Beginners experiences

[povlhp]

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.

[makatakam]

Great to see you out and flying -- the kite pattern and colors are very nice. I like it.

Watch some more JB tutorials where you can see his hands all the time and the kite too (picture in picture). You'll notice that his hands move a lot, but his arms don't. Try using yours wrists more and your arms less. The Rev can be flown very nicely with your wrists tied (literally) together.

For only the second time, you are doing fine. Again, try to find an experienced flyer somewhere. Believe me, it will be worth the drive to get there. You will learn more in one hour flying with someone else than in a month of flying alone. If that is not possible, just keep flying as often as you can. It will come to you, don't give up. I learned on my own also, so I know all the frustration you will feel. Wait for wind in the 6 to 15 km range; it is very difficult to learn anything if you are fighting the lack of wind or too much of it. Watch the tutorial videos often, and not too many at once. Pick one or two and practice those, or just fly the three things I have outlined below.

Once you have mastered basic control, everything else will be much easier.

I recommend these three things to form a good foundation; repeat each item ten times, flying as slow as possible without wobbling.

1. Fly straight up from the ground to the top of the window, from the top lower the kite slowly back to the ground. Repeat.

2. " " " " " " " " " , turn the kite over and fly to the ground slowly. Repeat.

3. Launch the kite and fly a figure-eight pattern as slowly as possible. Try vertical, horizontal, and various angles. Repeat.

Practice these first each time you fly and you will learn more quickly, and don't worry about running out of things to learn. To learn everything will take more than one lifetime.

DO NOT PRACTICE for more than 20 or 30 minutes. Take frequent breaks to just fly around, or just sit. Once you fly each of these three things 100 times, going slower each time, you will have very good control of the kite. If you fly item #2 one hundred times, going very very very slowly you will discover that you can hover inverted. You will have learned it the easy way. Once you have enough control of the kite that you are not crashing often, sit down and fly the kite. It will force you to use less arm movement, and gain precision.

Most importantly, SMILE, have fun and don't forget to breathe.

[RobB]

Nice to see someone else out flying in the cold weather. Yup, you've been bitten by the kite bug. Hope you find some more good wind, spring is coming soon !

[povlhp]

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.

[makatakam]

The bridle looks ok in the photo. Measure it to be sure; should be same left and right.

If you want to see some Rev color possibilities, visit kitepaint.com, or get on the Revolution kite forum main page and click on colorizer tab. Design your own color scheme. This is only available for the 1.5Pro Series and costs more than factory models because they are hand-made custom builds.

Use your vented when wind speed is above 15kph, use the full sail down to 6kph. Below 6 wait for more wind, or you will be struggling to keep it in the air and learn nothing. Later, with experience, you will find it easier to fly in low wind.

Add some brake; adjust the bottom lines on the handle leaders to shorten them. Post a picture of your handles and we will advise if set up correctly. Your kite will not move as fast backward as it will forward. Too much input is what causes it to twist (bowtie). Don't worry, this will become easier with more time on the lines.

[povlhp]

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.

[Tmadz]

Very nice. Keep flying. You will learn to keep your arms in. I mean keep your elbows at your hip. Too much wasted effort with your arms flailing prevents you from learning good control.

It is good that you bought extra handles. You always need more handles because you'll be buying more kites. I often have two kites setup because of wind changes. You will want to switch quickly and keep flying to maximize your pleasure.

[Fred van Curen]

:WOW nice job with the REV. nice colors too.

[Reef Runner]

Top leaders probably need to be as long as the entire handle, if not longer...........Bottom leaders look ok..............

[oapbillf]

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:

Here is a link to the Rev forum showing the leaders that we generally use, I hope you find it helpful !

http://www.revkites.com/forum/topic/6272-handle-length-and-bend/

Bill

I flew into Aarhus about ten years ago on an aviation related job, all I saw of Denmark was the Aarhus Terminal, a Hangar, back to the Terminal then fly back to the UK later that day, the story of my life !

[makatakam]

Top leaders probably need to be as long as the entire handle, if not longer...........Bottom leaders look ok........

I believe these are the handles that came with the Freilein kite, and are probably made specifically for the bridle setup on that kite. I doubt Freilein would be interested in selling "Rev" handles. However, longer top leaders wouldn't be a hindrance and would make them universal.

[povlhp]

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).

[Wayne Dowler]

The Rev pix are not fake! They are static pix that display the colors, not pix of each and every one flying! Of course a static pic would display the bridle as limp! They usually just run the LE in the kite and take a pic.

[hyzakite]

You don't need to mess with your leaders yet, you just need time on the lines for now. Your flying just as good as any one of us our first few times out, things will fall into place at the right time.