Power Kite Forum

Going from stunt to power kite.. what to get?

angryandy11 - 5-5-2011 at 05:13 AM

Hi there,

Been doing a bit of flying on a small stunt kite and feel I have very good control over it, but in the low winds I get in land, around 5 - 12mph on average, i'm finding it difficult to be entertained when it's a challange to keep it in the air.

Looking to get a power kite as a bit of an upper body work out, as well as learning to advance onto jumping etc (probably won't ever board or buggy)

Just wondering what size kite I should be looking at.. I'm just under 10 stone and wind conditions are as above. I want a challenge and not something I will get bored of too soon, and something that if I'm lucky and get better winds will give me a chance of getting more lift, jump,scudding etc.

Been looking at PKD Buster 4m, blades 4m and 4.9.. which do you think would be best? I've been looking around and can't find a reference for how big a kite I'll need in these lower winds.. I don't want to die on my first outing, but I also don't want to spend over £100 or so and be bored of it in a month!

Thanks

Andy

furbowski - 5-5-2011 at 05:52 AM

No problem with getting a 4m kite if you have some two-line skill, but in gusty winds they can be a real challenge, even in light gusty winds. if you routinely get winds where you can hold your stunter on the edge of the window and move it right along the edge from side to side right over the zenith, then you're good to go. But if you don't have wind that allows such flying, you'll need to go smaller. I once recommended a 4m to an 18 stone gent without checking the wind in his area and he had to sell it. But he was dealing with winter inland winds.

4m is the min for jumping, you will have lift but very little float. Don't go crazy in big winds and try for higher than head-high and you'll be alright. That's a bit down the road anyways. You'll need to be able to fly your kite by feel to some extent before you can think of confident landings.

As far as kites go, i reckon blade over buster definitely. The blade iv's with their adjustable bridle will extend your wind range in both directions, and allow you to choose between fast / not so lifty and slower / gruntier / lifty. The buster is a good beginner's kite, but i doubt it would hold your interest as long.

Another excellent option is the Peter Lynn twister II, cheaper as well. If money is no concern, then go blade.

Both the blade and the twister will allow you to at least pick your feet off the ground in 8 mph with skills, and give you possible 6-footers in 12 mph. Both kites will give you a solid 10-20 foot scud on hot launch in 12 mph, but will be easy to handle at the zenith without scary amounts of lift in 12 mph.

You'll get the best low wind flyablity out of 5 to 6 meter foils, above that size the kite gets too heavy to start early in light winds, below that size there's not enough surface area to get them off the ground.

But get the 4m first, it will keep you going for a while. And remember to go smaller if you have routine gusty winds.

indigo_wolf - 5-5-2011 at 06:06 AM



ATB,
Sam

kiteetik - 5-5-2011 at 06:15 AM

listen to indigo wolf--he really knows his stuff.......:thumbup:

angryandy11 - 5-5-2011 at 06:25 AM

Hey, thanks for the speedy and helpful replies.. I will definitely be buying used, I don't want to splash out too much on my first one.

The chances are my wind speeds will be 5 - 9mph on an average day.. especially with summer coming up, my conditions are normally not so much gusty, just more extended periods of good wind and then periods of slow, rather than quickly gusting up and down.

The Peter Lynn twister II you mention furbowski.. what size is that?

Indigo_wolf.. will a 3m buster really be enough in the 5-9mph winds that I will usually get?

Thanks again

Andy

furbowski - 5-5-2011 at 07:02 AM

It's the lowish wind speeds that makes me go on and say 4m. But yes you'll need to be well prepared, and there is a bit of a learning curve working brakes into the mix after coming from 2-lines. IW has put up excellent links to the things you'll need to know.

You'll be much safer on your first few lights with a 3m buster or hornet for sure, and max 3m is indeed the conventional wisdom on this forum. There's a lot of experience going into that wisdom, but in your case I don't think the risks of the 4m are all that extreme. I believe the big dude i mentioned earlier also had stunt-kite experience. But his winds were very different. The big risk is mostly that you fly wind beyond your skills because the wind is blowing just a bit too strongly and you've only got the one kite.

At the end of the day you're the one dealing with what you pick. Take your time about deciding. I'm sure you'll get more opinions one way or the other, likely mostly on the 3m side of the deal.

Twister II comes in 3.0, 4.1, 5.6, and 7.7.

indigo_wolf - 5-5-2011 at 07:35 AM

The Peter Lynn Twister comes in multiple sizes

Peter Lynn Twister II 3.0M £196.00
Peter Lynn Twister II 4.1m £222.00
Peter Lynn Twister II 5.6m £256.00
Peter Lynn Twister II 7.7m £315.00

Those are new prices.... figure used prices of maybe 55%-75% of that depending on the seller's motivation and/or the amount of mileage on the kite.

This is a 3M Beamer in 3-5mph winds. I believe the flyer is up in Canada and also started on stunt kites.



The reason I suggested the 3m over the 4m was partially due to your 10 stone (140lb) weight and £100 budget. There are £100 4M kites out there, but they tend to be of dubious quality (read potentially dangerous).

If you can:
then I would probably have less concerns about recommending a 4 meter kite.

There are too many instances of

Not saying any of the above describes you, but those are the pitfalls of giving people advice over the Internet.

Whenever you get to the point where jumping is on the menu for the day wear pads and a helmet. Just because you go up vertical doesn't insure that's the way you are going to land.

Another kite that you might want to consider if you are looking at used kites is a PKD Brooza II which also includes a bridle that can be adjusted for grunt or lift.

ATB,
Sam

j0fer - 5-5-2011 at 08:54 AM

Angryandy,

I just had my first power kite flight yesterday (May 4th)...so maybe I still speak the language of us mortal non-power kite flyers.

Yesterday was 3-6 or so for me...a bit low even for this area in the middle of America. Most of the time, bringing the 4m Tensor through the power zone was like playing tug-of-war with you on one end and 3 or 4 of your friends on the other.

On one small gust to maybe 8-10 for the span of about half a second it was like your friends on the other end hooked their end of a rope to a truck that was passing by.

In a bit stronger winds the kite could have dragged me all over that field. I'm 6'5" and 215 lbs. (or a little over 15 stone for you across the pond)

angryandy11 - 5-5-2011 at 11:19 AM

thanks joefer, that gives me a real world reference and has put me off a big one haha I don't understand how anyone can handle anything bigger than a 5m if you're 15 stone and that's in light winds!

Maybe if I go 3.5m i'll have something in the middle, but I'll go for one of the better brands, perhaps with the adjustable bridle like you mentioned Indigo_wolf (I have no idea what one of those are but I like the idea of it, so I guess I have a lot of reading to do as well)

Luckily as I still enjoy my stunt kite, if the winds are too high I can just get that out and have some fun with that instead.

the peter lynn's aren't too common 2nd hand, is that because people don't sell them as they're really good, or because they aren;t so popular in the UK?

Thanks again for all your replies.. any more real world examples/stories would be great to hear, especially if you're new to power kites

John Holgate - 5-5-2011 at 02:59 PM

Watch the first minute of this: Flying a Beamer IV 2m It's a vid I made a couple years ago flying a Beamer 2m in something like 25km/hr winds. And it's a good workout. I don't static fly this powered up in my paddocks any more because it's too hard on my ankles. But down the beach, where scudding through the sand is easy, it's a blast. Once you get into a buggy/landboard, your kite will spend most of it's time at the edge of the window and it will quickly become apparent that you need a lot more kite than if you're just static flying.

If you're gonna do any jumping, keep to small 'hops' with a small kite because they don't have much float to give you a soft landing. There's more than one person here that found that out the hard way and are now reinforced with titanium.

There's not a 'safe' way to jump with a kite, but it's 'safer' with something like a 10m Depower over something relatively soft - sand dune/water. For every amazing youtube jumping vid, there are several horrifying accident vids.

I think a good start is a 3m PL Hornet/HQ Beamer/Ozone Flow/Imp/Zebra Checka/Z1/PKD buster although if you have steady winds of under 10mph you could go 4m without any problems. Bigger kites are a bit more forgiving and slower through the air - I find it a little more fun to fly something 2-3m in a tad more wind.

Here's the 2m Beamer and 3m Flow in a bit more wind down the beach. A HOOT. Too much fun on 13th beach

angryandy11 - 12-5-2011 at 05:02 PM

Just found a bullet 3.5 with killers, would that be a suitable and stable first kite, also is it a good deal at £100 delivered?

indigo_wolf - 12-5-2011 at 05:12 PM

If it's in good condition and the lines have some life in them, then yes it would be.

Start off in lighter winds and practice using the kite killers until they are second nature.

ATB,
Sam

j0fer - 13-5-2011 at 06:14 AM

And remember that when you're learning to drive in the gravel parking lot...you don't wanna crank up the Ferrari...you go beat up the Civic or the Impala first.

angryandy11 - 15-5-2011 at 10:11 AM

Just thought I'd update.i saw a good deal on guntree in Cardiff where I'm currently away working, it was a 5.5m pkd Buster for £40. So me and a friend set off to fly it. At first we couldn't get it off the ground, but after a bit of line adjusting she was up and stable(ish).

Winds were meant to be around 13mph today, but I feel we started with much under that as I had good control over the kite and wasnt travelling too much, however after an hour of flying the wind picked up, had a few scuds, ran half the length of the field twice and then decided it was time to go home.

So it was mostly a good first day,i Have a 3.6m beamer lined up for when I go home which I'm sure I'll use mostly unless the winds are too low and then I'll get the big pink Buster out.

But for any beginners reading, definitely get some decent kite killers, mine came with flexI foil ones and I had to use them twice, which I'm sure saved me from a big fall, also wear some decent grippy, hard wearing footwear,

angryandy11 - 24-5-2011 at 05:12 PM

Another update.. this time with a WARNING!!!!!

angryandy11 - 24-5-2011 at 05:28 PM

oops.. not sure why that sent.
Anyway, again for any newbies reading please take my advice, on sunday I went out with my 3.6m beamer as the winds were pretty high, around 15mph with much bigger gusts.

well the day started very well, was gaining very good control of the kite, learnt how to reverse launch, hold the kite static at the edge of the window and then enter into the zone for some huge pulls and sometimes a little jump etc

Well, lets say I got too confident too quickly, after a few intentional jumps I decided to try a bit harder and run upwind whilst holding the kite at the edge and then turn to power zone for a jump. lets say it went very well, got a huge floaty jump, but then the kite just dumped me, landed on my left foot, which tweaked on the impact, then hit my right thigh on the floor (which I would later discover smashed the protective case for my smartphone) and then I ended up taking the brunt of my fall on my right shoulder..

The pain in my ankle soon wore off, however it became apparent that my shoulder was not right and a few hours later I find myself in a&e getting X-rayed and diagnosed with a ruptured shoulder and having to go back to organize physio etc

So hopefully I can be a word of warning for new silly people like myself, I am a very sporty, naturally athletic and have a snowboarding/skateboarding background, so I'm used to big jumps and being nimble, however nothing will quite prepare you for the dumping a small kite can give you on high wind days, so please people learn a lesson from me and don't try to jump too high too soon!

I'm sure I'll be out of flying for a month or two now after only being out 4 times with my new toys.. I'm gutted.. but I've learnt a good lesson, stick to staying on the ground until you really understand whats going on up there with the wind. I did have very good control of the kite (probably so much so that it ended up giving me the confidence to try and progress quicker and I wasn't ready).. but yea I'll stick to what my initial aim was for now on and just get a bloody good work out of the kites, which they are fantastic for, exhilarating whilst working all your muscles and heart.

So annoyed at myself, wish I had been more wreckless, got the 5.5m out and I would have poo'd myself at the pull and just concentrated on staying upright rather than getting ahead of myself and trying to get air!