Yep. Finally got fed up. The wind here is extremely variable in speed and direction. It will be dead calm for 10 minutes and then in the next 10 minutes it will be 10 to 15 knots and +/- 45 degrees off in bearing. I just got sick and tired of having great flight one second only to lose pressure and watch my Rev stall and plummet. And then the 160 foot round trip to set the kite back up and wait for the wind to return. So tonight I bit the bullet and cut my lines to make a set of 40 foot lines. They'll be lighter and I won't have to hoof it as far to set the kite back up every time the wind gives up. By sundown, I was still struggling with transferring sleeving onto the newly cut line ends. My wire that I was using to thread the line through the sleeving was WAY too thick and I ended up destroying a length of sleeving. Guess I need to get some thinner guage wire and a spool of fresh sleeving.
And while I'm ranting, 11" handles are worthless! After reading several posts, I got it into my head to make a set of pigtails for my upper leaders. Geeze did that backfire. It was nearly impossible to get the kite into the air, and when I did, I felt like I needed to twirl the handles like batons just to get any lift at all.
I'm just so discouraged. Most of the time, I'm really hard on myself and I chalk everything up to user error, but inland flying is clearly very challenging.
Any of you inland flyers have any pointers? On the bright side, learning to sail boats here has resulted in podium finishes every time I sail competitively in open water. Surely kite flying in such a challenging environment will result in the same level of skill honing.
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hewlejr
Yep. Finally got fed up. The wind here is extremely variable in speed and direction. It will be dead calm for 10 minutes and then in the next 10 minutes it will be 10 to 15 knots and +/- 45 degrees off in bearing. I just got sick and tired of having great flight one second only to lose pressure and watch my Rev stall and plummet. And then the 160 foot round trip to set the kite back up and wait for the wind to return. So tonight I bit the bullet and cut my lines to make a set of 40 foot lines. They'll be lighter and I won't have to hoof it as far to set the kite back up every time the wind gives up. By sundown, I was still struggling with transferring sleeving onto the newly cut line ends. My wire that I was using to thread the line through the sleeving was WAY too thick and I ended up destroying a length of sleeving. Guess I need to get some thinner guage wire and a spool of fresh sleeving.
And while I'm ranting, 11" handles are worthless! After reading several posts, I got it into my head to make a set of pigtails for my upper leaders. Geeze did that backfire. It was nearly impossible to get the kite into the air, and when I did, I felt like I needed to twirl the handles like batons just to get any lift at all.
I'm just so discouraged. Most of the time, I'm really hard on myself and I chalk everything up to user error, but inland flying is clearly very challenging.
Any of you inland flyers have any pointers? On the bright side, learning to sail boats here has resulted in podium finishes every time I sail competitively in open water. Surely kite flying in such a challenging environment will result in the same level of skill honing.
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