Traction Kiting

Anyone that has talked to me during the past few weeks knows that I have been bitten by the power kiting bug over the winter. No, I've never done it, but it just seems like a really cool hobby. Kind of like a variation on windsurfing. I have promised Autumn that I will not get one until I sell the R/C helicopter, but I'm having a hard time refraining now that I have the chopper up on KSL and craig's list.

Well, I got to fly a traction kite yesterday! I was driving Anna (motorcycle) home from school and saw a guy flying a kite in the field South of Wyview. I, of course, pulled over and went over to talk to him. He said something like, “Hi. My name’s Ben. I’m not that great with this thing, but do you want to fly it?” I, of course, accepted. It was pretty cool. It was a 4-line kite, so you steer with the front two lines, and the back two lines pull on the trailing edge. This allows the kite to be ground launched, even when the leading edge is facing the ground. Other than that, I couldn’t see much advantage to the four lines except more to get tangled up. The kite was a 7m Flexifoil Bullet foil kite, which is bigger than a trainer kite, but too small to kiteboard with except in some wicked wind. However, I can see how kiteboarding really works! The wind was blowing at 6 knots and gusting to 9, and at 9 knots I was having a hard time holding the kite back if I flew into the power zone. If it had consistently been blowing at 10 knots I could have gotten off the ground, I think. This size of kite is usually used for kite snowboarding or landboarding. They call it a foil because it has two layers of material that are sewn together at the back and sides with some ribs in the middle holding the whole thing together. The front is open, so when the wind fills the kite, it creates an airfoil and thus lift. It was really fun and I'm excited to get a little trainer kite and really learn how to do it. Then, at some undisclosed future opportunity, maybe I'll give kiteboarding a try. I think it looks pretty cool.