Kymera

[Breezin]

Is there enough difference between the Kymera and Widow ng to justify purchase. Price is stupid low. I've only seen 1 hanging on a wall and it sure looked nice. Can already do everything on the Widow that JB does in his Kymera video  . Soo if I get a Kymera should be able whip him in head to head competition right. Yeah right  I'll keep fly,fly, flying though.

[khsidekick]

You crack me up Breezin. Keep putting smiles on all of our faces. Nice looking PDSUL. I have a red one and my son has a blue one [emoji1432] kind of like the green.


Sent from my IPhone

[Wayne Dowler]

Dreaming or hallucinating?? Believe THAT when I see it!!! I'm taking a nap while I wait!!! LOL!!  

[Breezin]

Oh no!! Somebody wake up Wayne. He's going Rip Van Winkle cause it'll take me at least a 100 years to catch up.

[makatakam]

4 hours ago, Breezin said:

Oh no!! Somebody wake up Wayne. He's going Rip Van Winkle cause it'll take me at least a 100 years to catch up.

Some people underestimate things all the time. This is not one of those times.  The devil made me do it.

If you practice every day for about 10 hours a day for about 20 years, you should be able to beat his ass in competition without breaking a sweat. I have this same dream every night, and believe me I always practice in my sleep. In about 20 years I'll have the dream in which I beat him. Maybe, if he stops practicing in reality. What about time travel? Are we there yet?

[Mike Klaiber]

Some people underestimate things all the time. This is not one of those times.  The devil made me do it.
If you practice every day for about 10 hours a day for about 20 years, you should be able to beat his ass in competition without breaking a sweat. I have this same dream every night, and believe me I always practice in my sleep. In about 20 years I'll have the dream in which I beat him. Maybe, if he stops practicing in reality. What about time travel? Are we there yet?

Sad, looks like I started to late in life.
Maybe somebody can push my chair around in twenty years. I have a dream, looks like we all do... team dreaming?

[makatakam]

23 hours ago, Mike Klaiber said:

Sad, looks like I started to late in life.
Maybe somebody can push my chair around in twenty years. I have a dream, looks like we all do... team dreaming?

Perhaps "Dream Team"?

[Breezin]

Okay alright I got a Hydra instead. Got to thinking  that gunning for Paul is pretty much the same as gunning for John.I'll give it a try though .

[makatakam]

19 hours ago, Breezin said:

Okay alright I got a Hydra instead. Got to thinking  that gunning for Paul is pretty much the same as gunning for John.I'll give it a try though .

Yup, same difference, minus the sticks.

[John Barresi]

On 2/3/2018 at 9:53 AM, makatakam said:

Some people underestimate things all the time. This is not one of those times.  The devil made me do it.

If you practice every day for about 10 hours a day for about 20 years, you should be able to beat his ass in competition without breaking a sweat. I have this same dream every night, and believe me I always practice in my sleep. In about 20 years I'll have the dream in which I beat him. Maybe, if he stops practicing in reality. What about time travel? Are we there yet?

I have almost entirely stopped practicing in reality... lol

My sessions are high intensity but not even bi-weekly on average, most of my flight time is simulated in my head... Right down to the mistakes, my holodeck is amazingly detailed after 27 years.

[Breezin]

Cool that in the head thing is normal.  Was starting to worry  about myself a bit. Flew the Zephyr and Hydra for 3 hours this morning. Hydra is different then any of my kites. It's a keeper. What sucks about this whole thing is I am going to go back and get a Kymera for sure. Thinking I'll be missing something amazingly different  if I don't. Starting to figure out that this kite addiction thing doesn't need much justification.

[SHBKF]

One of the cool things about building up a collection of kites is you can't fly them all often enough to stay well connected.  Now that may seem like a funny statement.  So what happens is that you keep buying different kites to try & the older acquisitions stay in their sleeves.  After awhile you come back to one of your previous favorites & you get to fly it with the advantage of your matured flying experience.  You might just fall in love all over again.  Or you might be able to connect with one that you previously did not click with at all.  Sometimes I would go on a trip & only take the one kite that I had struggled with on earlier attempts.  Kind of forced me to try harder & become friends with the difficult one.  That was true with the Prism E3.  But I must admit that I did finally just cave in & get an E2 instead.  KiteLife is so varied.  SHBKF

[John Barresi]

^^ gospel ^^

[Breezin]

One of the best justifications is a variety of kites will develop a nicely  rounded flying style. At the start I tried to be very mechanical learning the lines.  I do this and the kite does that sorta thing. Probably kept me from breaking things more often than I have.  Now that I'm learning to be more fluid with the wind  [ getting a little dance on ] the mechanics are coming easier. Someone said that the variety actually enhances your learning. Have to agree. Bouncing from kite to kite gives me little epiphanies that are starting to snowball.Only 9,928 more hours of practice to go. YAY

[Exult]

On 2/16/2018 at 1:08 AM, Breezin said:

Okay alright I got a Hydra instead. Got to thinking  that gunning for Paul is pretty much the same as gunning for John.I'll give it a try though .

"Paul" meaning the designer of the Hydra, Paul de Bakker I suppose? Do you know what the Hydra makes me curious about - the Jinx. Imagine something Hydra like but a bit larger giving you more time to learn the inputs (I assume). This kite is unfortunately no longer available... (I just had to do this to fuel your kite collection desire ). A word of comfort instead, you have gotten hold of a keen pitch-happy kite that wants to do much "tumbling around" with a small input. Last spring I had a project that for a series of sessions just vary input to see what come out of it, which suited the ITW Hydra well. It doesn't have the wide wind window of the Kymera though, but very few trick oriented DLKs do. I also use the Kymera for somewhat lower winds than the Hydra. One feature of the Hydra as I see it is that when doing a cascade the number of required inputs is less than for other kites I've tried - the short pull on the current lower wing (just before the major pop for a half axel) is not necessary to avoid that the kite gradually (with each cycle) ends up on its back (however not in light winds when the whole cascading thing would fail for me anyhow). Another thing is that one need to be gentle/active for the turtles to last - earlier than intended exit is not unusual for me here. According to this Kite Clique 2009 *Focus Kites* Hydra (any differences in any details for the Focus/ITW versions?) review it got a wide wind range as well:

http://v2.2.kiteclique.com/focus-kite-designs-hydra-review-by-jared-haworth/

In the review they mention that the "winglet" (isn't a "winglet" the outermost vertical part of the wing of e.g. an airliner to reduce fuel consumption - well what do I, a non native English speaker, know?) mini battens got lose. This has happened to both the left and right side. I just repaired it with patches of ripstop (spinnaker?) tape:

Should one have gotten hold of a very thick thread (like the one that already holds them) and (scary thought) manually added a couple of stitches to secure the mini battens further or at least have applied the ripstop tape from the beginning? After the session when you return the Hydra into the bag I recommend that you check that they are OK.

(And I know that I have posted this Hydra link before, but this is what I aim for one day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvUJ9bxB0Gc  )

Talking of the Kymeras, when I did the the dual DLK thing, I lost (100% my fault) the rearmost weights (just under the velcro that forms a "T" with the spine) on both my Kymeras when attaching tails to them. Now when needed, I borrow the tail weight from the Maestro 3, but what mass (or just as well dimensions if assuming steel) should the weight for a Kymera really have?

13 hours ago, John Barresi said:

I have almost entirely stopped practicing in reality... lol

My sessions are high intensity but not even bi-weekly on average, most of my flight time is simulated in my head...

Understandable - available time goes up and down in life. I suppose taking care of a small individual (child) and kite development/making/repair take up a considerable amount of time. When we got children, and due to other family circumstances, I flew about five times in about 15 years... I have just gotten started in kite sewing (putting much of my recent kiting time there) by making a mini-kite not to consume much material when learning, and guess what: I've only been out kiting three times this year. 

 

[Breezin]

Good to know about the batons. I'll put a little rip tape across the center of each. Couldn't pull off a good 1/2 axle so that is also good to know. Went to right side of window into a tip stand. Going back to center doing cart wheels. On 2nd attempt way to much input and was sure I broke lower LE. Got lucky. Kite is a little faster then the Zephyr. Winds were probably 12 and came from top center down trying a flare to fade. Got to low missed it, nose dived  and broke c clip loose. While glue was drying did the same thing on the Zephyr. Wish all my kites had a spine like the Z. Good thing glues cheap.  Apparently not good enough in the upper wind range. Better stick to snap stalls in those wind speeds for awhile longer. The Hydra is the easiest to turtle of all my kites but for now is pretty hard to hold. The only fades I could get were from spin launch.A little easier to hold but not by much. Precision flying the kite made me look good. Pretty convinced that's because of batons and Mylar on the trailing edge. Sail lay out is different then the Focus Hydra.  Supposedly adjusting the handling for the ITW version so people like me wouldn't destroy it from the start. The more I learn the more amazed I am by kite designers. The sewing beats the snot out of the Zephyr and the Zephyrs sewing is great. It's going to be a couple weeks before I can get a Kymera. Hope they still have one. 

[Tim P.]

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 4:54 AM, Exult said:

Talking of the Kymeras, when I did the the dual DLK thing, I lost (100% my fault) the rearmost weights (just under the velcro that forms a "T" with the spine) on both my Kymeras when attaching tails to them. Now when needed, I borrow the tail weight from the Maestro 3, but what mass (or just as well dimensions if assuming steel) should the weight for a Kymera really have?

Contact Into The Wind for replacement parts, I lost the tail weight off my original Kymera and they sent a couple more out to me. They asked when I was on the phone with them if it was the tail weight or the barrel weights.

[cjay]

Interesting that ITW has the blue Kymera's for $112.50 right now, and everyone else is asking $225. Seems like a pretty good deal for someone.

https://intothewind.com/stunt-kites/trick-kites/itw-kymera-by-barresi-blue.html

[Exult]

3 hours ago, cjay said:

Interesting that ITW has the blue Kymera's for $112.50

For that price consider going for some dual DLKing with this wide wind window kite. Now the over all effort is not that large. Botch-up two straight pin bar-handles(*). Allow 1-2 sessions to get used to pilot one kite. Then I’d *estimate* you’d feel reasonably confident in perhaps five sessions. For me learning to pilot two kites in a *rudimentary* way was less of a trick than learning and claiming a DLK slack line trick. This being said, this was not something I stuck to (last time was about 2 years ago), but it was a nice self confidence boosting side project. There are so many aspects and things to do in this limitless sport!!

For more visual effect, attach tails to the pair of kites because you are not going to trick them anyhow (wait… is it really so that it is ”impossible” to trick a DLK through a handle?). The feeling (in the end) was a bit less relaxed than for more normal kiting with occasional ”survival mode” two second episodes. Also I’m sure that there are other kites than the Kymera that could do this, but the large wind window giving room for the two kites fits the bill.

 

* At the time I was (perhaps too) much into the direction of wooden fibres after a broken long axe shaft incident where the wooden fibres were not parallel with the shaft. Therefore I initially put effort in making sure that the fibre direction of the handles was OK. Actually the final(?) iteration of the handles was made from a light wooden (~1.5USD if I remember it right) broomstick. After all the forces from the kites are not that big.

[frob]

I believe it is being discontinued. ITW is the manufacturer and wants to clear their stock. Other vendors bought for the full wholesale price and are used to keeping stock until sold. It is a great price, I picked up both the Kymera and Hydra when they halved the prices.

When they announced that both were going on clearance a year ago, I half expected an announcement that KiteForge.com was launching a new dual line. 

[John Barresi]

3 hours ago, frob said:

When they announced that both were going on clearance a year ago, I half expected an announcement that KiteForge.com was launching a new dual line. 

Not yet... 😎

[cjay]

9 hours ago, frob said:

When they announced that both were going on clearance a year ago, I half expected an announcement that KiteForge.com was launching a new dual line. 

Guess I am late to the party. For that price I might have bought a new red one or possibly a green one, but I will pass on the blue.

 I already have a stunt kite that is fairly precise, pulls hard and makes noise, so I am not sure what a Kymera would offer over a Widow NG in terms of handling.

[Breezin]

I never got a Kymera. Kite plans have changed so much since I started flying I can't keep track anymore. Pain in the ass but something I obviously don't mind living with LOL. 

[cjay]

 Getting better on the kites I already have is probably the ticket.

 But for $112.50 I would totally buy a new Green Kymera just cause it looks cool.

 You know you totally need one.

 

[Breezin]

If they had one in pink and one in purple I'd have 2 so I could make cool polka dots in the sky. 10 year old grandson is really starting to get hooked on this stuff. He'd make some good progress on a Kymera. Told me the Addiction is to fast at times. Wanted to trade it for my Psycho go figure.