well earlier today on another post, i stated that i had never flown anything on a bar. That changed. i met a guy in my area today with a Cabrinha 16m LEI (not sure which model).
this guy was flying without a harness, and my guess was that w/o one the kite loses all de-power ability thus limiting
full control. am i right or is it cool to fly this way? in essence it was like flying a great big trainer kite. well i had a go at it anyway, but without being able to dump the power i was intimidated (ok i was afraid:shocked2: ) flew it for a few minutes and gave it back. so i exchanged info with this guy so we can hook up again. would i be wrong to suggest to this guy the idea of investing in a harness...?

You are right on track with your thinking. The fellow would get a small amount of depower by manually adjusting the trim strap but he is pretty much flying powered up full time. He will get a LOT more out of the kite with a harness. What did he have his safety line hooked to ???

If He is trying to learn on a 16m LEI I would stay clear of him ! Sounds like a dangerous friend.

well i know he has a rush trainer and a mountainboard, so this isn't his only kite. but there is a huge leap between this kite and a 3m rush. if by safety line you mean the one with the big loop in the center, it was kinda pulled tight to the bar. other than that he was using a wrist strap...

My original LEI came with a wrist strap so that isn't totally nuts. Just very old skool. I'm just glad you see that there are things that aren't right in that picture !

if you know your kite flys "backwards and fowards" then yes you can. I would only advise his under low wind speed. i sometimes fly my LEI for static jumping.

basically he's flying unhooked and by definition the oppersite is "hooked" in. its ok to fly a kite like this but to get the most out of the kite, you really need a harness. without a harness its just like flying a fixed bridal kite.

it was like haning from a trapeze... winds were about 20mph.

sorry i meant to say, If you know how your kite flys"backwards and fowards" as in you know your kite like the back of your hand. sorry

Flying a kite like that with a wrist strap to safety is insane. Yeah, a lot of old C kites used to have wrist straps, but you can imagine why that fell by the wayside pretty quick. Having a QR to release the cuff from your wrist after it's already sprained or broken from being dragged - I guess it was better than keeping on being draggged.

Dude needs a harness unless he's an awesomely skilled old-school unhooked flyer. But someone like that probably wouldn't be wearing a wrist leash...

krumly