First off, is it possible to to a pendulum jump, then after redirecting and while you are still in the air to do another pendulum and increase lift pulling you farther into the air? My original thoughts are no, it would not work, but if anyone has tried this please let me know.

My second question is, when riding a larger kite, if a big gust comes during the jump and you get lofted much higher than you want, what is the safest way down? Obviously you want to ride it out as opposed to pulling the safety so you don't freefall 10+ feet, but would you just fly the kite to the Zenith or what?

I assume the zenith would give the best float back to the ground, but if the conditions are gusty enough to give you an extra 5-10 feet of air, it is possible that the kite would overfly, loft, and drop you anyways.

ok i would answer to question 1 is not really. There are some cases on the mountains ive seen where people will get a huge amount of horizontal speed after a kite loop, then send the kite around the jump pattern again for another boost. however, a downslope is usually needed for this.

The basis of adding power in a pendulum jump is the fact that you run (or ride) away from where the kite is pulling (some people say upwind). That movement stores power in the kite which you release when you power up and send the kite over your head. so unless you have a terrific amount of horizontal speed from your jump, I would say no for a flat ground jump.

And 2, like you said dont pull the safety. For beginners the safest way down is to park the kite above your head. What will happen is the kite will act like a parachute, and you will land standing, with the chance of some decent straightline ground speed. However this technique will also cause the kite to overshoot behind you as you come down and stall as soon as you've touched down again (your body weight keeps the kite flying while your still coming down). So like i said its the safe and easy way down, but not the prettiest.

advancing technique includes "S-turns" depending on how high you get, it may only take one redirect, back to where the kite came from, or many many turns if you are 40-50 ft up :wow:. What your doing is trying to keep the kite above you, while not letting your body weight cause it to over shoot. So you turn the kite back and forth over your head (at a quick rate) to use up the kite's speed and energy laterally across the zenith instead of straight behind you past zenith. Keep in mind though that you DO NOT want to get the kite far from zenith, this causes some crazy swinging and horizontal pancake landings

Does that make sense?

Makes sense to me flyboy. Good explanation. Sk8r, another reason that the double pendulum idea doesn't work is you don't really 'swing' as far as some illustrations or the name itself would infer. Once you're in the air the kites gonna do what it wants. It doesn't really care what you think about that. The "S" turns flyboy describes is about the only control you have, unless you're doing a kiteloop.

Yup both of these make sense. I understand what a kiteloop is, just not how to them.

My guess is to just crank the bar all the way to the right or left. If the kite is bigger, say 10+ meters, will you be able to complete the full loop before the kite rams into the ground? Is there any other, better way to do this?

Also, do you want to switch directions of your kiteloops often when the lines get tangled or can you continue the same way and simply spin the bar to untangle the lines? My worry is that the brake lines? may still be twisted.

Also, I assum that riding with twisted lines isn't bad or won't affect performance all that much, but the added friction will cause extra and undue wear on the lines than riding without the twists.

Finally - how often should lines be replaced? Is it similar to rockclimbing where they should be inspected every time before you fly the kite and look for damage or is there a certain amount of time? What kind of damage warrants a line or set of lines to be replaced? I know it would be devistating to be up some 10+ feet in the air and have the lines snap, or even worse just 1 line snapping would likely send the kite spiraling through the power window causing a nasty landing

Before you start jumping you should know how to do kite loops. You should be in complete control of the kite without even looking at it.

Do most static jumpers do kiteloops or is that just if you're moving?

I only kiteloop if im moving. and even then its rare, my 12 doesnt turn on a dime. Anyone else have trouble looping a big foil :puzzled: I see the LEI's scream through a kiteloop, while i just lumber through it hoping i can get it back above my head before i dig my grave using physics...

If i try looping while im static, the kite gets to about the bottom of the window, and i eat it hard being pulled downwind at the same time.

Quote:

Originally posted by power Do most static jumpers do kiteloops or is that just if you're moving?

i dont do loops for jumping--i think im pretty good at it, but i dont think i could pull off kiteloops without getting hurt