Captainbob

I'm sure that there are many dualie flyers that will be excited to see these when they are finished.

I am surprised that someone hasn't marketed something to reinforce the nose of Dualies, like a kit, with a piece of seatbelt or rubber type material and some instructions on how to glue in on the nose. Seems to be a weak point for some dualies.

If there is more on the DVD, I probably will order it.

Dayhiker and I were discussing this last week in the chat room, and he said that he has repaired the nose on kites by just sewing the nose with some good strong thread. I imagine he will see this post and tell you exactly what he used, and how he did it. .

A question I have is,Dodd upload some videos from the DVD to YouTube. Is that the entire DVD that is uploaded, or only a portion of it? Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

I have had a Roku box for years, to watch Netflix, Hulu Plus, NHL Live and a host of other Tv shows, that I don't need cable for. The one thing my Roku didn't have was a Youtube channel, so I couldn't watch kite videos and music and millions of other videos on Youtube on my big screen TV. They just added Youtube today, so now I can watch JB's Tutorials on my Roku and 60" LED TV. http://www.cnet.com/news/roku-brings-youtube-to-all-current-generation-streamers/

Yes, as well as the videos, I frequently visit and study that page on the Prism site. And I totally agree about keeping the feet moving, which I did not do in the very beginning. Now I am moving constantly when I fly.

That is kind of what I am finding out. I keep waiting for the winds to improve as time goes on, but I am starting to think that " It is what it is".

Seems like JB's tutorials stalled after the 1st one on assembling and folding a dualie, which was done in January of 2011, over 3 years ago. I am looking forward to his second dualie tutorial, but it would seem that this is not on his radar anymore. Incidentally, I thought his first tutorial was great, as all of his are. I've watched Dodds tutorials, but I think the Prism DVD is a much better and more organized approach in teaching the basics and how the complex tricks are based on getting the fundamentals down first. As someone that has spent most of my working career teaching adults, I think mastering one task at a time, is the proper and most productive way to learn using these DVDs. Until you have all the stalls mastered, don't even look at the next topic, unless it is just for entertainment purposes. You can't get to D, unless you have A-B-C down first. That seems to be the focus of Mark's DVD. My biggest obstacle to quickly learning the fundamentals, is erratic wind conditions where I live. If I could actually fly a few hours a day. I think my progress would be much, much better, but when I have to spend half to three quarters of my flying time waiting for the next breeze to come along, that's a bummer. I'm sure that there are many people that experience the exact same problem, especially if they live inland. There is a kite shop in Atlanta, where I bought my first foil kite, and I am wondering if they can stay in business or not, due to the flying conditions here in this city. Most people don't want to spend money on a couple of decent kites, and then not be able to fly them for weeks or months due to poor winds which are the rule rather than the exception. I'm lucky, because I am basically retired and live next to a flying field, all I have to do is grab my kites and walk a couple of blocks and I'm there, if the wind is up. The vast majority of people in my city, don't have that opportunity. Relating that to getting a pilots license, if you can afford to fly 2-3 hours a week as a student pilot, you could probably take your flight exam and get your license in around 40 hours, or about 3-4 months. If you are on a budget, and can only afford to fly once a week, or less, by the time you take your next lesson, you have forgotten half of what you learned in the previous lesson. I have seen pilots take 55-60 hours or more, prior to taking their exam, and spending more than a year as a student pilot. Many just drop out, and never get their licenses. I would imagine that the same kind of learning curve would occur with flying kites. Fly every day, and your progress would be excellent. Have to wait a week or two to get back up in the air, and it's like starting almost from the beginning.

I have been flying dualies a couple of weeks, already can do a decent side slide. stall landing, tip landing, and cartwheel recovery, and a bunch of patterns like squares, figure 8's etc. Sorry, but I don't think it's rocket science. I've learned things that were alot more difficult than kite flying by myself. Some study, and really focused practice will usually do the trick, in my opinion. Most people are not near another competent flyer, and are probably unwilling to travel round trip several hundred or more miles each way, for a "lesson" with some flyer that maybe has a year or more experience than they do and might have questionable abilities as both a teacher and a flyer. I think telling newbies that the only way they can learn properly in a timely manner is to have a private tutor show them , probably does more to discourage people from beginning to fly kites than anything else. I live in a city of around 5,000,000 people, and if I thought that my learning to fly a kite was dependant on me being able to locate someone that was willing and able to show me how to fly one, I wouldn't have bought my first kite. When I started flying Revs, I read things on forums like " It will take you a year and hundreds of hours just to do an inverted hover on a Rev, unless someone shows you in person. Guess what, I probably have less than 40 hours on Revs, and I do a pretty good inverted hover, and nobody showed me anything except JB via his videos. Just my 2 cents.

It is not impossible to learn to fly like that on your own, using videos & youtube. It just takes a l-o-n-g time. I only got help in person with one trick, the flic-flac. The guy wasn't even teaching me, I just watched him for 5 minutes. It is a lot easier to learn from someone, no doubt... I have taught people in an afternoon how to 540, a trick that took me around a year of constant trying to learn on my own. When frustration sets in, remember to back off whatever you're trying to learn and do something simple, like flying box turns, practicing stalls, side slides. Every trick you learn is always going to need more work... the way I look at it, it's a lifetime endeavor to learn to fly like that. Kiting is supposed to be fun, after all. The other issue, is that the "local flyer" may be totally clueless either in his ability to fly correctly, or to show someone else how to fly without ok imparting their own mistakes. I'll take my chances watching people like Mark Reed. and Dodd Gross, which I can do over and over again. So far, it's worked with me on Revs, watching JB's tutorials.

My guess is 2-3 years with 5+ hours per week practice... I'm gonna add to that... you'll probably never learn to fly like that without someone assisting you LIVE. In person. I watched all the dualie trick DVDs back in the day. After a solid year I was still struggling big time. I finally learned where the local flyers go, and John Chilese taught me more in 30 minutes than watching 3 hours of combined DVD material over 100 times ever did. But he got to me too late; by then the Dark Side had consumed me � Big problem in Atlanta, apparently I am the "local flyer."

I never wind my lines in a figure 8, and have zero problems.

Well I got alot of "stall practice" today at the field, but not exactly what I had in mind. Launched the kite, flew for 10 seconds or so and all of a sudden the wind of about 7 mph instantly switched 180 degrees, and the lines dropped half way to the ground as the kite drifted towards me at a good clip, doing a lazy susan, round and round, and settled to the ground. Hmmm, I didn't even practice for that "trick" This happened multiple times, until I finally put the kite back in the bag and headed home for lunch. Can I count that as a "trick"?

Instructions in my kit, said to make sure the frame is not distorted in any way when you tighten the truss lines, just snug. " Lines should be tight, without introducing any bending to kite frame"

Mark Reed, on the DVD, makes it look so easy...... Since I am a musician, the grace note analogy makes it simple. can't wait to try it. BTW, found out that Mark Reed is the owner and designer of Prism Kites.

Flew my Widow NG a total of 11 hours in the last three days. Wind has been great, and I am having a blast. Going to start working on snap stalls next.

I have 3 Dualies now and about to get a 4th one. I read recently that someone recommended unhooking the bungee each time on the wingtip, even if you leave the LE edge together, when placing the kite in it's bag. The writer said, that if you didn't do that, the bungee and sail would stretch due to being under tension all the time. My question is, is this what most dualie owners do? I have been leaving the sail under tension,and just placing the kite in the bag with the LE in one piece and the sail under tension.

My guess is 2-3 years with 5+ hours per week practice... I am thinking 5 years at 5 hours per day, minimum......

Already been working on a couple of these moves already with the Niknak and recently the Widow, namely the stalls, and stall landings. Like with the Rev tutorials, I just make some notes on one thing at a time, put them in my pocket, get to the field and work on that one thing until I get it. Then move on to next item. makes it easy. taught myself to fly Helicopters the same way.

Just bought a new set of 90# 50' quad LPG 2 weeks ago. Don't think there is any availability problem.

I just got the Prism DVD I ordered a couple of days ago, for $9.99. I have read some reviews of people complaining about the quality and the audio, but I found none of these issues. I am playing it through a Blu Ray player, so it is upscaled by the player to 1080 P, but it looks great, I watched about an hour of it, and all moves are very clearly explained, and there are many slow motion segments that show how the moves are made step by step. A great way to learn, especially when you factor in the price of the DVD. I also like the order that the tutorial videos are in, where the newest trick is based on knowing the previous one on the DVD in an organized manner. http://store.kittyhawk.com/Freestyle-Pilot-Stunt-Kite-Instructional-DVD-P4031.aspx

I wonder how long it will take for me to learn to fly my Widow like this

Businesses rely on emails today, more than voice mails, or handling phone calls which most workers hate anyway. You have a written record of the conversation, date and time stamped, and it's free and efficient. There can be no misinterpretation, or he said-she said confusion, and lets face it, it's the 21st century and that's the way it is in today's world. If you don't get up to speed with this mode of communication, you will be left in the weeds or go out of business altogether. No excuses in the business world, you get the job done, or move out of the way and let someone else do it. There is nothing more upsetting to a customer, than for them to send an email in to a company, and never get a response.

Got my Widow NG today. So far I love it. Only got to fly it a few minutes due to Atlanta winds, which when you want to fly something, decided to either quit, gust to beyond the breaking point of anything your flying, or switch directions 180 degrees as your walking to pick up the straps or handles as the case may be. The Widow comes in a really nice and heavy case, which contains the kite with the LE folded up. Once you unfold and assemble the LE, the bottom of the case, held by velcro, unhooks and now the case is much longer and the kite slips right inside without having to disassemble the LE. This is probably normal for this kind of kite, but it was new to me. On the back of the case is a mesh compartment which holds the lines, which came with the Widow. They are 150#, and I am guessing 100 ft, cause the kite is a long way off compared to my Revs or Niknak. I looked at the stitching and basic construction of the kite, and it looked to be about the same quality as my Niknak. The harness was carefully done, and marked, on each knot, and looked like it had been gone over carefully in production. Next to the other Dualies I have, the 4D, and the Niknak, this kite looks like a 747. The upper and lower spreaders have rods that look like 3 wraps on a Rev, as far as their size. Everything fit right together, except it took alot of force to get those rods into the rubberized fittings the first time. I imagine they will loosen up some with use. By the time I got everything together, and unwound the lines, and hooked them up, of course the wind started disappearing altogether. I finally got the Widow to launch after standing around for 15 minutes waiting for some breeze, and I would guess the wind at launch was around 4-5 mph. I took the tail weight out prior to launch, because the wind was so low. It was really easy , just unhook this velcro piece on the tail, and remove weight. Usually when the wind is low , near the ground, if I can climb up about 30 feet, it picks up substantially . Not today, I would launch, and I could get it to creep higher by shallow s turning up and much pumping of the lines, but then it would eventually stall. Oh well, if you have lemons, make lemonade, so I practiced doing some side slides when it was on the verge of a stall , which I like doing. Finally I launched , and at the same time the wind picked up a bit higher , and I got to fly around a bit, some figure 8's and circles, and squares. . Maybe because it is bigger, or farther away than I am used to seeing with my other kites , but it seemed to move more slowly than the 4D or the Niknak. Turns were relaxed, and I could hold it in a straight line very easily. Finally the wind just quit altogether, so that was it for the day. Ah, I have to work the next two days....Yuck..... I think if I can get the wind up around 8 mph, this kite will be a blast to fly around. Here is the case with kite folded inside. Right before 1st launch Day 2: Got to fly it before work today. The wind was around 6 mph at ground, but probably about 16 at altitude. I take back what I said about it flying slow. The Widow was screaming across the wind window. A couple of times, it pulled me 5- 10 feet forward in a gust. That kite really moves. The lines were really whistling.