaching very complex assembly and adjustment procedures) and try to make them simple and bullet proof for the students. So, when I look at something new, I am always running it through that filter. I watched the line management video till I was blue in the face like a smurf, but, still managed to hit some bumps in the road when unwinding to connect to handles and kite. It got better with practice, but in my experience, it wasn't foolproof, at least for this fool . On the other hand, multiple times winding and unwinding with my 2LK, I had zero problems. If I compare 2 procedures, one that has the potential of zero errors, and one that has a potential for some problems, however small, once the line is rolled out, I lean heavily towards the zero error method, especially since it doesn't take any longer than the other method. So today I ordered another line holder, and in the mean time, I will try the Tutorial method, record the results, time spent, and difficulty, and then when the holder comes in, I will try the 2 holder method, and post my comparative results using the 2 methods. Whichever is quicker, with less problems, is probably what I will wind up doing. ( no pun intended)

Good idea, laying line out twice towards the kite.

http://kitelife.com/forum/topic/5830-winding-and-unwinding-quad-lines-possible-solution/ See this question I just posted. I have yet to have any problems with 2 lines. So my thinking, is that two sets of 2 lines, should be just as trouble free as one set of two lines laid out twice.

I have been reading the suggestions, and comments on this forum and a couple of others on ways to wind and unwind quad lines, without having the problem with tangles, knots, etc... It seems that most people use a method that is either on JB's tutorial videos, or have developed their own method, which works for them. I have read more than a few comments however, where people have stated that no matter what they do and how careful they follow their routine, they wind up having to deal with line twist and tangle problems after they are hooked up to the handles and kite. Since I am a total newbie at all this, it got me to thinking about my experience with my 2 line HQ Symphony 1.8, which I have set up many times. I have had zero problems with line issues, with that kite, and I attribute that to the fact that just two lines are pretty simple to roll out straight, hook up and fly. Now here is my question, if the quad flyer used two line holders instead of one, and put one set of two lines on a holder marked left, and the other set of lines on a holder marked right, that should be the end of any line issues, period. I thought that some might say, "well yeah, but you would be doing double work in setting up and tearing down, because you would have two sets of line to roll and unroll instead of one, so you would be walking back and forth and unrolling twice as much. OK, so I stake the left line set , and start unrolling towards the kite. When I get to the kite, I hook that set to the left side of the kite. Now I hook the right 2 line set to the kite, and start walking towards the stake, unrolling the line along the way, hook to the handles, and I am ready to go. If one really wanted to be foolproof, use 2 stakes set up 3-4 feet apart, so there would be absolutely no way the left and right lines could tangle with each other, and no way to get twists, tangles, etc, that would take more than about 5 seconds to remedy. Any thoughts? Total cost would be about $6 to buy another line holder. Hours saved in untangling, and swearing at lines, "priceless"....

Ok, but I was talking about regular people. You could probably get a piece of "railroad iron" to fly......... Very True,,,,

My leaders that came with the kite are red-red/black stripe which go on the right handle, and white/black which go on left. No pink, or mauve, or chartreuse, unfortunately....

Yes I was careful of this today, and I was not yesterday, which I think caused much of my problems.

Well I did "ground school " today, without about 10 seconds of actual flying due to poor wind conditions. I straightened the lines this morning, then wound and unwound them several times. Placing my finger in between the pairs, when winding, which is easy to do, seems to work rather well. I tried two methods, JBs and the method I referenced earlier about leaving the kite-lines-handles all together and placing everything in the bag. To me, JB''s method looked alot neater, so I am going to stick with that. Each time it got easier, to hook up and tear down everything, so practice is well worth it for managing lines. I managed a couple of launches, but due to winds, couldn't get up very high and quickly came down. I found I was over controlling on the turns to stay level, but I think a steady wind would make that much easier. All in all, a productive day today.

The way I struggled with the bridle yesterday, trying to undo the knots that were in it on one side, I was concerned about the integrity of the bridle at this point. I decided to call Revolution this morning and explained to a very nice young lady on the phone what had happened. She is sending me a brand new bridle. Great customer service....

Found this thread this morning. Lots of tips here. http://www.revkites.com/forum/topic/3187-line-winding-with-minimal-twiststangles-iquad-style/ I kind of like post #15 on this thread, where he says that if you only have one REV , you can leave the lines attached to both the handles and the kite, and just fold everything up into the sleeve. No way it can get tangled then ( hopefully). I might try that next time.

Looks great. They should pin your post.

I will try that, and yes, I leave the handles connected to line when it's all wrapped, as JB did in his video. Then unwind towards the kite, after staking handles.

The way I wound them, was from the kite towards the handles which I had staked. Then when I get to the handles, I leave the handles on like JB did in his tutorial on winding lines. Unwinding, since the handles are attached to the line, I start by putting the handles on a stake and unwinding towards the kite. Prior to doing all this, when I equalized the lines, the lines and leaders were perfect as far as length.

Yeah, I was thinking about the "snap" when I first set it up this morning, making sure that they were in all the way. I just went to the field and set it up again, and everything looks good and lined up and balanced, and of course not a drop of wind . Still difficult to get those leading edge rods in and even out, I really had to yank on one to get it loose. I think I might give the end of the rods a shot of silicon spray tomorrow to make joining them a bit easy. I will take a second look at those leading edge bungees. THe one problem I had twice is the lines getting tangled. Not sure what I am doing wrong, I am winding them carefully under tension, but when I hook them up to kite and handles, and then turn around, they are twisted in one or two spots in the middle like the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge. It may be that they aren't really twisted, as JB says in his video, and maybe I am making it worse trying to unravel them, but I would hate to take off with the middle of the lines looking like it does. Oh well, something to do tomorrow...Thanks everyone for the help today, I really appreciate it.

Yeah, that was my next question, now that with all your help, I got the bridle straightened. out. The washers and bungees are correct but I am guessing because it is brand new, everything is tight. I had a heck of a time seating the rods in the leading edge the first time. I just tried it now, and it was easier.