Jim Foster

Jeff Thank you so much for your detailed reply. I thought that what we are all doing is OK, I just didn't know why it is OK. I figured that if it was wrong, it would have been stopped long ago. Thanks again........

Jeff Thank you for the info. I figured it was something like that. Next question..... Where do kite fliers stand using recorded music at Kite Festivals and the like? Is it OK since no money is charged? What is the story there? Anyone?

John Just when does a piece of music become "public domain"?

Here's Bob Serack leaning back against hes 24 stack of mini-revs. Jim

My wife's father was born on Christmas Day. He will be 99. Jim

Why don't you forget the kite, and just fly the lines? Jim

Thank you Ben. Love my new shirt. Jim

I found that there is a large, grassy field right at the Flying Flags RV park where we are staying. There are some trees on the windward side, but the wind is not too bad.

Lynn and I are headed for Pismo Beach this Sunday. Next Wednesday we will move to Buellton. Does anyone know a good place to fly in the Buellton/ Lompoc area? Thanks, Jim

Rev fliers are rev fliers. Some fly a little, some fly a lot. If you are one who flies a little, soon you will be one who flies a lot...... Trust me. As far as competition, some do, some don't. Some are very serious competitors, some only compete on occasion for fun. Lynn and I fall into the latter. We competed at WSIKF, but only in the events that were not for points. Not being serious about formal competition, I would not want to enter an event, and by some strange stroke of luck, get some points that a serious competition flier would otherwise get. Hey...we're all part of this fun family, and what fun it is. For Lynn and I this is really becoming an "E" ticket* ride. Jim * For those of you who don't know what an "E" ticket ride is, when Disneyland opened in 1955, they sold books of tickets. Each book contained "A", "B", "C", "D", and "E" tickets. The "E" tickets got you on the more exciting rides. When Sally Ryde, our first woman in space, was asked what she thought of her ride on the space shuttle, she said "That was and "E" ticket ride." Just a little trivia.

Great contest idea. Congratulations on your new addition. I will say the date and time will be December, 25 and 10:30 AM That is the date and time Lynn and I were married. Lynn's dad was born on Christmas Day. He is 98. Jim

At WSIKF this year Lynn and I were flying with iQuad, I think there were ten of us. We had been flying for a few minutes when John had us all fly up to the line and face right. We were just holding that position, waiting for a call from John, when we saw him threading from the right, through our lines one kite at a time. When he got to the left side, he started back through, but turned a 180 between each kite on his trip back to the right. Inverted through kite #10, right side up through kite #9, inverted through kite #8 etc. THAT was a real crowd pleaser. This would look good with three or more kites. Jim

Tape Jim

Just be sure you dry the sails out before leaving them rolled up in the bag for any length of time. The thread takes the longest to dry. That's the only problem. Water shouldn't harm good lines. Jim

I don't know what kind of lines come with a Cherry Bomb. I don't fly dual line very much. I am a quad kinda guy, but I have helped many new flyers with dual line kites. Every time they are having a hard time, it seems they have been given some twisted, not braided, line with their new kite. I think that is done to keep the price down. I let them use my set of Laser Pro lines and they take to the air just fine. The higher the wind, the worse the problem and higher the frustration level. Jim

Welcome to the great world of sport kite flying. The most important advice I can give to a "newbie", and I think some others will agree, is to be sure that what ever kite you choose to fly, be sure that you have the best lines you can buy. Most any sport kite will fly well on good lines, however, even the best and most expensive kites are difficult or impossible to fly on poor lines. Poor lines stretch and do not allow good control. Welcome again, and have fun with your kids, that's what it's all about. Jim

Few twists, you say a few twists? Hey, Lynn had well over 100 twists, and they were real twists. No amount of pulling at the ends was ever going to undo that baby. I was getting motion sickness just watching myself turn the handles over and over and over and over etc, etc, etc. Mind you, the lines were never undone from the kite or the handles. I must certainly find out how to do this trick. It might lead to a whole new way of winding up strands into rope. Jim

Lynn thought that she unwound the lines just the way she had wound them, but that couldn't be. I think that she wound them in a figure eight, then pulled them off one end of the handles, thinking that that was the same, but putting one twist in for each figure eight wrap. I haven't given it a try yet, but I think that might do it. I'll have to give it a try and see. But....you can bet I won't use 100' lines......... Jim

Mike Yesterday we attended a new festival in Los Angeles. The field was two baseball diamonds separated by a chain link fence. We needed to move from one area to another, so I flew my kite, however the wind died so Lynn decided to wrap her 100' lines around her handles in a figure eight, and walk her kite. When she unwound the lines, she did something wrong, and ended up with a couple of hundred twists. Susan Shampo helped Lynn keep the lines straight as I turned the handles to get the twists out. I think from now on Lynn will probably use a winder. We never did figure out what she did wrong. Jim

John You being a really great dog stake pilot, it would be fun to get your reaction to flying with a dog stake very different from your own. We would then know how much difference the distance between the rings really makes. I seem to remember that your rings are less than an inch apart. Jim

OK...Let's say you are holding your handles a foot apart. As the kite moves across the sky, you tend to turn and face the kite, so the distance from your right and left handles to the kite remains the same unless you pull one or the other. With the stake, as the kite moves say from right to left, the right lines will be pulled a little more than the left. You have formed a parallelogram from the stake to the kite. The base of the parallelogram being the stake. The farther the right and left lines are apart at the stake, the more difference you have. Think about this.....If the lines were, say, six feet apart at the stake, The kite would respond just fine as long as it was directly in front of the stake. As the kite moved from right to left, the right lines will be pulled further than the left. The further the kite went to the left, the "shorter" the right lines would become, needing correction by the flyer. Same move with all of the lines together, there would have to be no correction by the flyer. The same should be true with flying up and down. As the kite goes up, the top lines would have to be pulled shorter to compensate for the lower lines getting "shorter" in relation to the top lines. If the points on the stake are only a few inches, the difference can be made up with the handles. If the points are a few feet apart, I think control will diminish as the kite gets higher in the sky. You will reach a point where the upper lines are not long enough to get the "forward" control needed to assend further. Try it. Stake the right and left sets several feet apart and give it a try. I think you will find that the closer the lines are together, the better the control will be. Hope this explains what I believe the geometry to be. Jim

I have only flown using a dog stake a couple of times, and without much success. Forgetting the flying skill involved, lets move on to the geometry. My geometry teacher says that the lines should be as close as possible to each other at the stake. The further apart they are, the more built in error you will have as the kite moves up and down, or to one side or the other of the stake. The error should be equal to the distance between the lines at the stake. Perfect geometry, all four lines at the same point on the stake. Remember, this is purely from a geometric point of view. Any "error" can be compensated for by the flyer. Jim

got it......Real cute Jim

No, where's that? Jim

Yo-Yos, what a great idea. I'll be interested to know if having them arrainged the way you have will work well. Jim