Sport, Trick and Freestyle Kite Flying Forum

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Gladders
Topic Author
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:03 pm

Prism 4d

Fri Feb 22, 2019 4:04 pm

I bought this well reduced from Kiteworld just after Christmas mainly because it packs up small and will go in a holdall to take on holiday in the summer. Today was the first low wind day that I've been able to fly it.

Wow. What a great little kite. Suddenly, I've got tricks! Axels on both sides, turtle, lazy susan, fade, flare, belly launch... none especially controlled or pretty, but definitely there. I've been struggling with a quantum for a while now and getting nowhere fast.

I know prism get a mixed reaction here, and for the quantum that's justified. The 4d though, for the £70 I paid, is great. It sits in a fade really happily, floats about gracefully, reacts predictably and made me laugh out loud with sheer joy at times. Fabulous.

So now I really need to replace the quantum.

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BlueSkyBry
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 2:10 pm

Re: Prism 4d

Fri Feb 22, 2019 4:19 pm

Great news Gladders, glad you found the one! Sounds like you’ve got s few tricks up your sleeve already!


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woody482
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2014 4:15 pm
Location: Tamworth.UK

Re: Prism 4d

Sat Feb 23, 2019 3:04 am

"mainly because it packs up small and will go in a holdall to take on holiday in the summer".

Hi for years had trouble taking kites on hols even when leading edges folded still to long to fit in case?
But now with my DS with my leading edges disconnected i carefully remove spine by pulling a bit of slack on leach lines then uncouple from spine.This allows you to remove spine from top of kite at the same time carefully to move centre t out this then allows kite to be folded all spars and spine inline.
this makes for a very small compact kite.when arrive on hols just rebuild kite.
 
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Exult
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2016 6:21 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Prism 4d

Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:05 am

That is a good list of tricks for the 4D, Gladders. The benefit for me has not been the number of available tricks (actually far from), but more that it has forced a gentler handling of DLKs. It took quite a while to accept it “as a real kite”, because prior to it I was much (or more?) dependent on the mass of the frame, mostly flicking it around with questionable use of feedback. Of course, as you mentioned, there is also the portability. Even for short nothing-to-do-with-kite-trips it is possible to pack the 4D, just in case.

So if you bring only one kite, the wind might not necessarily match (i.e. be too hard in this case). A way to deal with harder winds is to fly or stay along the path of a large triangle. One corner at the top, two sides close to the edge of the wind window and one side really low close to the ground (where the wind speed is lower) all the way out to the edge of the wind window.

The 4D axels can be made quite flat. The method I use is to fly to the edge of the wind window, turn down as to initiate a side slide, but then let the outer wing sink back to lower the nose. This is a very good starting position for a flat axel.

Also it is a bit of a delicate kite, be careful when doing LE launches – I quickly wore though the thin nose, just a few starts on crushed stone gravel and the hole was a fact – veeery surprising :-)
 
Gladders
Topic Author
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:03 pm

Re: Prism 4d

Sat Mar 02, 2019 12:36 pm

Exult wrote:
The 4D axels can be made quite flat. The method I use is to fly to the edge of the wind window, turn down as to initiate a side slide, but then let the outer wing sink back to lower the nose. This is a very good starting point for a flat axel.


That's interested. I've been doing the opposite - initiating a push turn upwards at the side of the window, then popping the pushing hand whilst giving slack with the inner hand.

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