IMHO, one of the true benefits of a single-skin quiver is how small they pack down and how light the final package is! My Born-Kite quiver is now
complete (yeah, right). From right to left in the picture below: NS3 2.5, NS3 3.2, LS 3.0, NS3 4.0, LS 5.0, LS 7.0, NS3 8.5, NS3 10.0, NS3 12.5, bar
bag with long line and street kite set ups, and bar bag with 5-line LS set up. All this fits in nicely into one fine PL Lynx backpack. All in, the
backpack weighs 16.4 lbs. Pretty impressive on Steffen's part!
I just got the LSs and the 12.5m NS3 in the mail today so they have yet to be flown. We've got rain in the forecast the next two days (of course) but
hopefully Sunday will open up or early next week late in the days. I'll try to get some GoPro footage of the LSs or 12.5 in my buggy depending on
conditions.
They are of nice quality. They come in different sizes and are sized by their volume in liters. If you want to go that route I can recommend which
sizes to get for which kites. I could have gotten away with slightly smaller ones in a couple of cases and hit it just right with others. To get
them in the sacks I fold the kites until they are the width of the sacks and then roll them up tightly as you would a sleeping bag.
I use these sacks with my Peak2 quiver as well. As you will see there are two sizes of longer sacks. I have my 4m and 6m in the smaller long sacks
and my 9m and 12m in the larger long sacks.
MORE IMPORTANTLY - congratulations on your forthcoming 10m NS3 ownership!!!!
Steve, the stuff sacks and bag look very orderly and neat. Nice job.
I was forced to consolidate my kite wad into a bag this week because a customer had to ride with me and I didn't want him to see a back seat full of
kites. Not quite as neat as your set up.
Jason, your kite ocd would have a fit. Worst of all because I have all four wadded up in there AND the bridle pig tails are not in their transport
loops :o That ones actually driving me nuts at the moment.
AND the bridle pig tails are not in their transport loops :o That ones actually driving me nuts at the moment.
I've never seen an NS2 in the flesh before. I take it the transparent loops you refer to are on the top middle of the leading edge for securing the
three bridle systems? On the NS3s these are color coded to match their respective bridle pigtails (red, yellow, blue).
If I am interpreting this correctly then I think I might break out in hives just thinking about your STARS in that chaotic state.
Well here you go steve. Still not in the flesh but just showing the transport loops and a rainbow of ns2. I had to sort them out anyway.
The last picture is the bridle leaders hooked to transport loops on my 2.5. I have longer leaders than stock on it so I don't have to adjust anything
on the bar side for its small size
Sean - thanks for the clarification. For some reason I read "transparent" when of course you wrote "transport". I'm with you guys by the way - I too
think the nS2s look better than the ns3s. Something about the vertical stripes just works better than the horizontal.
That is a beautiful quiver you have yourself there. If I get up for it on a sunny day I'll lay all my STARS out on my back yard and take a picture of
them from above on my deck. I also want to take a picture of the 2.5 next to the 12.5. That should be dramatic!
Spencer, what did you find out about the vat stuff and is bigmike still in the born-kite game?
Steffen would not remove the VAT... Said he'd only do that for dealers, so I contacted Big Mike and he said he was no longer dealing in NASA Stars,
... Steffen worked with me on the price a little to offset it (but not a lot). If I wanted to, I could probably get refunded by the German Gov't but I
imagine it's a royal hassle for $80.
I even had a little left over to invest in some stuff for the Mandolin :D
I like the stack Sean, but I actually prefer the colors on the NS3's better.
I keep all of mine in their original bags and the bags live together in my PL buggy bag. I have a spare bag cuz the one that came with my 7m had a bad
zipper so Steffen sent me another and I keep my harness, weights and ground stake in that one.
Spencer, what did you find out about the vat stuff and is bigmike still in the born-kite game?
Steffen would not remove the VAT... Said he'd only do that for dealers, so I contacted Big Mike and he said he was no longer dealing in NASA Stars,
... Steffen worked with me on the price a little to offset it (but not a lot). If I wanted to, I could probably get refunded by the German Gov't but I
imagine it's a royal hassle for $80.
I even had a little left over to invest in some stuff for the Mandolin :D
I wondered if that was the case since he had removed them from the website.
Jason, I too really prefer the colors of the ns2 but I like the black star on the ns3's
New Kite Curse in full effect today. Had a small break in the rain we've had the last few days this afternoon and some wind at the house. I loaded up
my gear and went in search of space and wind. Couldn't find either in the same place to save my life. Got set up with the new 12.5m NS3 but only
managed to launch it twice but never long enough to get my butt in the buggy before it died. Some wind finally started to come in, just in time for a
soccer team to show up and take over the field.
Alrighty Born-Kite fans, here's a quickly assembled video of my first day flying with my new 12.5m NS3.
Interesting kite. It's BIG! As such there is more fabric and longer bridle lines to deal with on the ground and during set-up and put-away. It
rolls down nicely to fit into a 7L stuff sack. Could probably get wedged into a slightly smaller one.
As the largest NS3 in the quiver it is most certainly a low-wind option. As such it poses special issues, particularly for an inland rider such as
myself. At least for me, when the wind is blowing softly enough to make this kite the right choice among multiple options the wind has got to be
light. It may not be obvious from the opening footage of this video (shot from a helmet cam) but I had to wrestle with it just to get back to my
buggy and sit down. At around 210 lbs I was really close to getting lifted off the ground a few times with the kite up at zenith.
I purposely left in some pilot-issue footage in this video as it demonstrates some of the issues with the larger NS3s. I started to notice stall and
back flying issues with the 8.5m, saw it a little more with the 10.0m, and not surprisingly, saw it a little more with the 12.5m. The rub of course
is that for the wind to be light enough to use this BEAST then for me it is also quite variable. The kite simply can't stay aloft at some point.
You'll see me "sining" to keep things going, but it all takes place sort of in slow motion.
I look forward to flying this kite more with just a touch more wind. I think this Big Lady will behave better in just a bit more wind.
Hope you like the music too. I particularly like Stanton Moore.
@ Spencer - I would say the wind was consistently sub 10 mph for this session. Probably closer to 5 mph most of the time. Too early to tell when I'd
use the 10m vs the 12m.
@ Jason - thanks for the shout out of my static shot. I was given a Chinese GoPro knock-off as a sort of swag-bag gift at a national meeting I
attended last week and that footage was the first I'd tried with it. I set it up on a little tripod and just left it on. That particular video shot
was taken at this camera's 1080 x 30 fps wideview setting. The rest of the video (and all my others) are shot from an actual GoPro Hero4 Silver
edition. I leave this GoPro set at "1080 S / 60 / Wide". I bring up all this detail because the shot from the China Doll was sort of herky jerky in
the beginning, something I attribute either to it being a cheap knock off or maybe because it was shot at 30 fps. I have the choice of setting this
China Doll at "1080 x 30" or "720 x 60" and I'm thinking of setting it to the 720x60 setting and seeing if that smooths things out.
The truth of the matter is that I end up looking at all my videos on a computer monitor, iPad, or iPhone 6 (and I suspect 99.9% of PKF viewers look at
them on similar small screens) so 1080 is serious overkill resolution wise as it is.
I am starting to experiment with different camera mounts and want to expand my tripod view options. The 12.5m NS3 is HUGE, but I agree that it is
hard to appreciate that from the viewpoint of the helmet cam. Patience my friends, all good things will slowly come your way. I've got a day job
too! :P
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