had a good day flying yesterday, winds were 15-20+ with occasional gusts. i'm really guessing at the wind speed but a 2m would cause me to lose footing, no scuds but definitly a good pull here and there. any the 2m in question is my son's
2m Firebee. i would be tracking right across the window and all of a suddden the kite would collapse as though theleading edge had hit some invisible wall. then as it dropped into the powerzone...well i'm sure you know the rest. anyways i'm afraid to let my son really fly this kite as i dont want him getting hurt. i know this kite has some quirks, is this something that a little tuning would take care of...?
in contrast my 1m profoil tracked like a champ... :singing:

Have you done all the tweaking on it from the previous post? Is it running power rings?

FWIW: Some of the stability issues might just be inherent in the kite. This is from the kbb blog:

Quote:

The kite will need a certain amount of tweaking before it will perform well. Firstly you will probably need to reduce the length in the main lines as the brakes will be too short, I found that reducing the length of the main lines by about 20-30cm was sufficient. Next will be the manufacture and fitting of power rings, this is an essential modification that connects the main and break lines via a loop; this will keep the kite in a curved shape rather than flattening out with the pull from slack break lines. Once these have been fitted the kite will fly faster and will pull harder. No matter what I did to this kite it was always unstable in comparison to slightly more refined or lower aspect ratio kites, I often found myself picking the kite up after it has suddenly lost pressure from within. This means the kite is not at all suited to gusty conditions. Also, any large objects such as trees or buildings up wind of you will cause the kite to fall out of the sky in infuriating regularity. Flying on a beach with an onshore breeze will give a very different experience; the kite has very high performance, flying very fast through the air. The speed and power is increased greatly if it worked in figures of eight. It has a tendency to fly above and beyond the edge of the wind window. This is not a good thing; it will go from being fully inflated and travelling at high speed to being emptied of all its air and ending up in a bin bag-like mess on the floor in an infuriating regularity.

Last fall I got a chance to fly and Sting II back to back with one of its much earlier predecessors (about the same size). The contrast between the two was like night and day. It was hard to tell whether the earlier rendition was more powerful or whether it was more a matter of the power delivery being more brutal and doled out in a distinct "on/off" manner. There was a lot of luffing and dropping into the power zone compared to the Sting just cruising through it at a fairly constant speed.

ATB,
Sam

Burn it. I had the same problem with the firebee 2.3m, in 30mph winds and for no real reason away from the edge of the window it totally collapsed into a ball and then popped back open in the middle of the window - gave me a serious concussion at Ocean Beach. Get rid of it immediately. For a kid I would go with a smaller beamer or a symphony stunt kite.