12 replies to this topic

[Kristof]

Just wanted to say I expected a higher quality of the REV kites. Let me explain my disappointment, before everyone here shoots me.

2 weeks ago, just before I went on holidays, I bouhgt me a REV SLE standard + ultra light LE (normal 3 wrap). And I have been flying it for like roughly 25 hours. Wherefrom easely 15 hours in a bit higher windrange (15-20 mph). So the maximum for this model.

Already after 5 hours in this windrange I had a hole in the leading edge fabric, just where the connection is whit the vertical spar. I guess this is a known problem cause I've seen the extra reinforcement fabric on that spot. But even so, It went trough. Now I have 2 holes at each vertical spar. The second hole comes from the plastic bottun that hold the bungee together.

At the end of my holidays I also saw the mesh fabric is already torn apart off the normal fabric, for over a lengt of 5 inches. (Already figured ot how to repair this, but stil.)

If the wind was lower (5-15 mph) I used the ultra light LE (normal 3 wrap LE). I could see and feel 15mph was the max for these rods. But looking at the website its allowed. After several hours flying I even have 1 side rod where you can feel a smal well in it. So the friction of the vertical connection cap onto the LE rod has "eaten" away some carbon fibre!

And last, my ultra light LE broke! But That was my own fault by over compensating a stronger windgust and smashing the ground to hard while practicing the inverted hover.


Am I angry? NO, not even close. Only a bit disappointed cause the REV kites shurly aint cheap.
All I can say after 2 weeks: "REV flying is sh*tload more fun as dual line flying I remember from years ago." Even if ya can't do all the special tricks.
I'm just surprised the materials wear so fast when you fligh at the max of the kite.
On higher winds I felt the kite pulling allot, sometimes I even lost my ballance by surpise. But now I know, when that happens you need another REV for higher winds or stronger rods.
Personally I think it can be safer, for beginners like me, to lower the max windranges on the website a bit to have a bigger saftey margin to avoid the reasons above.


Again, no hard feelings towards anyone!
Now I have to go save me some money for a B vented and some race rods to compensate in lower winds.

[kwmf]

My experience of the wear at the top verticals has been from too little tension on the elastic cord combined with sand - basically the sand gets in there and the vertical moves around and grinds the sand against the leading edge material. In that case no material will stand a chance since sand is super abrasive.

I haven't suffered that myself, but I still place extra insignia tape there as well as behind my vertical spars to take the wear.

Torn mesh is mostly due to folding the mesh during packing. Check out the tutorial videos John put up for an explaination of that.

Flying in winds too strong are also hard on the sail. Not sure how much of this is relevant in your case since I haven't seen the sail myself or the environment it was flown in, just mentioning them as possible reasons for it and ways to avoid it.

[tommylurvebus]

Like Kwmf I use tape to re enforce high wear spots. But I am shocked t hear that your kite is so beaten up. I am just in from an afternoon flying my oldest standard B series kite.I would estimate this kite has done at least 250 hours. I learned to fly4 line with this kite I have smashed it in to the ground, dragged it over rocks and sand, Skidded it over concrete slabs, flown it in silly winds, in rain and sea and pond weed. Its been trampled by dogs and sat on by kids and even ended up in the old prickly bush. So now I am a good few years down the line, I am using it on the street catching and throwing pulling and bashing it all over again. Now, it has had a new bridle and is stretched to its limits but it still flies like a beaut. I have had mesh go on other revs but not this one. The mesh fix adds to the character though. Guess what I am saying is it sounds like you have been a bit unlucky. Revs are pretty hard to break. Its worthwhile taking 20minutes before flying in sand to tape contact points. And of course staying out of the center of power zone in your wind window if your in a gale. There is a positive I can see for you Kristof, you will fly harder and learn more on a worn kite especially if you know there is a crisp new replacement waiting in the wings. Good luck, keep practising. Enjoy your kite.

[Kristof]

I deffenatly will add some tape on the weak points.

How hard can I stretch the elastic cords? Do they have to be able streching? Or can I pull them fully to the end?

Also, how thight has the sail to be? Cause now it waves. If I pull the points fully to the vertical ends it stil waves a bit.

[katrina]

I think that the stated wind ranges are quite generous, yes. But you'll find this for dual line kites too, take a look at pretty much any kite's stated wind range, and you'll see what I mean. I'd say the stated wind ranges are more like what's POSSIBLE, not what you'd actually want to fly in. Yes, you could double up the leading edge, or put in the SLE rods to deal with higher winds, but really it's time to switch kites. At 20 mph, I'd want the full vent for sure. No way would I have a standard sail up. Could even think about the xtra vent at that point.

As far as bungee tightening: rule of thumb is, tight enough so that the sail looks nice and flat (when it's lying on the ground, no wind in it). If you see vertical ripples/creases starting to form next to the vertical rod, that's too tight.

But it sounds like you're not totally put off, so that's good. I keep hearing of new fliers from Belgium--Henri, Florent (not on forum yet?) and one other I think? Have fun!

[stroke survivor]

Yep, I tend to agree with Katrina - you can fly in the upper end of those wind ranges, but you'll be pushing it!! I tend to find that if I'm looking at putting in a stronger frame, it's probably time to switch kite sails!! No sense putting in a really strong frame, only to stretch that sail out badly beyond a simple adjustment at the bungees! That's why most of us have several different sail types to choose from!! Use the best kite to match the conditions you find at that time!! Good luck and have fun!!

[Kristof]

Thx katrina for the bungee tensity.

Defantly will get me a vented in time.

[lamrith]

Having flown a full sail myself in 15mph (It was my 1st day and I had one kite and I had no choice), I would never wish to fly it any higher. While the kite"can" fly in it, you are really maxing it out and it will cause premature wear and even worse really stretch out the sail on you. I would not really blame rev for this, yes maybe they should restate the wind range, but the kite does fly in that wind, it is just twitchy and as mentioned really wearing the fabric out.

If you are seeing that sort of wind commonly at your flying location, definitely look for a fullvent. I would even recommend posting a wanted add here, someone I am sure has one stashed someplace to help a new flier out.



Welcome to the club!

[REVflyer]

impacts with the ground are cumulative damage effects ( a dozen soft ones equals the same energy as one hard hit!) Those impacts are what tore your leading edge mesh, or you put your finger/thumb thru it doing throws and catches, (probably too early in your career for this to happen!) or carrying it ("flappin" in the wind) by the leading edge.

I have flown Rev kites to multiple-thousand hours of flight each, until the fabric is nearly transparent to the wind, the sail colors are faded, the leading edge sleeve material has wear spots like it fell onto a chain-saw, burned through a couple of bridles, broken a stick or two and split the end-caps (impacts with a local ball-field parking lot where I prefer to fly, so I have good "footing" for 3D practice)

When we all started, we flew our kites outside of the given wind range (I've flown my Zen in double digit winds for example to test the rods) because we only had one quad. I have a couple kites that were made into vented sails with a cigar! I prefer overpowered to most other solutions, but I want to dump all the air pressure and then snap it back on instantly.

This sounds awful and I apologize in advance,
... sounds like your skills need to improve before you push yourself into the higher reaches of the wind range again. In big gusts you don't go into the center of the window with a big dose of forward drive thrown on top! You fly out on the edges or the corners, down low and inverted across the center of the power zone. In big wind you have more control with the leading edge upside down. You're angling the kite towards the structure of the leading edge, assisted by gravity and using those varying angles to PREVENT movement. If the kite goes racing into the ground in a big gust when inverted you know what your first skill set needs to be. You must master inverted flight.

Next time it's howling wind outside work on your side slides too, rising straight up, perpendicular to the wind direction. Want more challenge? There's a precision quad figure called the "Roman Ten". It's almost all slides and a perfect example of how to defeat a big wind, in fact you need significant pressure on the kite to practice this well (or good comfortable walking shoes to add your own energy)

I know precision practice can be boring, but it will help you improve more quickly if there's nobody around to assist you directly as a mentor.

We have a saying in our local club, if you use your kite for lessons it's gonna get beat-up! Higher wind lessons means more abuse and all crash damages are cumulative!

[stickerman]

Previous post = intervention of the voice of wisdom!
third time I flew with my SLE, i remember... the wind was very strong.
I felt there was something excessive in the air ....
I said: "wow man take care, fold your sail" what i did.

hi katrina who's florent?

[Kristof]

impacts with the ground are cumulative damage effects ( a dozen soft ones equals the same energy as one hard hit!) Those impacts are what tore your leading edge mesh, or you put your finger/thumb thru it doing throws and catches, (probably too early in your career for this to happen!) or carrying it ("flappin" in the wind) by the leading edge.

I have flown Rev kites to multiple-thousand hours of flight each, until the fabric is nearly transparent to the wind, the sail colors are faded, the leading edge sleeve material has wear spots like it fell onto a chain-saw, burned through a couple of bridles, broken a stick or two and split the end-caps (impacts with a local ball-field parking lot where I prefer to fly, so I have good "footing" for 3D practice)

When we all started, we flew our kites outside of the given wind range (I've flown my Zen in double digit winds for example to test the rods) because we only had one quad. I have a couple kites that were made into vented sails with a cigar! I prefer overpowered to most other solutions, but I want to dump all the air pressure and then snap it back on instantly.

This sounds awful and I apologize in advance,
... sounds like your skills need to improve before you push yourself into the higher reaches of the wind range again. In big gusts you don't go into the center of the window with a big dose of forward drive thrown on top! You fly out on the edges or the corners, down low and inverted across the center of the power zone. In big wind you have more control with the leading edge upside down. You're angling the kite towards the structure of the leading edge, assisted by gravity and using those varying angles to PREVENT movement. If the kite goes racing into the ground in a big gust when inverted you know what your first skill set needs to be. You must master inverted flight.

Next time it's howling wind outside work on your side slides too, rising straight up, perpendicular to the wind direction. Want more challenge? There's a precision quad figure called the "Roman Ten". It's almost all slides and a perfect example of how to defeat a big wind, in fact you need significant pressure on the kite to practice this well (or good comfortable walking shoes to add your own energy)

I know precision practice can be boring, but it will help you improve more quickly if there's nobody around to assist you directly as a mentor.

We have a saying in our local club, if you use your kite for lessons it's gonna get beat-up! Higher wind lessons means more abuse and all crash damages are cumulative!

No need to apologize for the truth, me beeïng new into it, my skills deffenatly need to be improved.

Precision flying is indeed bit boring. But most of the time I have been practicing all kind of hovers. Aswel at the center as at the edge of the window. And most crashes happend while practicing the inverted hover or slide.

I kept flying in those winds cause if I didnt do it I couldnt fly at all on my holidays. And my inexpierence in combination whit the windrange given on the website ended up in a damaged kite.
The ripped mesh is already been repaired, so lesson learned and fly in lower windranges.



Thanks all for the tips and inputs.

[Bmwbob]

I just got my first Rev out for its initial flight/abuse tests this last weekend. Winds on the soccer field near my house were 0-5, up and down like a yo-yo. The 1.5 SLE would only stay airborne for a max 30 seconds. Got a lot of launch and landing practice! Finally took the SLE frame out and put the UL one in. This made it possible not only to stay up, but also try a few things like the inverted roll and launch. I had to stay up so high to be in any usable wind that I didn't really get to practice maintaining a fixed altitude while flying across the window as yet. Also, with that little wind, I couldn't get much action with the "slam on the brakes" maneuver. And, with the too-light and variable wind, it was hard for me to differentiate between the dumb things I was doing and the kite's own responses to the wind. The soccer field is an otherwise great place to fly with a HUGE flat grassy surface and few, distant obstacles (bleachers and goals), so it will probably remain my go-to place for a while, being only about a mile from the house. Thinking of getting a Power Blast 2.4 and/or 4.8 for the existing conditions and also as a re-entry to buggying which I used to enjoy. Good idea for a Rev novice or not? Bob

[stevepigeon]

i did an experement on wind range with a single line kite measured wind 7 ft off ground it was 12 put wind meter on line in bridle so it pointed in right direction and 25 ft up it went to 19 at 50 ft up went to 32mph what we feel on ground is not always the same up higher i have revs that are 20 years old and no damage i am a little extra careful esspecally after doing experement but never had a tear just some sail stretching rev always backs up there product maybe ask them they are top notch