Winds were great today! Having the chicken loop locked in made all the difference in the world. Underlying winds were perfect for the 8.5m, gusts had me overpowered (7m NS3 might have been perfect!). Some serious sideways pulls every once in a while. Also, had a mini VOBE, with my seat meat coming about six inches out the buggy seat with the kite high overhead pulling up like crazy during a coming about.

Today was my second solid session getting rocketed around by a NS3. I got better and better as the session went on. It is super cool how you can fly a Star with so little input on the bar, just making micro adjustments to keep the kite at a set altitude. I now do know how much extra power these puppies generate during sining - wow!

I've got to say, however, that I am really looking forward to the enhanced features of the Long Star with its depowering feature when moving the bar out. I was buffeted by strong gusts today on a number of occasions and it was really hard to shed energy. Particularly if I was already moving fast and the kite was low to the ground. A gust would speed me up with a fair amount of sideways pull taking me off my desired line even with strong counter steering. I could get energy out of the system only by bringing the kite up high and a little back, but to get to that point I had to bring the kite up through the wind window. The joys of a FB I suppose. On the fly I didn't pull the little yellow ball which in retrospect might have helped.

Any suggestions my fellow Star warriors?

Well for what it's worth Steve. I don't have an issue Popeye arming my kites. Of course, I don't have straight 20 mile beach runs either. Usually the wind rips the kite away a little to dump some power. That or I keep the yellow ball between my finger and thumb. Too much side pull, and I go down a kite size. It's just a compromise. Me personally, I prefer to be underpowered rather than overpowered anyway. I'd rather worry about working the kite more to gain power, than worry about dumping power. Thats just me though. That of course applies to all my kites. Not just stars.

Steve kite size choice is critical. With time you will always know which size you need. These are not kite that you want to fly grossly overpowered because of the lack of depower. It sounds like you lean towards liking your depower or peak. Nothing wrong with that. They do handle gusts better. For what it's worth, I prefer the direct power and handling of the nasa stars to my peak given I have a minimum wind to stay moving. If you have days that winds are lulls of 5 and gusts of 20 then you have no choice but to use a depower. All other days with semi-janky wind, I prefer the nasa star.

I prefer not to use the yellow ball when hooked in because it's easy to let slip. I only pull the safety in an emergency. The trick is learning to do controlled fishtails while moving for speed / power check. This allows you to keep on trucking without hitting safety or yellow ball. I used the safety a fair amount early on. IMO with depower you learn much less about buggy control because you can just let the bar out.

Jason - great points - thanks! I've got a gaping hole in my quiver now between my my 4.0m NS3 and 8.5m NS3. I do have a 7.0m Long Star on order. Depending on how it is powered compared to the other Stars I'm fill in the gap with one more FB kite. What's a girls to do?

The wide range on depower makes kite selection much easier on us inland guys, I'll have to admit.

That's what I mean Sean. Not riding depowered with the ball pulled in. But having the ball in my fingers just incase I need to dump all power.

Balls in hand... Got it.

Quote: Originally posted by Windstruck

Balls in hand... Got it.

I got my Universal bar today and strung it up with the lines from my original Born-bar. I'm excited to try it, going wider with larger NS3s and narrower with smaller ones. I'll try and get some video and do some testing. Stay tuned fellow Born enthusiasts!

Quote:

IMO with depower you learn much less about buggy control because you can just let the bar out.

Sean - you made some very good points a couple of days ago that I somehow missed until just now. I think you are absolutely right. Sheeting out the bar on a Peak is so easy for dumping power that I do get less focused on buggy control. Very good points. I'm going to focus on that next time I'm out with my Stars. Thanks for the pointers!

Nice looking bar Steve! Curious how the NS3 does.

Afternoon Star fans! There wasn't a square meter of open field in my town today because of some stupid soccer tournament. 9000 folks have supposedly descended on our little town. What were they thinking?

Not to be at a loss, I flew my four NS3s static with no harness going largest to smallest. I put my lines in what I'll call hole #4 (widest) on my new bar for my 8.5m, in hole #2 for my 4.0m, and in hole #1 (narrowest) for my 3.2m and 2.5m. It's a good thing I went from largest to smallest because the wind really picked up as I was doing this. Things worked exactly as expected! The 8.5 had a bit more pep and the 3.2 and 2.5 were detuned a bit so they didn't jump around like a scalded cat quite so much.

Bottom line, if folks think this is a good thing I would consider replicating this. I posted earlier where you can get one of these bars. The construction is superb and it is super easy to move the lines.

Yeah!!! :cool2:

Thanks for the update on the Bar Steve,... thats great info.

Awesome Steve! Sounds like its gonna work out for the NS3s as well. In known it really helped my NS2. I'm using the long bar for 5.5 and up, and the shorty for 4m on down.

I made an enhancement to my donkey lock-in for my adjustable Born-Kite bar. It works much better than my original version. Hardware store run included 3ft of paracord (I think it was 3mil) and 1ft of semi-flexible tubing. It is hard to pull the line through the tube. I took a needle with some strong thread and larkshead knotted it to the middle of the paracord. Then just drop the needle through the tube and pull the paracord through the tube (it will be doubled over). I think you can see the rest in the photo.

I flew static with this yesterday and this longer set up works much better than the shorter one I originally built. [I know, insert "that's what she said" joke here]. Remember to set up the donkey on the opposite side to the chicken loop release so it doesn't interfere with the release if you have to pull the ripcord.

Looks good Steve. Looks like you got the pic posting down?

I like it Steve... looks good!

Like I said... I'm totally going to do that.

Spenser - go big or go home! The 12" donkey worked much better than the shorter one I originally crafted. It's length also lets you larkshead knot it to the fabric part instead of the smooth plastic tube part of the chicken loop so it won't slide around. Super easy to put together.

I'm thinking about doing that as well at some point. The ozone harness was not an issue because the harness would slide around to the direction of pull. My divine harness stays put when tightened and the loop would threaten to slip off. I leave it slightly loose to accommodate but might try the donkey stick to wear it tight again

More teaser wind yesterday. Winds forecast 13mph. Actual winds 5-10 with a very occasional 12 gust maybe. Didn't take the 8.5 blade and should have. Used the 7m star and would have benefited greatly with a 10m. Luckily, the wind picked up for about 10 minutes which allowed me to get a taste of buggy nirvana again if only for a few minutes. 10 minutes out of an hour and a half. Good exorcise walking back upwind at least.

Wow, the Walk of Shame seen as upside. .

Glad you got a taste at least brotha. We've got rain today (that's a good thing around here) but maybe some wind Wednesday afternoon. Stuff dreams are made of!

Sounds like all of my recent buggy sessions Sean

Glad you got out though... see, we NEEEEED that 10m, right!

No wind worth having in these parts

So I got some GREAT wind today and decided to head out for a lunchtime static session at the park. I called wifey for the typical lunchtime check-in and found out she and the 3 youngest kiddos happened to be close by, so I invited them to join me at the park... so after about 15 minutes of static flying, the wee people showed up and wanted to know if I had THEIR kites? I grounded the 7m and even though I missed out on my first session of any type in a little while and some killer wind, I had an OUTSTANDING time chasing the kids around with their Ariel and Diamond single liners.... lotsa family fun today for sure.

Spencer - family time is always GREAT time. My kids are 21 and 17; get those times in while you still have them! :D

Nasa fans: a little something to get you through the long summer lulls... :D

Hey Steve. Nice to see someone getting a ride in. I will be very interested on your thoughts on the differences between the Peak 2 and the NS3 when you get the wind to test the P2 out properly. I see the 'backwards flying' bit at the start of the video there - I think you turned towards the kite a little too early and you can see the lines go slack which caused the backward bit to happen. In light wind, you can turn the kite first and almost let it come level with your shoulder then turn as tight as you can to follow it round in the buggy (even gong a bit upwind to keep the lines taught) - that should keep the lines a lot tighter and more power through the turn. Experiment with turning the kite back first and then progressively delaying the buggy turn more and more and see how you feel about it. Also, if you need to slow down, go hard upwind to slow, then turn kite and follow tight with the buggy. The bigger turning radius of the buggy, the more slack can get into the lines.

As the wind increases and kite size gets smaller, you'll turn the buggy sooner and sooner. With something like the 4m Ozone Access XT, I may actually turn the buggy first, then bring the kite round - it also depends on your direction too, it can get a little tricky to turn and keep power if you're heading a fair bit downwind already.

Nice Steve! What were the winds?

Sean - I'd say the winds were 6-10mph. It is probably hard to tell from the video, but the wind was quite different at the "left" (North) end of the field than the "right". These are sports fields behind our town's middle school and the way the winds were blowing yesterday had them coming over the school and then onto the field (opposite the normal flow). The school is at the North end, so as I went farther to the right towards the apartment buildings the wind cleaned up and sped up quite a bit!

John - I'm most interested in that comparison as well. I appreciate your tips on timing the turn with different size Stars and keeping the lines taught. I'm trying! :D

If you saw my sister video that I posted about the same time in the General Peak 2 thread you will see my maiden voyage of my new yellow 6m P2. Talk about "amateur hour" in that video! I was considerably underpowered and had to work the kite like crazy to get enough grunt to stay moving. Wind conditions would have had me normally with my 12m P2 but I wanted to try out my new toy!

As an inland rider I get some serious janky wind conditions. The depow range of the P2's have saved me from some real danger quite a few times. I've been lifted and pulled out of my buggy several times by gusts using my NS3s, mostly with my 8.5m but once with my 4.0m too. I just haven't been quick enough pulling the yellow ball to depow. Around where I ride wind can double in speed in an instant sometimes and if it happens at the wrong time things get "busy". I know a fair amount of this is piloting issues. I am hugely hopeful that the 7.0m LongStar that I have on order from Steffen will allow for some meaningful depow with the bar push away as featured on his video. From the photos the fabled UltraStar also looks like it will have depow capabilities too. For me it's a sheer matter of safety. If the new Stars offer more safety on the fly like that you may see me swapping out my quiver a bit. I absolutely love my NS3s but things can get dicey in the serious jank.

Final note - I had my adjustable width bar all the way wide (60cm) for this session. This made the kite quite responsive to turn input and I was most pleased with its action off of those wider tie-in points!

I'm wondering if you could make a 'deadman' leash for the NS3's. Attach a leash somewhere around the downtube -between your legs - and attach the other end to the depower line on the NS3's. If you get lifted away from the bug it automatically triggers the depower. I think Soliver has something like that and it was discussed in a previous thread somewhere.... could be worth a look.

Steve, I would skip the yellow ball and just hit the safety in an emergency. Usually I can feel myself reaching the point of emergency with the nasa stars and have enough time to pull the safety. Myself and a lot of the nasa star folks on here come from a strong fb background and in comparison, the stars give you much more time to react and have much less lift. Hooked in with a fb foil can spank you before you even realize what happened. Don't be afraid to hit the safety if you have to. I actually pulled it a fair amount until I got better about choosing the right size for conditions and before I got better at scrubbing speed / power by fishtailing. I very rarely have to hit the safety now. Also, there are conditions that are much better suited to the peak for the wide wind range. That's why I got the 6 meter peak and not a larger one. My high winds are much gustier than light winds. I use my 5.5 and 7 star in the buggy frequently but when I have 4 meter wind it's usually 10 mph gusting 20's. There isn't a star that works as well as a 6m peak for handling huge gusts and I suspect there won't be until the ultra star. Generally if there's wind then I have no problem using the nasa stars but it's that exceptionally gusty stuff that I like the peak a little better for. This is also why I plan on getting a 10 ns3 instead of a light wind depower. It's cheaper and I simply don't need the depower when it's really light wind. I wouldn't kick a 12m peak out of bed though.