Not a happy kiting day today. The winds at the sod farm were a steady 15mph but the sprinklers were moved to the middle of the useable grass area and the grass was soaked. So I decided to try out a couple of parks only a few miles away from the farm. The grass was perfect, plenty of room and few people. Unfortunately I now understand the concept of a “wind shadow” firsthand. I remember Dagon saying those fields look good but the wind gets turbulent because of the houses and trees. Of course I had to learn it myself. The tops of the trees were bent over in a steady state but the wind at ground level was inconsistent. This made it very difficult to get the kite up into the sky. Once it was up, the air was very turbulent. It seemed whenever I would stop flying static and get into the buggy, I would go 10 yards and the kite would fold up suddenly and drop from the sky. But I just kept on trying to get it to work for hours with the Apex II and the Beamer. I did not have the Pulse with me. Perhaps the closed cell would have worked better. It was just frustrating seeing the wind, knowing it was perfect in the open farmland and not being able to harness it at the field surrounded by houses.

Anyways next weekend I am off to the beach in Alameda to give the kitesurfing a go with the Pulse.

i got into that this weekend...
My girlfriends family has a spot of land out in the toolies, but its surrounded on all sides by trees... open area in the middle, but trees allaround, i had the same issues. A pain to get the kite up, and once it was up it'd randomly lose wind and fold up.

Its all good tho, got a mean session in last night, at my usual spot, after a storm rolled through... tired as hell today tho

This is the story of ALL my local flying fields. :dunno:

There was one incredibly huge, local park that could sustain all kinds of activities at once. But the county built several schools there instead.

This is the reason I'm looking at extending the lines for static not much info on doing that so I guess I'll give it a try.

I was thinking there would be a simple way to connect two sewn loop ends. Looks like one will get a knot for a larks head on the other. Still will be kind of messy. Might have to send a loop thru then take the far end thru it 4x's uggg.

But I always wanted to know how the wind would be up around 164 feet and how the control will be. Hmmm, if the responce is slower would that affect killing the kite also?

I always have tree problems.

Same pain here. I've got a 16 acre field right across the street from me shaped in an "L" so it *should* be solid for N. NW, W, S, E and NE winds. It would indeed except for the trees surrounding it and the neighborhoods beyond the trees. THere is one point if you're on a N->S line (if you're lucky enough to get the wind right) that you can feel a surge of air where the streets point to the trees on the neighborhood side.

So sad....so much space and not very useable.......

So it does not matter even if you have a gust eating Arc, the wind shadow still causes problems?

I've heard it said that the wind shadow can be up to 7x as long as the height of the obstruction, downwind. And you get reflected shadow in front of obstructions too

My local spot is a park between stop banks of a wide river, and I get clean flow above the stop bank but it can almost totally die at ground level ... better than nothing though!

Wind shadow is either a dead spot or a messy turbulent air. I've tried a few locales and the kite would actually fly backwards ...!