Hi guys, thought I'd introduce myself. I'm fairly new to stunt kiting and brand new to power kiting. I have a Prism Nexus, Synapse 140 and 170, and bigkid just hooked me up with a Peter Lynn Twister IIr 3.0. I'm 6'3" 190lb, btw.

I'm in the bay area and took it out for a spin yesterday at Shoreline Park. I waited too long to set it up so while the winds would have (probably) been fine when I got there, they were way too high when I started flying it. Easy 15mph constant with gusts to 20+. I figured out pretty quickly I was in over my head so I packed it in. It wasn't a complete waste, I learned plenty about 4-line systems in those 10 minutes I had it aloft, and I now have a set of kite killers arriving tomorrow.

There was one guy static flying his landboard rig, had to be 15m. No idea how he remained on the ground...

Anyways, looking forward to learning to fly this safely!

welcome around
cant set up and pack up enough...so underrated, really want to have that down pat
do this wisely and soon you'll be hot launching that 3m in 20+

Welcome. 3m twister will be great fun. I had the 4m.

No need to apologize for being a newbie. I reckon each and every sole on this forum claimed that moniker at some point. Great that you already have BigKid in your circle. Should you ever be in the mood to jump in a buggy you would do well to talk through an AQR with him. AQRs are sort of like seatbelts in a car. You'll go weeks, months, or even years never "using" one and then just like that it saves your life. As you've no doubt already learned in that 10 minute session you described power kites are both a whole lot of fun and something to really garner your respect.

Have a great, safe, time out there. Welcome to the tribe. :cool2:

Well, I just checked windfinder.com...while it was predicted that gusts would max out at 12mph, actual recordings for yesterday at the time I started flying had the average windspeed at 17+mph with gusts at 25+. Whoops...

The wind hasn't been terribly cooperative, but it finally picked up a little bit yesterday. I've been trying to fly every weekend and my skills are improving, but yesterday I had to fly a lot closer to a 3-story building than normal, so I got to experience firsthand why you don't want to do that.
"Excellent smooth wind for a power pass.....aaaaaaand now my kite is inside out and tumbling to the ground".

Ah well, still had some fun.

Long as you're having fun that's #1. Be careful though those wind shadows can have a disastrous effect sometimes on your ability to stay on your feet. Think, "bringing the kite into the window, no power so i relaxed, then BAM on my face". The wind is pretty good about shifting after an passing an obstacle and creating all kinds of eddies and vortices which can manifest themselves into feeling like lulls and gusts. Add one of those "gusts" to a real gust of wind and things can get spicy.

We've all flown behind something stupid, you're not along. Just a friendly warning from one who has experienced it. Flight field selection is a skill that we all could all pay more attention to.

I got out to the beach twice this weekend with the twister 3.0...saturday, 5mph steady wind. Boring, but I was able to launch and keep it airborn for some figure-8s. I've got the low-wind skills pretty well dialed in. Nearly zero pull that day. Probably would have been a good day to fly the 5.6, but no rush there...finding low-wind days isn't a problem in this area.

Sunday was a different beast. Steady 15-17mph wind, my first scudding session. Biggest problem is the beaches near me are very narrow. 75' lines plus dragging me 50' and now I'm up against a cliff. I had it in the air for maybe 10 minutes before I packed it in and did some skywriting with the Synapse.

The winds were again too high for my skills; frustrating I haven't been able to find 10-12mph wind in the last month. I think I need to work on launching at the edge of the window and bringing the kite to zenith instead of letting it power across the window at 9-10 o'clock.

Anyone have a recommendation for an anenometer? I bought a cheapo off amazon and of course it wouldn't even power on. I figure the $20 ones on there aren't accurate enough to be useful, but I'd like to keep the price under $100.

send me your addy and I'll ship a free one to you. It was given to me by another member a couple years ago and I only used it once.

Wow, thank you!

Let's just check the wind report for Saturday...

"Winds from the south at 10mph..." :D
"...gusting to 30mph." (ノಠ益ಠ )ノ