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I finally decided to bite the bullet and bought a Rev 1.5 SLE. I was like a nervous kid waiting for it to be delivered. I'm experienced flying dual line kites but this will be my first quad. I'm hoping for good winds tomorrow to break her in.

Let's get the first noob question out of the way. This kite was delivered with an extra set of shafts that are market ultralight. What would be the indication that I need to switch to these shafts?

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If the kite came with two different diameter tubes, remove the larger ones immediately. Ultra light tubes are plenty tough enough to learn on. The single most important step is to insure your handles align PERFECTLY when all four lines are affixed to a well place stake or fence post. Do not attach to the kite until this step is taken, tested, approved. Oh sure, they are close.... Only off a little, You don't want to mess with lines, sleeving or leaders, you just want to fly. Align perfect makes neutral, otherwise the car pulls right even when you want to go straight

Relax your body, (big breaths in thru the nose out thru the mouth). The kite is controlled by tiny movements, less is more!

My first lesson if we were together would be the cartwheel. In the beginning an improper landing will be leading edge down. You roll the kite over by tip standing first, not dragging the leading edge diagonally across the soil. You are getting comfortable inverted, slow graceful control, relax, breath, enjoy!

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Hi, welcome to the Rev forum and the "darkside". I see that you are in the U.S. If you can narrow that down a little for us, maybe an experienced flyer can join you at a local field. It will shave years off the learning curve if another can help you over the initial obstacles.

I pretty much learned on my own for the first two years, and even though I had oodles of fun, I had to unlearn bad habits afterwards. Get together with someone as soon as possible.

Definitely watch any instructional videos available here, on the KiteLife and AKA sites. John Barresi has made an entire series of videos which will walk you through everything from setting up, line management, and basic skills to advanced tricks. Spencer (Watty) Watson also has videos which cover the intermediate skills and tricks and indoor flying techniques.

Good luck, good winds, and welcome to the family. Like Paul said above, don't forget to breathe.

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Sound advice for sure, especially the equalization of lines. I too came from the dualie world & my heart is still there. But the pull of the Dark Side is strong. Get it in the air my friend, flail on, flail on.... SHBKF - solo hill billie kite flailer

P.S. I just put mine together & figured I could fly it first time...made it about ten feet up, spun & crashed, for about an hour.

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Thanks. I'll be sure to check the lines and swap out the tubes. Technically, I'm a member of a local kite club (kckiteclub.org) as they believe anybody who flies a kite is a member. My plan it to contact them to try to connect with someone that can help me get pointed in the right direction.

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My first piece piece of advice is to echo that already given and find yourself a mentor, $s spent on gas for a face to face with an experienced pilot will save you hours of frustration.

If you have trouble arranging a F2F, or are just too impatient I would recommend you watch the instruction DVD that comes with the kite. If they are still using the one the sent out with my SLEs some of the setup will be different from what is now considered best practice but it will keep you and your kite safe and the will teach the basic principles. You say you are an experienced duel line pilot, you will have to rethink some of what you have learned there, I won't confuse you with too much detail but you will see when you watch the DVD.

Don't worry about this now, but when you meet up with a mentor, I would recommend you take 2 or 3 yds of good quality cored bridle line to make up new top leaders for your handles, most experienced Rev fliers like to fly with some break set, and the Std SLE handles don't allow for this adjustment. It is discussed heavily elsewhere on this forum but at this stage I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, there are advantages to a beginner flying "factory settings" for a while.

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  • 2 months later...

I met a guy this weekend at the club's first Sunday fly on the grounds of the Washington Monument. His kite was an SLE w/3 wraps and he had equal length leaders on 13 inchers. I literally forced him to immediately change out the tops, to the length of the handle throw w/100# hi-test bridle line (doubled strand, 4 closely spaced knots in only one of the 2 legs).

We then tuned the lines to a well-placed stake for neutral on the new set-up of his handles. I taped one with red vinyl electrical tape to identify his "right" handle.

With the kite inverted, we keep adding reverse to the tuning, until I was completely satisfied with the end results. Obviously way too much down for him at this time. I added a double overhand knot a good inch behind on the tops, indicating this is a starting point but the goal is to wind up on the single stranded knots further away from the handles.

I gave him a few practice seasons objectives, first the cartwheel, then inverted to shoulder height and back down to the ground and finally he was to go to the top of the wind window, rotate the kite to leading edge down and work on how slowly he could get it to decent, while recovering his field. With more proficiency his goal is to stop above the ground inverted and reverse his kite back up the path it had just followed. YES I assured him this will take many, many hours of practice, but it is a line in the sand that must be crossed-over if you want to fly team with us. You know the phrase, or should "own they hover". Well in the mid-atlantic states that is seldom accomplished unless you yourself are also in movement. Less is more, don't squeeze the cobra, move forward to lessen and back you feet up to add energy. A little handle motion and little foot pedaling makes it stationary NOT one single action!

We had pretty good wind (high full sails or low range of mid-vent decision) and you could not have wiped that smile off his face with a 2x4 by the end of the day. He flew my Shook 40% on Diamonds, then walked down to inspect it carefully. Jeff Burka burst into laughter and said "oh boy that walk will cost him"

We are also so pleased have melissa join us on the quad-team line for the first couple of rides. She has been forced to do the practice sessions outlined above alone on the side of the field for a long time while the significant other gets to join in. All of her hard work has paid off though, we're watching her fly and she looks great. She even yells my own comments back at me to "get your arms down, why all this flailing, that's not what I've told you to do, Hey are you auditioning for NFL referee, you gotta' WANT it,.... anyway, back on point, go make some quad-lined friends and let them save you hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours

Welcome to the family!!?!!

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My $0.02 -

If - no matter what you do - a crash is going to happen - GIVE TO THE KITE!!! Throw your hands forward, take a step or two forward, depower the kite and make any contact minimal! Pulling only drives the kite harder into the ground, resulting in - ??? Just let the kite crash, much better you need to straighten things out than risk breaking something!!

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  • 1 year later...

I'll start my own topic if you like, but I need some advice on the same theme. I saw the Rev's being flown at the DC kite festival and decided I had to have one. First windy day after kite arrived, I went out to fly after having read the manual and watched the DVD. Kite immediately went into an uncontrolled spiral and crashed after about 8 twists. I spent the next 30 minutes de-tangling the lines. 2nd time I launched, it immediately spiraled two times to the right and crashed. I de-tangled the lines again and went home and watched a few more training videos, then went back out. This time I looked very carefully at all the knots to make sure something wasn't twisted up. First time I launched, the kite went in a big uncontrolled arc to the left and crashed. Somehow in that, the right bridle managed to untie itself and I had to analyze the left hand knot to try and re-tie it. By that time the wind had died down. Total of 30 seconds of uncontrolled flight in about 2 hours of trying. Not an encouraging first day. Kite is hard to get off the ground. "Step back and pull sharply up" simply does not work most of the time (most of the time it just causes the kite to flop forward and drag in the grass) and when it does the kite is immediately in some kind of an uncontrolled maneuver going so fast that I don't even have time to react before it crashes.

What I am experiencing is simply not covered by the videos. There are a few comments about "adjusting the trim" and it looks like it is a continuous process but if I don't know how to adjust said trim in response to what stimulus, this seems like I will continue to get the results I am getting. I really didn't want a major hobby. I already live a full and rich life so something that will take weeks of training and travelling hundreds of miles to find the right guru is just not something I am interested in. There is the possibility that the kite was shipped not tied or set up in the right fashion or that the lines are wrong, but I have no basis of comparison to judge and the idea that I can somehow measure a 1cm difference between two 80' lines seems absurd to me. To make that kind of measurement I would have to be certain that the tension was exactly the same on the two lines and I don't have that kind of equipment. I trusted that the lines would be properly measured by the manufacturer before shipment.

Advice?

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Something on one side of the kite is not an exact mirror image of the other side. All things must be symmetrical, within 1/4" to 3/8" at most. The kind of movement you described usually means something is off by at least a couple of inches.

Photos of the kite, or video of what it does when you fly it including you in the video would be helpful in diagnosing the cause.

Take a look at the member map and see who is closest to you. PM that person and get together. I learned to fly Revs with no help at the very beginning, and it was less fun than it should have been. If you can't fly with an experienced pilot, then post your questions here. There are hundreds of thousands of hours of flying experience here that are at your beck and call. Don't be shy, there are no questions too trivial, we will help with them all.

Even if you get a bit frustrated at first, stick with it. The end result of all your efforts will be a smile that can be seen from outer space.

Don't forget to breathe.

P.S. -- almost forgot, get on the Kitelife forum also if you aren't already. Tons of Rev pilots there too, and some who may not be on the map here.

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Adjusting lines is easy - put all 4 loops on one stake or common spot. Unwind and straighten out. Put on handles and pull back the slack. If the handles don't line up perfectly, adjust the offending line by untieing the sleeve, pull out some line, retie. Not that hard.

By windy - how windy? Is it possible you took your kite out in too much wind? That is why we have vented versions - to continue flying in high winds. There is no one kite, perfect for all conditions - sorry.

By trimming, I'm guessing you mean adjusting your flying lines to the knots on the top leaders. That means you have either a "B" or New York Minute to do that, or you are willing to make your own. Stock leaders on a SLE or EXP 1.5 are not adjustable. Longer top leaders allow you to adjust for wind conditions.

The one biggest piece of advice I can give - learn to Give To The Kite!! If, no matter what you do, the kite is going to crash - LET IT! DO NOT PULL!!! Pulling only drives the kite HARDER into the ground. Step forward, even let go of the handles, but just let the kite fall. Better to go straighten out, than find it broken!

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  • 3 years later...

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