Fractured Axel

Well light wind it was fine. I was able to find a little more drive by adjusting the bridle. Im talking when the winds were down to zero-mph, Im guessing thats just a bit too low for the ghost?

This comes up time and again, absolutely no kite will fly in no wind without the flyer moving. Walking backwards will put about 3mph of wind into the sail, so the faster you move backwards the more pressure into the sail.

Watch anybody fly indoors, you'll see how much movement goes on to keep the kite aloft.

HERE'S and example of what I mean.

A kite will only fly with tension on the lines. If your tricking in zero wind you
need to be moving in order to maintain this tension.

I'm fugg all good at this personally ... but I've watched some of the best
fliers in the US .. and thats the trick - happy feet and slack line management.

-Frazer

I notice in most if not all no wind flying ive seen, the lines are extremely short. I was flying with 75' 50# line today when the wind dropped to 0.

Some factors that make short lines better in zero wind:
- Weight of the line.
- Height of the ceiling indoors.
- Ability to do up and overs (is that the technical term?) so that you don't get dizzy walking backwards in circles all the time and can make better use of space.

Incidentally although I'm not very experienced at indoor flying I find it easier (with a suitable kite) than almost zero wind outdoors. Indoors you can walk in any direction flying the kite. Outdoors if there is, say, 1 mph wind then you have to walk 2 mph faster in one direction than the other. The problem is working out which direction the wind is coming from when it is that low, especially as it will probably be swirling.

turbo23 wrote:

I notice in most if not all no wind flying ive seen, the lines are extremely short. I was flying with 75' 50# line today when the wind dropped to 0.

It's always worth having a few sets of different length lines in the bag. Personally I wouldn't fly the Ghost on anything less than 30-40'.

I got to fly my newly aquired but well used Ghost for the first time yesterday, and thought I would add my first impressions.
My kite came with 2 weights, 14g and 6g, and 2 sets of lower spreaders, Skinny SUL and Skinny UL.

It wasn't too easy as the wind was a bit light and variable ( -2 to +7 kph). Anyway, I started with 14g and the Skinny SUL lower spreaders, and finished up with no weight and the Skinny UL spreaders (another 8g removed).
In it's lightest form roll-ups were still just about possible, but unrolling needed a good deal of running backwards. Flat spins were ... well ... flatter, the more weight I removed, but Taz machines stopped working (for me) at this point. (slots and 540s were still ok).

I found my 14m lines were about right for really light winds, I'll probably use 18m in slightly stronger stable conditions.

Conclusions ?
I think my InnerSpace will stay in it's bag a bit longer, but when there is really no wind, it will still get flown (it's just sooooo smooth and elegant).
The Ghost will come out as soon as the wind drops to a point where the Talon UL gets to be hard work.
I'm pleased I bought it (well-used, but 2/3 of the new price).
Would I have been so happy if I had paid 300 euros for a new one? Hmm - not sure yet

Stuart

Craig wrote:

Walking backwards will put about 3mph of wind into the sail, so the faster you move backwards the more pressure into the sail.

And...if I can add to this: When flying in 'standard winds', I still use backward movement to really power-up the sail during hard corners and straight lines, even if it's just slowly walking backwards. The comete is one trick that often requires steady backward movement to keep the sail in pressure, even in decent winds. It can make a big difference in the lower wind ranges by keeping the rising fade during JLs, etc as well. And of course, to generate slack, we all reach or move forward.

As the wind approaches the undetectable range, the fine control of backward movement generated drive and forward movement dependent slack is very fine indeed. What you become aware of in these conditions is that nearly all slack line tricks also depend on the wind to push the temporarily semi-floating kite predictably into the movements we call tricks. Without this push, many tricks need to be done in an entirely different manner than how they are done in unidirectional detectable wind. I would suggest that many tricks quickly become master level maneuvers in these extremely low winds precisely because the wind is what makes them easy.

One good example is a snap lazy or a rolling susan. This is a ridiculously easy trick in good wind, but quite a bit more difficult in zero winds. As I mentioned above, the comete is quite straight forward in +8mph, but nearly equivalent to performing magic in very low winds.

obi

@obi - I'm there with you - I see trick flying as a language where the meaning of each manoeuvre is what we understand as the trick. In order to convey the meaning, physical characteristics of the language are performed or played out. This is in the realm of the arts, such as a ballet where the dance conveys meaning, the language is spoken through choreograph.
An understanding of how the wind plays a part in every aspect of a trick can truly help the pilot to stay in control of how the kite expresses itself in the flow of air, and in turn how well performed it is in delivering the beautiful language of flight.

Many of the tricks I've noticed have a fair proportion of input from the air flow side of things, with just a minimal input from the pilot. When I first started out I wanted to control the kite all the time, but now I make the concious effort to allow the kite time to do its thing in the wind and focus my energy on those moments of when I need to provide input.

And getting back to what you said, in some cases you also have to monitor the airflow because in some cases you need to walk back or forward in order to maintain the overall sail pressure.

My most recent sell-off has funded the acquisition of (amongst other things) a Ghost:-



Obviously the funky sail material is "aesthetically, the centrepiece of the groupo" being more glossy than Icarex and more translucent too. The trouble is that it's only under certain lighting conditions that you can see the panelling and if you're going to build the lightest kite in the range and only offer one colourway then aren't at some some of those panels looking a little redundant ?

Build quality and detailing are amongst the finest available today, as you would expect given the price of these kites. £260 for a very specialised toy means that it had better be good.

Snag this nose; win a prize.
Tidy reinforcement.
Simple and effective stopper.
Weight pocket not to everyone's taste.
Wingtip is snag free and easy to correctly tension.

The one area that does concern me are the LE cutouts:-

They are just a hotcut (dear god, I hope they are hotcut) slits in the lightweight LE fabric. I've no idea what other people's long term experience with these is but it doesn't look like it would take much to open them up even further. A run of stitches at each end might take care of that.

You can also see the frankly ludicrous number of adjustment knots at the LLE here, running out of shot. Repeat the same at the ULE and some more at the centre-T. Is this amount of adjustability strictly necessary ?

So let's fly...

the first thing to mention is that the kite is not magic. It cannot transform crap winds into something usable. Rubbish low winds are still rubbish winds.

That said I'll quite happily go right ahead and call this the best low(est) wind kite I've ever flown. Low winds and a reverse turbo bridle means there's not a lot of feedback down the lines but it will cut a decent figure and it will pull off those tricks we all like. An SUL that will Yoyo without complaint - madness.
And it'll do them without needing a whole new technique
And it'll do them fully, not a half-hearted nearly move that needs a degree of optimism on your part to call it "OK".

Kitehouse have come up with a very nicely balanced mix of low weight and enough inertia. It extends downwards quite a long way the wind range in which I can fly the way I want to. A vital purchase ? No. Just the kite to pull out when the time is right ? Surely.

Mike,
reading BikeSnobNYC affects me.