So... I may now officially be a member of the club.

Went out with the new V2 13m a couple weeks ago but the beaches had just opened so no good place to fly as we got spoiled in the winter with much coastline. Went inland to a large field, suited up and up went the V2. Started noticing it was a little gusty but figured it wasn't anything I could not handle.

Well - it was gustier than I first thought and I should have noted this from the kites reactions to the shifting winds that had to be from 5mph to some gusts of 15+. One gust in particular I decided just to go with it - pulled in and up I went. Fun at first and it felt like I just hung there and time stopped for a second. Continued to go up a few more feet (not many - 5 feet maybe?!) and then BANG! Dropped like a rock on my ankle and thought for sure it was broken...

Luckily, it was just a tweak and two weeks later, I am back to normal/healed but now I feel like a big baby and don't really want to push what I once thought I really wanted - to learn how to do it up right like soo many other PKFers. I used to check the weather every two minues to see if it was perfect for kiting and now I am just thinking I would rather go shopping or to a nice restaurant!?

Some of it is that I don't know what to do to get down nicely when you go up - redirect, obviously but knowledge is not the same as application - especially when it all happens so fast. Starting to think water lessons may be in order as it must be a least a little more forgiving to get dropped in H20 while learning how to land softer.

One thing is for sure - next time I kite on land, boots with ankle support will be a necessity (maybe a rabbit's foot as well!?)

Chud- I am sure someone with more exp will chime in but my first thought you were standing still when you went for the jump- moving makes the landing softer. the key to a redirect is to fly the kite back to the direction you were traveling and if you were standing still you cannot redirect back into the wind.
So if static jumping run to the right and slightly back with the kite at 1:00 keep running but turn the kite to go to 11:00 when the pressure gets to hard send the kite up to twelve and then pull bar in (all the time you are running you want the bar all the way out) when sending to twelve pull the bar in and pull a little harder on the right side so kite is flying back to 1:00. this will put you down much softer and keep the kite from over flying you and dropping you. Hope this helps.
Scott

Redirect and proper landing... No worries mate, ive done what u just wrote a dozen times (only once that took me out for a few weeks) sore couple of days tho, and I was back out.

Gusts are a PITA! So in order to handle the lofts and crazy gust induced jumps safely, you just need practice.... Go out on the mellow days, and just static jump... Take the kite to the edge, whip her back, and lean against the kite, and do little 1' jumps... Work on redirecting and landing softly, bend your knees, work on your balance, so when you land nothing gets tweaked... Then add a little run, do some 2-3'ers the same way. That way you really get a feel for the dynamics of a proper jump, without the "oh sh*t!" Factor of shifty gusty winds... After a while its just like when you first started flying, and not looking at the kite, now redirection, and soft landings become second nature... Of course, you'll always get a little wrecked sometimes... Ask anyone that rides, itll happen! But with some practice, you can minimize the painful crashes!

Tho I sometimes don't follow my own rule, my policy is not to huck in gusty. But sometimes you just can't help it when you load up and feel the kite want to lift.:embarrased:

Fly is right I think. Way safer to huck in motion than static flying.

Glad you're ok and getting some time in on the 13!

boosting huge depends on the surface for me.... I have the luxury of really soft sand

the most important
spot you landings early{see it in your head } before take off
slight body movment can help or hinder once you boosted up BIG TIME! {like} slight turn of your head and the body follows

I can't tell you how may times
i ate #@%$#! trying to stick an invert 360 spin with heal click


its way to late for me to think how I'm going to land like this


when i swing my legs back down loads the up kite again that helps me get that glide in for a soft landing

so
try to vision it before you take off

glad your OK

Quote:

Originally posted by KYTE SLINGER boosting huge depends on the surface for me.... I have the luxury of really soft sand I can't tell you how may times i ate #@%$#! trying to stick an invert 360 spin with heal click

invert? 360? spin?

Crap... I just wanna get off the ground and live to tell the grandkids about it someday!!!



Thanks for the feedback guys - helpful!

And yes Scott - I was not moving when I pulled in and for some reason I figured "it picked me up slow... it shall do the same putting me down" RRRRIIIIGGHHHTTT.


Also, how does one get over the feeling of it taking you away to another zip code. I only went 5 feet and it felt like I was never going to see land again?!?!!?

Chud- Gravity always wins (bummer) ....before long you will be trying to figure out how to stay up longer not worrying about the other zip code. I was able to cover 30+ feet on some jumps in jibe when i was not trying for huge just clean and it was an incredible feeling but without wheels underneath me would have been veeerrrryyy painful upon landing. Getting the kite in motion really does make it easier.
scott

panic is not an option in power kiting:wee:

I always wear boots when land riding, period. Road with running shoes, sandals, and even barefoot a couple times... Boots generally work out better in the long run. Though, they wont protect you from doing something silly.

I'm not sure about the PL kites, but I've had some "straight up" jumps with my S3 15m that went down nice and gentle. The key is to try to keep the kite directly overhead, if it goes behind you, the landing will NOT be nice. Generally, if you just pull the bar straight in and hold it there, you won't get too wrecked (but you will go downwind a bit).

Water will definitely make your landings a bit softer. I've definitely thrown much larger jumps over water than on land. And the movement piece helps a ton. However, if you jump high enough, or come down fast enough, water will feel just as hard as concrete...

Quote:

Originally posted by KYTE SLINGER panic is not an option in power kiting:wee:

well said!!!!

Interesting thing about the boots... I am not even sure I would be able to wear boots with the bindings. Going to have to check all the boards, but it seems like no matter how they were adjusted, I had to go with footwear that was more svelte lest I wanted to be married to the board.

AD72 recently mentioned having similar problems.

Of course, 661 Ankle Biters might be an alternative.

ATB,
Sam

Something to remember is that once you leave the ground you are at the mercy of the wind. Meaning that your anchor point is no longer an anchor point. With an anchor point (you) you can direct the kite in directions you want it to go and when you pull against the kite, it creates power which gives you lift. As soon as you leave the ground you can no longer pull against the kite - causing you to start moving downwind with the kite and the kite loses power/lift/pull. This is the reason that static jumping is so dangerous to do. With gusts, you get lofted off the ground very quickly but once you leave the ground you begin to dump the power out of the kite. With a gust, the power is going to hit hard and then disappear - combine the loss of the gust with the addition of your body and kite now moving downwind, you drop like a rock.

When moving, you create much more apparent wind as the kite is no longer dependent solely on the power of the wind, but is now depending on the apparent power of itself as it moves across the wind window. Hooking hard upwind while driving the kite to the apex gives the kite a ton of speed and power to give you a nice lofty jump - but because you are moving sideways, you don't move downwind nearly as quickly which allows the kite to maintain its power better, giving you a softer landing instead of up and straight down. Redirection is then required to move the kite from reaching the apex (causing a pendulum style jump) to redirecting it in the direction you are moving so that it will let you down much slower. Static jumping is much harder to do any type of redirect because you aren't really moving in any directions, you can only flip the kite back and forth trying to create apparent wind so that you descend slower.

Anyways, thats about the best I can explain it for now. Glad your ankle is ok and not broken. Be safe and keep going, it will come.

Hope that helps.

just a question if you know you are going to hit hard could you redirect and convert the force into forward motion scudding? straight down looks painful, might not have the time but still curious.

Ditto flyguy. Spent several hours doing that exact proccess untill I could hear the sound of elevator music. One difference was I was in butter smooth winds.
Gusts are fast moving air pushing thru slower moving air and what you get along the boarders is a bunch swirling twisting rolling air. In the winter, if there is a little snow in the air you can actualy see the mess that gusty wind is. Other than overflying, what may have happened is you launched into a bowl of milk not knowing that it was really a blender!
I think Feyd has mentioned in past posts about "punching thru" gusts and the gust munching capabilities of the arcs , these qualities are most active and valuable when the kite is down in the window and in motion like zipping along on a snowboard.
Flying static in a blender is doable but has its own set of issues.

Yeah, stop watching the wind, go to a restaurant, get fat ... sell me your S3 12 :D

Gust dropped off on you?

sorry to hear about yur ankle injury chud ,i would crash every time i jump to the right ,so now at my age i just jump to the left. i wear sneekers so they are ok with me .what type of surface are you on-riding.

good to hear you're not broken! maybe bruised a bit psychologically, but nothing a few safe and smooth sessions can't patch up.

mmm, I took the slow and steady approach, step by step....but in smoother winds only. Still don't feel really comfortable jumping in punchy gusty conditions.

So....I've got a FS and an arc...and knowing you have a speed3, a float monster!!, my first question is why not learn jumping on your speed3 in light and smooth winds? It definitely won't be dropping you unless you *grossly* overfly...it's nearly a paraglider. I learned jumping on my flysurfer and it was awesome! I got my arc late in the winter season, got some jumps on it but still haven't dialed in the arc jump. Definitely different. In my limited experience, the redirect seems far more important on the arc than the FS for maintaining float.

If you try your FS,....
Maybe fly statically in really really light winds (ie, kite barely stays in the air), and practice the send back and redirect kite motion over and over again without getting air, till it is simply habit and have reasonable control over the sendback speed. You could try a few small static jumps, but I only did *very* small static jumps before trying it on the move. When moving, ...no reason to huck it either...go step by step, send it back only to noon, or less, with a fairly slow send back. This will NOT get you air, and that's the point. Keep on adding a bit of speed to the send back till you get some air. And, even if get a bit higher than expected, keep the kite overhead, just don't do any dramatic motions on the bar. You're kite will take care of the rest and set you down like a feather. The feeling of 'hitting the moon' will dissipate a lot simply knowing how much send back gets a small jump. And...the float will give you a lot of confidence to get more air. Then, when you feel confident, step by step, simply add the elements needed to get bigger jumps. That's the turtle road I took anyway, and it got me to medium jumps, nothing huge on land yet.

Yeah, the arcs tend to drop you like a rock - at least, the Synergy did. I always seem to be way over-powered on the Charger so there's ample float

I started off jumping on the water - actually jumping on the beach :D you'll have seen the silly Whee! Boing! videos no doubt. Those and simple sends from side to side with a sheet in when the kite passes zenith ... then on the water with the board, load'n'pops then carves up a wave face and now, I think I'm doing it properly and am trying to go as big as possible cos - rightly or wrongly - I got the confidence from all the little jumps

... there's nothing like that first one when you go UP and then it's like "WTF I should be coming down already" and you take a good look around as you float downwind :wee:

I compare the depower jumps to those YANK up then SLAM down jumps on handles - never again

Good stuff guys - yeah, I will be using the FS and have in the past to get a feeling for it but it is a bit slow to get going for the redirect so more practice is def needed.

It certainly is one big paraglider - thinking of getting the 15 for Anderson as the last kite in the quiver - at least for now but have to sell all the others!!!

It sounds stupid but flying a bigger kite in winds 15-20mph is much easier on your body than in lower winds. You think hey I won't go as high so I can't get dropped to far, but in reality if your kite is moving fast even in low winds you go higher than you expect only to sink quickly. Bigger kite will float you down much softer and is easier on your joints. Hangtime is everything on jumps. I know it seems backwards and I sound like a hot rod trying to show off but if you are ten feet up would you rather have a parachute above your head or an umbrella? Ask flyguy, he's learned to jump big this year

Well said A.



P.S. I HATE FRIGGEN LIGHT WINDS.

Most of us go through a second thought phase at some point. Add the injury and you are having normal feelings. I think you are just maturing as a kiter.

I am with the rest. You were standing still and lifted. A flysurfer may have floated you down paraglider style but arcs work a bit different. Without a doubt arcs work better in motion.

I am often different and found I was struggling with the redirect with my Flysurfers and not jumping the right way at all. The faster turning of my 15m Syn allowed me to dial the redirect in a way I had never before. I like both kites but as a begining jumper find them both very different.

As far as the off to space feeling. What seems to be is that it's only scarey the 1st time sort of thing. Like how scarey the power in the kite felt at 1st. 1st 5 footer seemed like the moon. It isn't so scarey now but 15ft :wow: