Power Kite Forum - Amazing intro to Power Kiting!

Hi all, Just wanted to introduce myself and tell you about my introduction to power kites.

I'd loved flying kites all my life, I've always sticked with single line kites including my favorite 12 ft, stars and stripe modified box. A couple years ago I saw some power kits at a store here in Oregon and I knew I had to have one.

I'm one of those guys who managed to build a business out of my hobby of playing with computer stuff so people have a horrible time figuring out what to get me for presents. So a few months ago, I mentioned to my lovely wife April that a power kite would be a cool thing. I looked at it a little but didn't find any clear idea of what I would want for a first kite.

I had forgot about telling my wife about what I wanted when my 35th birthday came around last Thursday, but when I saw the size of the box, my hopes instantly came back to mind. After reading the lovely card from made by my youngest and fighting through the wrapping job that must have used a complete roll of scotch tape, I found the box with the UPS label. It came from Kent and A Wind of Change. Opening the box, I found an Ozone Fury, 3.0.

Of course, my wife asked right away how she did. She had spent the week before researching and reading the web forums to try to find out what kite she should get. She also had spent a fair amount of time with kent on the phone before ordering. I had no idea. In looking at kites, it kinda seemed like a catch 22. You don't know what you want until you do it, but you can do it until you know what you want.

Anyway, in reading it seemed like she made a great choice. Ozone being a company that came from making high end parasails and moving down into power kites seemed cool. The fury seemed like a great starter kite. A little more stable than some, but aggressive enough to get a taste for the potential.

So I got my kite on Thursday and we had a good friend getting married on the beach in Seaside on Saturday. So we got to the wedding about 20 minutes early and I wanted to get my first flight under my belt quickly. I had also checked the hour-by-hour at weather.com and I knew the wind would be picking up.

I managed to get the kite all setup (only having to switch the 2 lines I quickly noticed I had connected wrong) in a few minutes. Now, only 10 minutes before the wedding started I put her in the sky. There was a decent breeze but I found the kite manageable. I was able to feel the power, move the kite across the sky and do a little skudding only ending on my butt once.

Then I knew I was a couple minutes late so I brought the kite down and wrapped it up heading off to the wedding happy to have had a clean flight and no more stress about that first flight.

So the wedding was really nice, out on the beach. Kites flying overhead, the sun even came out. For the reception, there was a nice seafood lunch and then activities planned. They passed out small kites to the kids, had those sit down bikes for people to ride on the sand, frisbees and sand toys.

So as I was walking with my wife to grab a little desert a guy stopped my when he saw the Fury I had slung over my shoulder. He asked how I liked it. Of course my only only experience with it was the 10 minutes about 40 minutes before. He mentioned that he was the guy flying the kites for the wedding and he would be willing to show me a few things. I told him I'd find him a little later.

So after finishing desert and stopping by the restroom, I went out to find him. Turns out Trevor Griffith had been hired for the wedding and was happy to share his thoughts with me. So he pulled out his lil' devil 3.0, the big brother to my Fury and he taught me the basics on how to launch and pack the kite. Then, after seeing I had a decent handle on things, asked me if I wanted to learn how to jump. Within a few minutes, I was getting in some pretty good hops. Then he asked if I wanted to try his 4.8.

So he pulled out this kite that was about twice the size of mine and got it in the sky. Now the wind had picked up a little bit so it was clear from the size of his leaps that there was considerably more power here. After showing me a couple things, he passed me the kite. Immediately I could tell this was a lot different. My few attempts as jumping showed my that I had a lot to learn. With this kite and wind it would be really easy to bite off more wind than I could handle. But within a few minutes (passing the kite back to Trevor so my arms could rest.) I was starting to feel a little more comfortable. Then the inevitable happened. I decided to get a little aggressive and didn't get the kite quite vertical and it went streaming across to sky with amazing power, pulling me right off my feet. So I flew about ten feet and landed on my side. Trying to remember what Trevor had taught me, "keep your eye on the kite and get it above you in the sky" was a challenge as I was being dragged across the sand. By when I saw the wide eyes of the people I was careening towards, I made it happen. It was so great to hear Trevor running behind me yelling "Awesome recovery! You did exactly what I told you." I had to admit when looking at the drag marks down the beach, I was pretty excited that I was able to recover from that.

So after playing with his kite for a while longer, I realized that I'm pretty excited about my Fury. Perfect kite, perfect size. I was also excited to hear that Trevor was impressed with my wife's choice of a kite. What an awesome woman who can choose the perfect kite even when I didn't know exactly what I wanted.

So after packing up Trevor's kite, I got my Fury out one more time. I was pretty fired but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. A good friend of mine was there and he had some experience with stunt kites so he had the general idea. I have to admit, it was pretty fun to see him take a ride across the sand like mine with the big kite!

So the end of the day, we were talking about the amazing thing of just getting a new kite and the first day flying to get personal instruction. I said something about how cool it was and my oldest daughter said "Dad, that was God's birthday gift to you." I agreed.

Here are a couple pics taken by a friend, all too close to see the kite, but you can see I was having some fun!

<http://web.mac.com/drbott/iWeb/Site/Kiting.html>

Thanks for all the great info on the forum and all the stuff I've learned from here.