Bladerunner - 26-2-2007 at 05:36 PM
I find that if I set my kite killers up the line at my 2nd knot I can't drop one arm when snowkiting hooked in. I moved them down to just above the
handle and they seemed to kill power fine ? My Flexi handles have a loop on the bottom of the handles for staking the kite.
What confuses me is .... If my brakes are set-up to bring the kite down and it is adequate to stake them at that point, why wouldn't I hook killers
to those loops. I'm guessing that having the brakes up the lines dumps more air but my experience is they work fine down lower ????
Pablo - 26-2-2007 at 06:25 PM
Some kites will work fine, some may stay partially inflated and just reverse without enough brake input. I've flown an old radsail that simply
reversed fast without using the knot at the kite end of the brake line leader.
acampbell - 27-2-2007 at 06:54 AM
The kite Killers, when attached out from the handle by the brake line attachments, provide enough scope to flip the kite all the way on its back with
no or little tension on the mains. I find that doing this on the ground will cause the kite to flail and flap around.
Staking the kite by the bottom of the handles however leaves enough scope on the main lines that the kite stays partly inflated, keeping shape in the
wind. The brake lines are pulled in enough that the trailing edge is flat on the ground and the air pressure from the wind on the inflated front part
of the kite pushes it into the ground, froming a seal sort of. To test this, just pick up the trailing edge of a parked kite a little bit and a small
amount of wind under it will upset the equilibrium and it starts to flail.
Bladerunner - 27-2-2007 at 04:58 PM
I fully agree with you regarding the behavior of the kite when pulled at the handles compaired to a total dump / flip flopping of the kite when pulled
from farther up the lines.
What I am missing or lacking experience of is the NEED to do a total dump. Like mentioned with the killers attached up top the kite dumps air but is
unpredictable. With my killers just above the handles I have experienced NEAR total dump of power but better control of my partially inflated kite as
it backed down rather than flopping about ?
Is the reason it's wrong to have them lower because you don't get a 100% power / air dump ?
Is it really that unsafe to have them down at the handles ?
Why ?
It's worth mentioning that my 7 is on a bar. It was with my 4.5 at the Rodeo that I played this game of moving the kill point. Maybe a larger kite
would hold more residual power but I was dumping the 4.5 when the gusts were over 40mph and it let go fine down by the handles ?
Pablo - 27-2-2007 at 08:35 PM
As long as it goes down with an ammount of power you're happy with I'd leave it like you have it. Kites like big red needed every inch you could get
to drop it. even then I'd sometimes be skudding on full brake as the kite backed down to the ground.