So, I went out this recent Saturday to enjoy a few hours on the local beach again with the Charger. It was blowing about 15-18 mph pretty steady with no real gusts straight on shore. Perfect day to fly. I was practicing full speed down turns the whole session. Can you see where this is going yet? Anyway, I rode for several hours. I was out from about 10am until I packed up about 3pm. At about 2:45pm, I was zooming at a pretty good clip down the beach and setting up for my next turn. I brought the kite up high, and then dived it hard and started to bring the buggy around as the kite downlooped through the power. Normally once the kite gets parallel with the ground, I would let go of the bar and allow it to spin under the line tension to untwist at this point. I let the bar go, but not long enough. I grabbed the bar wrong way up and started to sheet in to power the rest of the way through the turn. The kite suddenly takes off back up through the window, does a full loop back the other way and nosedives straight into the ground, jerks me backwards out of the buggy, and relaunches while I am skidding on my back across the sand. I have never pulled the safety so fast.

At the time, I had no idea what I did wrong. I couldn't figure it out until I got home and checked the video to see what happened. I got up, dusted myself off, tied the safety leash off to my buggy and inspected the kite. No blown cells, but one of the spar pockets got a pretty good battle scar. It looks like the outer vinyl layer tore just a little, but the Kevlar fibers inside look fine. It doesn't look like a blowout so much as a scratch. I will try to take some pictures and post up for people to take a look at and see if they agree. Luckily the deflate zipper on the rear actually opened up just a tiny bit to let some air out during the epic boofing. I am still not sure how the zipper opened, because it was fully closed when I launched, and I checked to make sure all teeth were in tact afterward and it operates normally. I will try to put the video together when I get home tonight.

All in all, I have to say that was quite a pleasant OBE. I barely knocked the wind out of myself, and I immediately hit the safety(which worked perfectly). I was actually surprised when watching the video at how fast I reached for and deployed the safety after being yanked out with the kite fully powered relaunching itself.

yikes! I can picture the whole thing and can even hear the impact - gotta see the video. I hope the kites okay, keep an eye on the spar pockets and pull out the rods to check the ends. You have likely cut through the vinyl end cap and have the exposed metal ends that will just cut the top of the spar pockets unless you tape them up (spar ends).
When we had the first brand new Phantom at NABX couple years back I was setting one up with Bobby and when i went to launch and there was something reversed and it was very embarrassing to launch and see the kite do a big arc around and i let go of the bar but a line leader was wrapped on the bar end and the kite bounced off the ground - ouch.
Glad you are okay and had the reaction to pull the release, good for you.

Dang bro. Glad your ok first . Kudos for cat like reflexes.

It also hurts to see a kite slam the ground

Would like to see the vid too Demo. Not for amusement, but education.

Glad your ok. You need to take it easy so you don't miss jibe.

Yeeeeouch!

Glad you survived... I noticed from your story that this was near the end of the session for you... Was it your show stopper?... That cosmic sign that said "ok... I'm done for today."? LOL

Can't wait to see the vid, and do preserve yourself for JIBE... we have to get racing, Cookie Monster versus the Black Betty twins!!

Lol, Soliver! Yes actually I reset my safety, walked my lines, and packed it up after that. I decided to end on a relatively good note. Actually, I was really hungry because it was almost 3:00 and I had not had anything to eat since 9:00 that morning! I am editing the video now. Just waiting for it to finish encoding before I upload it to the 'Tube for all to see!

Update! In about 10-15 minutes, the video will be live on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/cqI_qTe_Kt8

glad u ok, now you know how to make it fire! thats dynamic power , indeed different than static power, and thats the power u want ! it is an element of doing airs..... load,control and timing ....BOOM!

Wow... It looked like you just had some tight lines and loaded up like PHREE said. If you just kept steering up, I bet you could've landed on your feet. Incidentally, I had a similar crash (sans OBE) when I killed the venom. Glad you and your kite are okay!



?? Flash issues? That's new. How about a link.
http://youtu.be/3AHZdPqKC44

Ouch. Sand really is hard at times. Again, Glad you OK!!
Nice safety deploy though.
Yes bro. Keep yourself in one piece til JIBE

Nice riding Demoknight! Looks like a fun place to cruise. Nice job on pulling the quick release so fast!

Of course the lines were loaded, I was pulling a pretty quick down turn! You want the lines loaded to pull you through the turn without losing speed. Like a kiteloop but slower and close to the ground.

@Proletariat I was holding the bar backwards and didn't realize it when I crashed the kite. I never took my hand away from the bar to let it spin, and that was my mistake. I had no idea I was holding the bar backwards, just knew it was going towards the ground fast. Right before the kite goes down, you can see me let go of the bar and it spins on its own. I don't think I could have landed on my feet in that situation because I was jerked backwards out of the bug at the same time the kite hit. I was only dragged because it relaunched immediately after bouncing off the sand, and that is when I got my feet under me and pulled the safety.

Pretty sweet to have that on video (don't feel like you need to one-up your video though!). I agree you right yourself and nabbed the safety pretty quick thereby ending the ride. Also nice to see Great Lakes buggying -- I grew up on the lakes, but didn't find kiting till I moved here to Florida. I'd love to try it back on my childhood turf sometime.

Anyways, I'm always amazed at how far you end up away from the buggy in an OBE like this. I tried something stupid once and ended up going over the handlebars as it were fully lit on a kite. I hit the sand after doing my version of superman and had the wind knocked out of me for several minutes. After I recovered myself I counted off how far I had flown. 40 ft! Crazy!

Quote: Originally posted by kiteballoon

ended up going over the handlebars as it were fully lit on a kite.

I had an OBE similar to that in a session about 2 mo back. I had out my 4m Core and it was kinda gusty. Almost as soon as my butt hit the buggy seat after launching the kite a gust yanked me right up out of the seat. I somehow kept my feet under me and landed a good 10 ft forward of the bug and immediately let go... DEPLOY THE KITE KILLERS!! It was quite spectacular that I was somehow able to land on my feet.

I caught it with the GoPro mounted on top of the helmet, but the angle of the camera was set funny and you can't really tell much about what's going on.

I feel a little better now about picking me up an AQR.

The funny part is how far my buggy rolled without me in it... I look up and the buggy is 40ft in front of me!