Who's been spanked by thier kite.

So... I've had a couple... heh.

2m Beamer III - high wind day, doing a transition and... did something wrong, flipped the buggy on top of me and got dragged down the beach with the buggy on top of me. Eventually managed to backstall the kite to the ground, got to my knees, and the kite launched and slammed me face-first into the ground again (caught on camera). No serious injuries.

3.5 Jojo - This kite spanked me more than once. High wind launch on beach. Did a hot launch cause I didn't think it was THAT windy. Got super man'd up the beach. Probably 20- 30 feet before I touched down. Managed to get my feet under me and walked back to the buggy. Second time, the kite got behind me and lofted me out of the buggy backwards. Landed on my head. Crashed the kite. Helmet was nice for that one. Walked away with no injuries from either.

12m Outlaw - Was flying at the Bowl in mostly west wind. Thought things were going okay, came into the lower section, and the wind kicked... HARD. Lofted me out of the buggy sideways. Landed hard on my arm. Nearly broke my wrist. Walked away from it though. Popped safety and wrapped up the kite.

8m Outlaw - SoD farm in Maryland. Getting ready to transition and brought it over too quickly. Got LAUNCHED as a good gust hit. Flew some 15-20 feet or so. Landed feet first, popped safety and watched the kite attempt to fly away.. Chased it down, hooked safety line, and laid down. No injuries. Caught on film (Todd got it).

8m Psycho4 - Buggying at Wildwood last Spring. Off-shore winds. Not my buggy. Doing a transition and the buggy wigged out. Lost control and got picked up out of the buggy. Came down on my right shoulder. Couldnt use my arm for about a month. Didn't see the doctor, and felt okay initially. That one hurt.

Yeah, I've taken a few beatings. Nothing broken, thankfully. Safety gear is a must.

Man, reading some of these makes me feel better about myself. I thought I was the only one. :bigok:

I get spanked mostly on water for obvious reasons, these two were the most memorable; 1 on snow and 2 on water

1. Several years back, a total newbie with a Wipika 20.5m Hydra C-kite on snow. Yes, the size of the the first depower after a 5m FB Legend speaks volumes about experience !!!
Powered up across the window and got yarded 200 feet face first through 2 feet of powder before I had a sense to pull the safety. Got up looked around, good, no one saw me.
Went right back at it.
Two more yardages each roughly half of the preciding one although with more "control" and by this I mean trying to keep the head above the powder.


2. Last year at Oliphant bay, at the end of the day, I did not made it up wind back to where I started, so I started walking back ~1/2km from the parking lot where everyone hangs out.
It is a limestone plateu, is very shallow flat water and very slippery limestone mud , kite was at Zenith, all depowered but it still had some lift (17m Waroo on 33m lines), wind picked up more and it was getting really hard to walk due to slippery surface, so I self landed the kite on the wind edge, manage to turn it to park position (leading edge down towards the wind), all good.
As I walked towards the kite to grab it (still connected to CL+leash) , wind shifted maybe 30deg and gusty, it was just enough to catch the back edge of the kite, that SoB turned around and relaunched, it was so slippery I could not hold it, i was just scudding, so I pulled the safety.
Somehow as bar was sliding up towards the kite it got caught on something (later I found to be a big knot with a chunk of dry grass root in it) a really "nice" bar stopper.
Kite went into death spiral, oh...fudge..., it yanked me down and started dragging me thru the dirt like you see in old western movies (ha-ha, not funny at the time)
As I was beeing dragged by the leash line, I was able to swing the body around and go legs first, then I pulled safety on the bungee line.
It was my bungee line from Zero4, the ball came off the clear tube, tube stayed locked, another oh..fudge.....
Now I know I am in deep dudu as the kite keeps spiraling faster and I am being dragged faster trying to reach for the knife (at this point a good 200m), so far lucky no stones or wood, just semi dry mud.
I saw a water filled ditch and steered with my feet to it, got a good hold on the bank for just a second enough to grab the bungee, relief the strain and get the tube off the safety pin.
I was free of the kite....fewww... It flew another 200-300m and tumbled over several time and perfectly parked itself solid, go figure......
I was far away from the parking lot, but someone must have seen me as I heard safety whistles for a bit, took a moment, big breath, move all the extremities, checked my hands and feet, thank God nothing broken, no cuts, just minor scratches on the "steering" foot.
(I was wearing a helmet, farmer john full pants, seat harness and life jacket, so that might have helped to absorb the impacts on the way)
Just covered in the mud like Arnold in the movie Predator. Got up, got the kite, it was too coved in mud, no holes anywhere, all intact, a bonus for the end of the day. It could have been way worst.

This one not so major but one I remember

3. Also last year @ Port Franks, continuing work on my water skills, this time in waves, 1-3ft, wind ~20knts, trying to tame a 10m charger, did not crash the kite once (I guess AZ works well even on smaller Chargers, made a mistake taking a wave, got my board under the wave and as I was falling down, must have powered up on the bar and got yanked out of the water so hard with a board under the wave, that I snapped 8mm polyurethane leash with a 10-15 footer unintended jump. These things (Charger 10m) are nasty, but in a good way, still not a fan.
I hope P2 are more forgiving, I pre-ordered 24 and 15m for my 2 all season kite quiver.

ya i didnt put any obe's... lol those were all my fault and i dont feel i was spanked

:embarrased: but not :moon: 'd

The shorter question here would be "Who HASN'T been spanked?"

My first time was naively putting up my 3m trainer downwind at a windy beach: Supermaned me down wind while I did twisting corkscrews in the sand! (much to my bud's amusement). Good little dermabrasion session there! :ticking:

That would only be the first...

early 90's - first buggy, going to show it to everyone on the weekend but decided to go for a rip on a sports field on the way home with a big kite - started to rain and buggy doing more sideways than straight and worried about the kite tangling around a goal post - looked at the kite, let it go, looked forward and (with my best Titanic impression) "goal post dead ahead"
KaWANG!
broken foot and thought I broke my wrist and the kids that rode over on their bikes looking down at me with and accent saying "mr kite are you dead?"

who has not used the spank-o-matic,
step right up

Man I love Kiting- Self inflicted abuse that you just cant seem to get enough of. Most memorable spanking- 3.8 reactor lofted me on mtn board- maybe a foot or two but landed funny and felt the acl in my right knee snap- that hurt surgery 3 months later and back to flying 3 months after surgery.

Watched my 12 yr old son get supermanned with 2 mtr scout and bounce so hard on his side that he got a concussion (head never hit the ground but the body smash rattled the brain). MOM was not happy.

Now we just fly bigger kites so the landing are softer
Scott

Quote:

Originally posted by flyguy0101 Man I love Kiting- Self inflicted abuse that you just cant seem to get enough of. Most memorable spanking- 3.8 reactor lofted me on mtn board- maybe a foot or two but landed funny and felt the acl in my right knee snap- that hurt surgery 3 months later and back to flying 3 months after surgery.

+ 1 for surgery

I think it's interesting that the polls show roughly the same percentage of people that have been spanked is firly close to the percentage of people who learned the hard way in my other poll.

Onthe surface it looks funny.

Landboarding, I've had a good couple supermans.

one was a newbie mistake only a couple moths into kiting....got lofted about 5 feet, tensed up and pulled the bar in, but only one side I guess.....kiteloop with the 12!! I think I landed still upright with a running motion in the legs, but was pulled on my belly fairly quickly, and dragged a while. the dragging actually ripped my belt buckle off my belt!

The next was from a incoming wind front that came a bit early...but was really strong! That was probably the longest superman and longest drag I've done, pants and harness were nice and green....but didn't hurt as much. Maybe learned a thing or 2 by then about landing supermans softer.

Resurrecting this thread as I'm trying to investigate wtf is wrong with NicS-P-A-M-L-I-N-K-s evil Rookie2. She's staying in the bag today...

1) Static jumping using a 4m Flux in 18(37)mph gusty winds (oof, its embarrassing even typing that). Lofted 10 feet after a giant gust hit right as a jumped. Sprained ankle, wounded knee, couldn't fly for months. The worst is that I was showing off for a friend.

2) Buggying with a stock PL XR with the skinny axle and a 6m Cabrinha switchblade3. Gust hit and I thought, "I can hold it...". Turns out I couldn't. Flipped sideways (easy to do with that evil skinny axle) and the buggy rolled over my back and head. Was wearing full motorcycle kit, so walked away without a bruise. Would've been split open if I hadn't.

3). Most recently, killed my 10m venom, but narrowly avoided a total disaster through sheer force of will. If a gust had hit while I was wrapped around the buggy, John and I might not be here today.


Always wear gear (Snake). If you haven't yet seen Kober's video, you should. Mellowest OBE I've ever seen. Looks like fun

There were more than enough times I recall back in the old days when I couldn't tell a good park from a bad gusty one. Standing still off my landboard, I was launched about 3-5 feet off the ground and sent about 10 feet downwind when my 5-meter fixed bridle kite was straight up in the air and caught a nasty gust. This same thing happened more than enough times over the course of my kite career. Luckily I nailed the landings of all of those incidents; it just takes some ninja reflexes.

And Proletariat... was all that damage at the beginning caused by the small impact at 4:00? If that's the case, it seems that it doesn't take much to destroy a twinskin.

Quote: Originally posted by Sier_Pinski

And Proletariat... was all that damage at the beginning caused by the small impact at 4:00? If that's the case, it seems that it doesn't take much to destroy a twinskin.

No that was just the final straw. He thinks that he did the major damage on a hard landing earlier and did not realize at the time that he had snapped another spar ( final tally for him was 5 or 6 from three kites) and kept flying it. This was the nicest of the three locations that we flew in two days and was still covered in "string magnet" plants (but not the preponderance of cactus, stinging nettles, cow divots, and cow pies that the first field had).

if you havent been spanked.......your doing it wrong