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Still haven't any good dual-line with sticks in my bag.

Have a used Peter Lynn Hornet III 3.0 on the way. Plus a few Chinese foils.

Hi all, I got a Rev style quad kite, and a 1.4 m2 no-name chinese flame parafoil. It is not that good, looks like it is almost collapsing the side where I pull the line to turn it. It helped a lot that I replaced the nylon lines with Dynema fishing line. At least it was only $12 all inclusive. And my 7 y.o. son also likes it. Going cheap, what is recommended ? Is there any of the very cheap (< $50) from china that are worth getting ? I want a fun kite, some pulling power, not yet any jumping and other dangerous stuff. Possible some 4-liner for more control. I have seen "original" Peter Lynn Pepper 2.5m2 from China for everywhere from $17 (probably without lines/handles) to $170 for a complete package. There are Albatross kites on eBay in various sizes from 2 -> 5 m2, all for < $50 kite only. Both 2 and 4-line variants. Anything larger, and the price jumps to $200+. I am 200 pounds, and I think in good wind, even the 1.4 m2 shows some power when I fly aggressively. Not enough to make me move, but enough that I can feel the force of the wind, and the forces that are applied when I turn it. What size should I get ? Seems 3-4 m2 is recommended for beginners, and the Peter Lynn Pepper 2.5m2 at $17 is almost too good a deal to pass on. If it is bad quality clone, I can just dispute that it is original, and get a refund. A friend who used to import leather products from China told me, it is likely original, as most companies producing in China must sell like 5% to the Chinese market. Should I just start out with some cheap chinese and see where it takes me ? And then later switch over to brand names when I want to do air-time ? As a skydiver, I know the importance of safety in equipment. Peter Lynn, Wolkensturmer, and HQ are all available mail order from Germany.

My 7 y.o. boy loved the Mickey kite with tail he got. Especially in light wind where he could walk 10 paces and it would be at the top, then slowly going down, and the $5 eagle from china for low wind kite. But he really loves my $10 cheap parafoil 200x70 cm (1.4 square meters). After I changed the nylon lines the Spectra/Dynema 100 lb fishing line, it got much better. Here is my session from yesterday after replacing the lines: https://youtu.be/D1Yfb1Q6Vis I suggest you get some small foil around 1.4 m2. Preferable better than the cheap one I got. And straps for holding.

Well, got my Rev-like handles from Germany. The ultralight aluminum in orange with my initials engraves. They bend a lot more than the freilein handles, and I have started flying with the lines on #2 knot (further away from handle) on both top and bottom. They are also longer than the Freilein handles. This makes a huge difference in flying. I think the upper part is now closer to vertical when the kite hovers, And I feel like I can do things with much smaller hand movements. They made a much larger difference in flying than what I had expected.

Seems like a nice large kite. And as I read elsewhere size is important for beginners. Had some luck on my cheap 200x70 cm $10 dual line parafoil with my son the other day. Wind was strong, so he dropped the handles the first few times I lauched it. But after that it was fun. Saturday the wind was on the light side, 8-10 mph, and it kept stalling for him. Really looking for something that will fly in lighter wind, and will be fun for my son. He liked my rev-clone, but too afraid to destroy it, so only little flying.

Have a 10 ft $25 delta from China. With some tails, 2x 10 + 1x 30 meters it will fly all the way up to 15 gusting to 25 mph. Stronger than that, and it will do the death dive or rather slowly go down. Without tails it will do the death dive earlier.

Exactly like me. Puts up my 10 ft delta but with tails and then flies my quad.

From all I read, sleeving is not needed (I am a newbie as well). I though it was needed to avouid the lines from cutting the bridle, but was told no reason. Just make a loop, and a an extra loop at the end of the loop to make it easier to undo the lark know. You can see in the line management video of Barresi. I played with the cheep Dyneema fishing line, and it socks. Tangles way easier than a real lineset (you can get a decent set for < $20 from China on eBay, with sleeves and winder). little under half price of the better stuff I can get here. I am doing fine with the chinese sets for now, and learning, they get tangled, torn slightly etc. Also tried fishing line for my single line kites, as dacron is difficult to find here. Even 200 lbs fishing line, 8 braid not too good. Tangles more easy than my 100 lbs kite line. I do consider using this for a short set (10-15 meter) though, unless my good lines breaks first, and I need to shorten them up. 250 lbs kite Dyneema (yellowish color) is way way better. I pull the kite down, leave the line in the grass, sometimes in loops, no problem. Just wind up after breaking down the kite and walking back to the winder.

Will increase length of my top leaders. Will see how long they are on the German rev-life handles. But I already feel I pull the handles far enough backwards to move forward, but maybe not. But extending the leaders, or replacing them would be easy. I have some light yellow good 8-strand kite 250lb Dyneema kite line, which I uses for SLK. It works fine without self-entangling, and not too thin. Not sure if the bridle on the Freilein is different than the Rev. But surely the venting pattern is original. A brief look over at Rev kites shows that most Rev kite pictures are fake. A flying kite without attached lines, and lose bridle. But if anything the front bridle point is closer to the kite on the Freilein based on visual judgement, and then the F should need even longer leaders. But as I read elsewhere, it is all about flying style, and what you consider neutral. But I also know that getting into a bad habit would likely become a problem later. So I will not do anything before I get the german handles. Well, the Aarhus terminal and Hangar are not that interesting. 45 minutes away from the city, and only little traffic. Been skydiving a lot there, and pushing the C-182 in and out of the hangar. Had more luck when on work in the UK and elsewhere, and usually managed to get a day of skydiving in. Peterlee is where I jumped in the UK (Newcastle University hosting an EU project).

This I can't really picture. Getting things through the grips is OK. But go forward and backwards makes no sense to me.

Yesterday, my windmeter at home showed average wind from 2- 4.5 m/s when I was out, gusts up to 7.5 m/s. So the average wind was below your recommendations for full vented, yet I was having much more fun with that, and had it flying most of the time. As I said, I had to pump and step backwards some of the time to keep it flying (or rather to keep it up). When the wind picked up, I could move it up and move forward again. Elsewhere I have also seen people like to use vented way down in wind speed for ligther pull. German kiters uses Beaufort, or kph, but here in Denmarks wind is mostly measured in m/s, and sometimes beaufort. It is only above 80-100 kph (= 50-60 mph) the weather report mentions kph. I use the handles with the lower lines at the outer most point, and the upper at 2nd outermost knot . My handles are these 13" that was included in a kit: I do have some custom 13" Rev-handles light on the way from Germany as an extra set. Lots of Custom colors to chose and engraved, for a fair price. Made as a hobby project by a German quad-head.

One question about line windings. I wind my quad line pairwise. Ensures I will have no issues. What do people here say to the idea of starting to wind up lines from one handle to the kite, break down kite, wind down the other set of lines ? Then I will save one trip. Of course the lines will be winded up each their direction, but I don't think it really would matter ? And if you always connect to the right handle first, you will switch the lines left/right every time, distributing wear a bit more. And also switch the order the are winded. The only risk/issue I see in this is, that when winding up the first set (unwinding the 2nd set), you only have partial control over that side. The front line will still be shorter the the 2-3 inches that is the size of the loop you larknot it to. But apart from that, I would consider it much better for distributing tear and wear.

As for the kite colors, one reason I wanted alternatives to Rev was their dead boring color schemes. I know white is a good color for planes/kites. But I want a colorfull kite, and initially I did not know of the beautifull licensed kites from Spain (Polo kites). And without being an expert, I think the Polo kites are probably better in their distributed vents rather than the simple design of the originals. The Weaves are supposedly also better (by some opinions) than the originals. My Chinese lookalike also has distributed vents as you can see. No mylar, all see-thru is net. A Polo is higher on my wish list than a boring original. To attract new people, we need nice color schemes as one selling point. When I was flying, I thought my hands were much closer than the video showed them to be. So post flying analysis on video is a good thing. Saw a video once where a newbie had a large rubber band across his wrists to teach him to heep the arms together. Was thinking about doing that same in some way. I do have some other problem, as I can easily fly left, but not so easy fly right. Must be arms/hand positions. Will work have to work more on that, and more up/down. This session I did lots of slow and fast flying. And the turn direction is starting to get routine. No bad habits of speeding up right to turn left this time. And most contacts with the ground was at a fairly low speed. I am usually not very good with my hands, but this is going fine. I am a little disappointed/surprised that the non-vented is so much more difficult to fly (at least in my gusty wind conditions). So I am very happy that I got the vented as well. I was expecting to use the non-vented 70% of the time. Having the standard stall so many time when moving it back/down even slowly was a big disappointment. I am surprised that the vented did not have these issues. So a vented would probably be a better choice for many newbies living in areas with wind. I was flying both with the factory rods Crystal T2 which is P200 or 2-wrap equivalent. On the std, it even twisted once so one end pointed up, the other down. And I had one older woman looking on when I got the large delta up, and got some nice comments. Some people with dogs walked nearby and kept watching for 10 minutes, keeping a distance (they probably thought about the lines?), and different couple of people out walking stopped on the road a couple hundred meters downwind and looked for a few minutes. So I help giving people inspiration in this almost forgottent outdoor activity. PS: Now looking at the photo, I see I have a slight imbalance. The bridle on the points. One runs closer to the outside, the other to the inside.

Today I was out on my 2nd session with enough wind. Wind was gusty like always. Put up my 10 ft delta first. Then started with my rev-alike without much luck. The gusting wind made it lose air completely a few times coming down like a leaf, and a few stalls in one side causing spins. Switched to my full vented. What a difference. Flew much better overall. Had to really move backwards to stall it. When wind went down I had to move backwards pumping it. Here is a little video with me and the kite. The gras ensure most of the video out of focus. This is the usable bit: http://youtu.be/GOocOZqrk50 Considering it is only my 2nd time with ok wind I felt I was doing ok. Still lots to learn.

Problem with the nice grass areas are, that they are either more difficult to find, or where the wind is not so good. Since we have wind all year around, often there are lines of trees put through fields to help keep wind under control (and create turbolence). I have attached an image, so you can see the typical surroundings (not my best place, but the wind was too northerly for that). You can also see on the SLK up there, that the wind is also on the upper end for that. The side spars being bent a bit (the cheap fiberglass substitutes that cam with it. It is a cheap $25 chinese 3 meter Delta on a 250 lbs Dyneema line, but the kite seems to be of decent quality).

Broke my first rod last weekend. Good wind, and for the first time I could get the quad flying without trouble. When I switched to a full vented rev lookalike, I put a knee on the kite and broke my first rod. Luckily I had extras in the bag. As usual gusty wind. Pretty strong at times my 10ft delta doing death dive 3 times even with 30 meter tail. Other times I could not keep the quad up in middle of wind window. Glad having watched the videos. Since I play in wild vegetation the lines are getting worse looking every time. But will fly until first one breaks.

Gratulations. My luck was with hobby king. Won a 3D gimbal today.

I have a place at work I can use. 80x100 ft. Ceiling like 5 meters. Some junk for storage in a corner. Otherwise used for large meetings where they roll in chairs. Seen quad copter pilots uses parking garages at IKEA at evening/night. But they usually have too low ceiling for kites. Try to be creative.

Thanks. And since it seems it is all without lines Winner will have go get 2-3 sets. Glad about the karma obligations. Now I am not thinking it is for me, but for getting others interested. Friends will buy $100 toys for children that is used 1 hour. A $20 kite is too expensive for them to consider.

I am also thinking about which of my colleagues with children are going to borrow it to get bitten by the kite bug.

I'm In This is a good package, and thanks to Terry for giving it back in the pool.

I have some cheap 100 lb, which is not too smooth, more like normal sewing thread. 4 strands. 500 meters for < $10. Think I could use it for other stuff as well. But for heavier weights (200 lb) you can get 8 strands, which is like the normal kiteline, and the weave looks closer as well. Ordered a roll for SLK. As for sleeves on the lines, I thought the main purpose was to help avoid the lines cutting the bridles (and the leaders), as the lines are thinner. It is easy to use a marker to color the lines to identify them.

Yes, lines tangled when setting up. Last time, I had some issues with the quad going flat in the air, and the bridle wrapped to the back of the kite. And on one takeoff I got more than 20 twists I think, and it was having trouble sorting it out, and it would go in spins on subsequent flights. Things was messed up, tried to push the mess towards handles, and wrapped up the lines. Then when at home, I unwrapped just down past the mess, and untangled on the floor. Might have induced more issues here, like one linesen through the other (still had them lark-knotted togther pairwise). So I am leaning to wrapping them up one pair at a time until I get a bit more experience with kite lines. The lines do become a bit fluffy where I had the worst knots. As a beginner, can I use the cheaper braided fishing line ontil I get a bit more experience ? Just sleeve it and use ? It is way cheaper than the real thing. I consider creating a short set (10 or 15 meters). Real kite line sets for quads runs from $30 or so and up. And for short lines, it is difficult finding shorter than 82 ft aka 25 meters. Or should I wait until what I have now breaks, and then create the shorter set ? When one line breaks, do you replace all 4 ? Or buy another dual-line set and put on top ? I know the old line will probably have stretched a bit, which is why I would use new as top, as the longer leaders would allow to compensate there.

Gratulation, end enjoy.