Wind speed adjustment on bridle question

[Fragpie]

Fun day of kiting here... getting a good feel for flying, and reliable gentle landings.  "Radical" setting on Quantum bridle is way more fun.  The wind was ~25km/h, with frequent gusts up to 40... which is a bit like being in a car with a teenager learning to drive stick   Spent a lot of time near the edge of the window.  Also, I now know what you mean by "singing lines"-- beautiful!  Anyway, a couple of questions:

--I adjusted the bridle to "strong winds," and found this to be worse in terms of flying-- much greater pull (which I presume means greater strain on kite).  I wonder now if the wind speed settings are meant for tricking only?  For general flying, would it be best to leave the setting at "light winds"?

--When performing spirals, the quantum seems to turn clockwise in a tight circle, with little noise; however counter-clockwise the turns are a little less tight, and the sail vibrates (Zoolander kite?)  Does this indicate anything in particular? 

 

 

[SHBKF]

Early on I played with the various settings on the bridles of numerous kites.  Sometimes when I had an unexpected landing I would walk to the kite & fiddle with the settings a bit making it seem possible that I had planned to land.  I was also reading the forums like mad during that time looking for hints.  Eventually one of my mentors said he rarely adjusted the bridles once he hit on the setting that worked best for his flying.  I found I did the best with a medium setting.  Light wind settings did not have the forward drive I seemed to enjoy.  High wind settings did not really seem to do much either.  They certainly did not improve my flying anyway.  With my medium setting I concentrated on learning to feel the sail pressure which really helped me slow down a bit.  I bought some kites from my mentor & left them exactly the way they were tuned.  That was a great thing also.  It is all part of the path of my KiteLife.

Just some thoughts from out here in the sticks,  SHBKF

[Fluke]

Having too many tunable settings is a bad thing 🤣. I went from a kite with zero settings (paimpol expresso) to a somewhat tunable kite (prism hypnotist) to basically the kite equivalent of a trackcar (flyingwings sf2.3pro) and i can clearly see myself getting overwhelmed with all the settings that I can fiddle with...so now i only seldom adjust the light/heavy wind setting (which i almost always bring back to factory settings) and occasionally play with the turbo bridle setting. But i also plan on leaving that alone too once i find what i like.

 

 

Look at me, talking like a kite vet/pro when I've only been in the game for a few months [emoji1]

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L21 using KiteLife mobile app

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SparkieRob]

Nose forward, angles the kite into the wind to give "extra" lift in lighter winds.
Nose back puts the kite perpendicular to the wind. This reduces the drive from the wind and slows the kite. The tradeoff is the extra pull on the lines.

I have a suite of duals so I don't adjust bridles much anymore. I change kites as the wind changes. I have them all set with nose back due to this makes the kite easier to stall and do tricks.

In between Heaven and Earth, there are kites.