It was a light wind day at Rattlesnake Reservoir. Average wind speed around 10km/hr with the top gust at 16.9km/hr.
Perfect day to get the U-turn Nitro 6.9m Nitro Evo II cruising.
You can see it in the background.

It was a great day to get used to the kite. I knew I was building up some nice speeds, but was surprised when I looked at the GPS. Top speed 54.4km/hr. Love that kite.

is there like a non-digital wind speed thing?

I think the non digital wind speed thing is called a flag.

...or just your senses. You'll actually feel the wind best on your face, close your eyes and turn until the pressure is equal on both cheeks, then open your eyes and you'll be looking directly upwind. works far better than the wet fingertip deal, that's for hollywood. and while you're doing it, you look like a loon making an invocation to the wind gods, not a bad thing to do...
and that's for wind direction.

for wind speed on the cheap, get to know the visual indicators for the beaufort wind speed scale, you'll find it near the bottom of this thread:

http://www.powerkiteforum.com/viewthread.php?tid=7965&pa...

wind sense is something most people need to learn, but once you've got it, it soon becomes unconscious. you sound like you're well addicted to wind :frog: so you'll likely get it pretty quick.

erm... (edit) ...sorry for the hijack PW, I can't believe you got 54km/h on a avg 15-18 km/h (?) wind day... :o sounds fantastic, not many places to fly here in SW BC, those lakes must be amazing for long runs... :wee:

I was just so impressed with the 54.4km/hr max speed considering the wind speed that I had to take a picture. Was a fun day. Lots of windicators and "experience" as well as the digital read out...

Great day.

"windicators" - that's awesome!

Wow, nice job thats hauling along nicely. Sweet ride.
We have been having 16 to 25 km winds up here depower's everywhere and some Arc's. Sabre was hauling along nicely for everyone, knee been killing me had to sit it out but couldn't resist a couple static jumps. More new faces everyday and leaving with smiles on there faces.

I am guessing that you knew the wind was 10 - 12 kph ?

Clearly you had more trouble judging your speed + it was your speed that thrilled you.

Another example of, " if I had the money for a wind meter I would buy a GPS " !

I can guess the wind . I can be amazed at my speed ! :roll:

The wind was similar today. 6km/hr on the low end and around 15 on the high end - average about 10km/hr. On the windmeter in the picture you can see the average wind speed at the bottom was 8.9km/hr. The feeling of being able to build speed over 50km/hr with that wind surprised me. The nitro was smooth and stable.