Jim Foster

This has happened to us many times.  I believe that, over time, with the flexing of the leading edge spars during flight, the glue used in production finds it's way loose.  When I find that condition I remove the ferrule, carefully scrape off the old glue and use super glue to re-install the ferrule.  I wrap masking tape around the ferrule at the point where you want the ferrule to stop sliding into the spar, as once you apply the glue to the ferrule and start sliding it into the spar, it should be done quickly.  The tape provides a "stop" so that the glue does not set up before the ferrule is "home", or you don't slide the ferrule too far in and the glue set before you can pull back out to the proper place.   Just a tip.

 

Lynn and I do a lot of flying.  When I am washing our kites, or otherwise " messing" with them, I always pull the center spar out and do my best to try to twist the ferrules out of the center spar, thus avoiding the chance of pushing a ferrule all the way into the spar during assembly, which is a major pain, or pushing it in all but a half inch or so, allowing assembly, but after a short time it will splinter the end of the outer spar.  The latter happened to one of our team members just yesterday.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks Jim I was given mine, I knew it had to be a specific string but not being a guitar player I wasn't sure which one.

Actually, an acoustic guitar has two "E" strings.  The one you want is the smaller of the two.

Tip #2. A guitar string makes a great sleeping needle. Tip #3 attach a coloured ribbon or rip stop off cut to your sleeping needle, otherwise when you put it down you will lose it.

The "E" string makes a very good tool and you may get one which has broken at the end at your local guitar repair shop.

Bend it in half and it becomes a very nice, long, flexible needle.  Cut your sleeve material about 18" long and thread it onto the tool.

Important........

   Now burn the ends of your sleeve material to stop fraying. 

Slip about three inches of your new line through the loop in the guitar string, then pull the sleeve off the guitar string on to the line.

Carefully hold end the sleeve in one hand as you pull the line back through being sure to leave about 1/4" of the line protruding out the end of the sleeve.

Tie a simple overhand knot at the end of the sleeve securing the kite line.

Hold that knot in your finger tips and with the other hand stretch the sleeve down the kite line.

Now fold the ends of the sleeve together and tie a couple of overhand knots about half an inch apart and your line is sleeved.

 

Leaving the 1/4 inch of line showing out the end of the sleeve makes for easy line length adjustment later if needed.

 

Hope this helps.

Myself and West Australian crossed lines this morning and..... it was unreal. Great fun. Even had a couple of tangles but with a bit of a laugh, it took no time at all to fix. Will definitely be doing that again. We were on 80 footers as they were the longest lines we both had. Can't wait to try 120's! It was good to be it that kind of proximity of another kite. To interact with and upon another in the air is a joyous feeling. YOU WERE ALL RIGHT, it wasn't as scary as it looked. Advice for newbies, CROSS THOSE LINES!!

Oh, dear.....you're hooked now..................

 

Enjoy the ride....

Wayne, let it go.  Most all of the folks who Lynn and I encounter on the beach are really nice, and are very willing to walk around, or stay back, however, once and a while you will run into that one person who will make your blood boil.  Let roll off, and just know that they don't or won't understand, and probably never will.

 

Remember......you are the one having a great time.  They are the Obliviot..

One thing that really helped me to gain confidence with another kite in the sky was set up my Rev, then put a single line kite in the sky and use it as a "Target".  Fly up to it and stop.  Hover.  Move your kite around the kite.  The target may move some from side to side or up and down.  Learn to account for that.  Get confident flying close to another kite.  That will make it much easier to fly with someone else who may not have the same level of skill that you do.  If you have someone in mind to fly with and they are new as well, they might want to do the same thing with a single line kite.  Learn what I call "defensive flying".  That will save you many trips across the field to get one kite untangled from the other.

 

When you start flying together, there should be only one "captain of the ship", usually standing on the right.  Let the other person know what you intend to do with your kite and get them to follow you and they should do what you do, where you did it.  Turn where you turned etc.  In no time you will be amazed at how good you are doing.  Leader should maintain constant speed and follower should try to maintain constant space between kites.  Once you master following one another you can progress to more complicated moves.

 

Good luck and enjoy flying together.

Wind and some heavy rain this morning.  After the rain stopped, all that was left was sun and wind. 

 

A great afternoon was had by all. 

 

More tomorrow.

Lynn and I are really looking forward to our first trip to Antelope Island.  We plan to stay on the island in our trailer for the whole event including Monday and Tuesday nights if that's OK.

Here's some I should have posted earlier.  We were able to fly for five hours on the Aircraft Carrier Midway, President's Day, 2012.  They supplied us with a music system (we supplied the CDs).

 

It was a "May we borrow your Aircraft Carrier" kind of day.

We had a time we had at the San Diego New Years Day Fly.  We flew nearly all day with Carol and Cass Pittman, and Tom King.   John Mason, Dan Willan and Joe Hadzicki joined us for some of the time.

 

Then there was the pot luck lunch.  Lots of very good food.

 

Thank you to the club for a great time.

 

Cheers, and Happy New Year....

 

Lynn and Jim

Very nice John. It not only works on my laptop, it works on my iPhone.

It's OK now on my laptop as well as my iPhone.

No idea what was wrong.

It's best to just bite the bullet and get a B standard package with extra frame (2 and 3 wrap) and all.  Then you will need a B vented package, also with two frames (3 and 4 wrap).  At that point you will be able to fly in any wind in which you care to stand.  Yes, lots of $$$, but in the end, a very good way to go.

Many of us have been trying various methods of videoing our flying.  Some have attached cameras to a cap, others to a kite.
I found these, and gave us an early Christmas present.  

http://hsindustries....FTOKEN=56822598

I got them here.

http://www.midwayusa...l-polymer-frame

I understand that they are available at REI, but have not checked that out.

We went to the park yesterday and gave them a try.  This was our first try.  I neglected to raise my head high enough when the kites were high in the sky.  Easy to correct.  Due to the preset camera resolution, the files are very large, but can be converted to other formats and made smaller.  When that is done, the picture is not as crisp, but still very good.  Here is a clip of our first try.  This clip is at the higher resoulution, so I made it only 30 seconds.

The way I learned to do this is to fly forwards across the wind window, then about half way through, I spin 180 degrees and continue flying, but now in reverse. I kept doing this and every once and a while adding another spin. Eventually you will get it to where you will cartwheel all across the window.

I think Watty has it.

Another way is to turn 1/4 turn at a time as you slide across the window, making only one complete turn.  Once you have that going, add 1/4 turn each pass.  All done very slowly.

There is no one, sure, easy way.  I think the most important thing is to not try to do too much all at once.  Break it into small bites, you know, the way you eat an Elephant.