Fractured Axel

Zippy8 wrote:

Craig wrote:

Where is the doc.?

Hidden, beyond the wit of any thief.
Mike.

yes???
i read my name?????

Yet more updates, for which I thank you. I am a little confused as to some of the scores though. Some of you seem to think that there is better available out there (as you're not giving 10s) but are shy about telling me where it can be had. I mean something has to be 10 'cos that's just the best currently available, not perfect.

There will, by the way, be some data manipulation once I think we're all done so these are just working results for now.

Mike.

Is there any consideration for price point here or are we comparing 'Boutique' kites made one-at-a-time by craftspersons with inexpensive 'Factory' kites made by ranks of faceless drones?

I quite agree - I think badly built kites should be more highly regarded as long as they are cheap

In fact, I'm going to make a 'Golden Rule' to not spend more than $150 on a kite and then I can afford lots of them.

I think badly built kites should be more highly regarded as long as they are cheap

I like to invest in kites that give me a good feeling... make me want to fly them more often then other kites... give me the feeling I can learn from them... trust them to survive me learning

badly made kites often are bad kites... yes, sure they'll fly and some of them are even trickable... but if you only have flown those type of kites....
try and meet someone with a good one... and discover the difference

Thanks for the advice Aeri but my comments were meant a bit 'tongue in cheek' - don't take them seriously; as it happens, all my kites are of the 'boutique' variety SKB refers to. I was refering to a certain attitude I have come accross on the GWTW forum with regard to cost

I've been quite amazed over the last couple of days as to why I'm ranking so highly. Sure, some of it is down to it being a narrow base of opinion; it doesn't include the USA for example.

However, when I set out to build kites I had one thing in mind and I've said this to many people.

I wanted 'The out-of-the-bag-Benson-wow' factor. Something that makes you feel like like you've just spent all that money on something that someone cares about. You deserve it because you've bought my kite, thanks.

I had this with 3 Gems and 1 Airbow. The DS in Bristol was the kicker. It looked like it was made by a finely tuned robot. £180? Hell yeah! It's amazing.

People like us in this small community who are really into kites in every aspect really notice these things and it keeps me and others on their toes.

For me, a 'seconds kite' is only 3 seconds-worth of stupid mistake that cannot be undone, it can't be covered up.

I guess that all means I've come closer to Tim's standard. Cool, job done; but he still works 20x faster than me!

Mark

Jest_of_EVE wrote:

For me, a 'seconds kite' is only 3 seconds-worth of stupid mistake that cannot be undone, it can't be covered up.

All my kites are like this and it's very annoying, even though I only make them for myself!

Jest_of_EVE wrote:

I guess that all means I've come closer to Tim's standard. Cool, job done; but he still works 20x faster than me!

Another reason why I only make kites to fly myself. My latest kite, finished on Sunday, has taken me over a month to build.

And it's a seconds kite .

skb wrote:

Is there any consideration for price point here or are we comparing 'Boutique' kites made one-at-a-time by craftspersons with inexpensive 'Factory' kites made by ranks of faceless drones?

If that factors into your definition of best available then let it be so.

Personally I was thinking about absolute quality of manufacture beyond price and performance (and what they did to my Granny's house during the war.... or how good mates they are..... or how I really hate them.... etc) considerations. Everyone should just go with what they feel.

Mike.

Zippy8 wrote:

[Personally I was thinking about absolute quality of manufacture beyond price and performance (and what they did to my Granny's house during the war.... or how good mates they are..... or how I really hate them.... etc) considerations.

Mike.

An episode of Fawlty Towers has just come to mind.

Mark E Mark wrote:

I quite agree - I think badly built kites should be more highly regarded as long as they are cheap

One can merely divide the cost of the kite by the rating, thus proving (waves hands) New Tech "Value For Money" matches JoE, but exceeds R-Sky; a fair result, I'm sure.





Now I'm off to by something from Top of the Line - Bargain!

Right-o folks, there has now been 20 submissions to this so unless there any late entrants soonish I'm going to call time on this and apply some Science™ to the numbers and try to draw some conclusions.

Thanks for playing. These are the current, raw standings. Expect changes.

Mike.

Chop out any makers with 2 or less votes for starters.

We need to +ve weight those makers with more votes somehow too.

-Frazer

fworley wrote:

We need to +ve weight those makers with more votes somehow too.

What's this we shit ?



I shall be applying well established practices for "improving" data. Lying and fabrication being high on the list. (And more scores doesn't mean better kites - JestOfEve 10 for 9.10, R-Sky 16 for 5.75).

Mike.

As we seem to have run out of opinions (a first !) here are the massaged results. Firstly any kite maker getting 3 or less ratings is dropped, secondly a single high and low score are also dropped (generally the bigger the sample the less effect this actually haves BTW). I've grouped the results into categories for your viewing pleasure. And then a day later I remembered to normalise the results to the target score (ie; the best made scores 10 with all others given a value relative to this).

<img src="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pF9_Bk6EDaTCkR5yVxRuWKw&oid=1&output=image">

Looking at "Category 1" kite makers we see that Tim Benson and Ken McNeill have been a byword for excellence for so long now that their place at the top of the list should surprise no-one and reinforces their stellar reputations. That relative newcomer Mark Clements (Jest Of Eve) is thought of at least as highly as these two luminaries is an enormous compliment to him. It should be noted that after data filtering only these three kite makers were left with any 10s, representing the view that they make the finest kite available today.

In Categories 2 and 3 you have excellent quality but not only are the scores a smidge lower but also show a greater range, perhaps indicating a few rogue kites slipping out here and there.

Category 4 could be thought of as the "average" kite makers. Unlikely to fall apart, unlikely to impress either.

Down towards the base of the chart, in Categories 5 and 6, is where things look messy. After the data rework it was only kite makers in these categories that were left with any scores of 4 or less, which I considered "poor". I will say that it seems likely that almost all of AirOeuvre's ratings come from one, pre-production kite but people can only go by what they've seen. And I must have got all of the good R-Sky kites

Thanks for the numbers. I hope we either learned something new or confirmed what we already felt out of all this.

Mike.