No Arvo Flight Yesterday, Responsibilities are beginning to creep in on my flying time
Well I Joined up to KiteLife… Very Happy about that. I feel that the Contribution that KiteLife makes to the Community needs to be supported.
And all those Sweet Tutorials are Pretty good too
I have been Downloading them onto My Ipod Touch.
To Paraphrase SparkieRob, I have a John Barresi In my Pocket.
This morning was nice, Light to Moderate winds when I set up the STD with 3 Wrap and 80# lines
I got i
The trees in Greenwich park have turned colour since last week. Blink and you miss the autumnal moment.
Green Race with full vented today. Occasionally over powered but mostly on the comfortable side with arms down and handles horizontal pulling the turns as necessary and holding altitude. I am still amazed at how much input is possible with long arms in 'slow' flying. The angle of the sail is so critical..
A lazy day in team terms. Only three so finding the gap in the middle of random flying
The team kites have been washed and aired thanks to one of the younger members of the the team. There is still sand in the kite bags though! Seems like it is there by default.
Breezy on Blackheath today starting with vented and Green Race Rods but eventually switched to 4 wrap. Could have flown the Mega Vented which would have spared the aching shoulders.
I'm enjoying getting 'tuned in' to a wind speed with a given kite and using the 'long arm' movements to 'pin' the kite for turns and speed,
Another sunny Sunday. From 10:30am it was a Zen breeze until a residual weather front approached about two hours later.
We were four fliers and occasionally fell into team order.
Steve (goestoeleven) joined us when we had switched from Zen to 1.5... Steve had obviously enjoyed plenty of flying time since the last time he joined us on Blackheath. We flew ad-hoc and then some called moves. 'Pendulums' and 'rolling balls' were flown.
When we were packing up a local person approached us and exp
The temperature is still not normal in London but not as hot as last weekend.
Full vented with Race just about held up today in the lulls but were sometimes over powered. I'm going to tie some new leaders with close 'figure eight' knots as an Autumn project as I need some extra brake points.
Four fliers today repeatedly 'rolled' the ball quite effectively. We also addressed rotating the 4 flier face in stack, rotating it through 180 degrees... That was fun!
Attached is an image from last Sund
Back to Blackheath today but obviously conditions were a little unusual for October with the thermometer at 29 degrees Celcius! I left the Heath at about 1:00pm to seek shelter from the sun.
Stephen Versteegh has proposed Scheveningen as a Mega Team event for 2012 which is very exciting. I hope that everyone will be able to commit...
Today was almost a 3 kite day - I started with 1.5 SUL (Ex iQuad) as I did not have the Zen in the bag. Subsequently Zen and then the Race 2. I'm more convinced n
The "Tumble" or "Cartwheel" but more accurately called the "Travelling Bicycle" kite maneuver is an interesting thing to wrap my head around. This blog is more for my own mental clarification of the goal than to "teach" anyone anything or relate and interesting story. It gives some insight into how my mind works for those who care to know.
It looks like it should be simple. I've found it to be the most difficult move I've tried to learn since the inverted hover which I swore was the hardest
Margate proved that sometimes the sun can shine on the last weekend in September. We had two glorious days...
The forecast southerly breeze arrived on Saturday morning after a brief time when the 'land sea breeze' (northerly) had the upper hand. A good day followed, albeit somewhat turbulent. We were using the Rev 1 sails and our standard 3 wrap spars with a 4 wrap centre.
Imagina performed on Saturday and Sunday and I think that I will be able to put some video from Saturday on You Tube at so
It was a very good weekend despite showers on Saturday and Sunday morning. 1.5 Vented sails were all we used, swapping from Race to 4 wrap on Saturday later in the afternoon. Race rods on Sunday!
On Sunday afternoon the breeze which had been slightly offshore rather than along the beach gently swung through about 90 degrees to a steady onshore which lasted until the end of the event. This provided probably the best flying conditions we have experienced this year and Jacob called a great routine
Vented 1.5s with 4 wrap in gradually strengthening SW breezes today. We had a visit from a scout for 'Britain's Got Talent' and suggested that a Mega Fly might be a contender. I did mention the 100 number and explained the logistical issues. (NB I am aware that we do not have 100 UK fliers anyway!)
On a more practical level we tried a 'dice 5 block' doing 'quarter turn stepped infinities' which is something I would like to see done 'in grid'. We brought the kites as closely together as was prac
Another great weekend. The weather held* and the crowds turned up to the 25th Bristol event. The Decs have, I think, attended 21 times as a team. I missed the 2006 one!
With the Olympics taking place next year in the UK the Bristol Kite event is will not occur in 2012. I do hope that it will go ahead in 2013!
Felix
*We used Rev1, Rev1.5 and Vented1.5 during the course of the weekend <grins>
A great weekend in Portsmouth even if the promised arena boundaries never arrived and the PA was only 'fully' operational on Sunday thanks to the efforts of Jon and Gill.
The 2pm Mega Fly on Sunday drew the crowds and did not 'interrupt' the main arena events especially after the 'prolonged' shower had curtailed the time available. The 'mini mega' team format in the main arena also seemed to work very well.
Felix
Lighter breezes today full 1.5 sail with Race Rods. I had been worried that the tracking moves that I had been working on with the vented kites over the last couple of weeks would not translate back onto the full sail but today I found that everything worked just fine.* Taking it onto the team kites without the JB panelled sail structure will be the next step.
(*Reading back, I find, that of course I had been using the full JB sail on the last weekend in July on the same project!)
Portsmouth n
Summary:
It's been just under three weeks now since WSIKF finished up for 2011 and I've had lots of time to let everything sink in.
Like hearing too much about a blockbuster movie and having all sorts of expectations only to be disappointed by the final film is sort of how I felt things may go this year. I'd been looking forward to this trip for months (it is not just a kite festival, it's also my only get-away vacation of the year so it must be worth it for me) and I am happy to say that it d
Vented 1.5 with green race today for me. Warmer than last weekend but still the occasional dark grey cloud passing low. No rain or thunder risk today...
Ad hoc flying mostly avoiding anything that looked like a follow. With only three kites today we saw some drifting cogs and rotations. Some of those rotating moves can be executed quite passively as others have noted in the Cartwheel thread. You just go with the flow...
I am looking forwards to the Portsmouth event still hoping that we can hit
Bright and breezy start so full vented and 4 wrap.
Applying 'light wind technique' to flying the vented kites has been my objective for some time now and today was another opportunity to test the concept further. From a practical point of view my 'test' is to fly the kite as slowly as is possible without ending up with 'tired' muscles due to 'hanging on' to the handles. Plenty of brake for starters and then a 'ready to move' stance, one foot a stride forwards, arms down at side, handles horizon
We learned that Knokke-Heist would not go ahead, for us, mid-week.
Today was a typical summer's day on Blackheath which is now turning a more seasonal brown rather than the recent lush green after a mostly wet June and July.
Breezes were light and variable often dropping off completely. The direction was switching c180 degrees over a short time frame as well. It was not quite a Zen breeze so full sail 1.5 with normal race rods seemed about right.
Following on from last week I was concentratin
Martin was on the field early and had done three changes of spars in the 1.5 full vented by the time I arrived. So it was full vented and green race for the second weekend running. Today was lighter than last weekend with no threat of thundery showers. The breeze dropped off completely on occasions.
For most of the time we flew 'free form' hitting the interaction points to a silent accompaniment. The swifts do it well as I mentioned a while back. I was drilling a 'counted turn' pattern which v
It was Johnny Claffey's 50th birthday party celebration last night and while I had not expected him to be out flying kites today I had not anticipated that I would be the only one from the team to turn up at Dunstable c10:00am for a casual attendance at the two day event.
At Long Beach last year it was apparent that most of the fliers were in possession of all the JB Sails and they quickly took the 'mid vent' option in intermediate conditions. At Dunstable today almost all of the fliers made th
Wow, what a festival!
June 25 and 26 in mostly 30 - 50 kph winds both days. Saturday was sunny with partial clouds whereas Sunday was mostly cloudy with a couple rain storms moving through and cold winds. As someone said, as everyone huddled in a shelter during one one of the wind/rain storms, "Better more wind than no wind."
Saturday probably saw the greatest number of big kites in the air that I've ever seen at this festival with many new ones to us locals - whales, sea horses and dragons t
It was another light wind day on Blackheath. There was enough to keep the full sail 1.5s with Race frames moving most of the time for individual flight.
In team we slipped into parallel passes in a block form expanding and contracting the square of four fliers following last weekends grid fly. We did not try rolling the ball today. That is an exercise that needs a steady breeze. Some freestyle cogged rotations led to some interesting tangles that were unwrapped successfully in flight.
A run th
Well it really was sunny Sunderland, especially Sunday. Light and variable breezes through the weekend with occasional lulls to very little indeed. (Somewhat different to conditions last year!)
However, some of Fusion and some of The Decs put together a couple of 'small grid' performances to round off the event on both days. Given the light breezes the 9 person 'moving grid' proved to be the way to keep things together with the 'expanding and contracting grid' in horizontal transit a notable su
I had some cumputer isues and haven't been on in awhile...I'm on my dad's cumputer now and probly won't be able to update this much...Anyway. I'm selling braclets and if anyone wants one I'll be at wskf.
For now (or awhile) I'm sining off...
The forecast came good and shortly after 10:00am I arrived on Blackheath to find a 'full on' UK Summer's Day.
Not much wind, that is, and the slight breezes shifting quickly through 180 degrees and more.
It was great to get the Zens out and lock in to the 'treacle interval' some of the time. 'Flailing' in slow motion to accommodate the size of the kite is just so 'cool'.
I was conscious of the 'three finger tips' on the handles 'no grip' with the thumb nail and small finger nail occasionally