Old Mister Crow

Wow -- thanks for all of the advice, everyone! I should add that I'm also quite comfortable flying with a bar, so I can switch back to that without needing to learn anything else. On the board, I think I do flail my arms like an air traffic controller at a rave (great description!!) so I'll probably try that bar next and see. Also, I'm fully padded up (well, knee/elbow/wrist/helmet, but no crash shorts or upper body) and it's already helped me out significantly. Good to know that I don't need to be flying hooked in, in order to learn. I thought that maybe the lowered center of pull from a harness would be necessary in order to ride smoothly and I'm glad to know that I should be OK without. Cheers to all for the advice! Carl

Hi Everyone, I'm a relatively experienced static flier wanting to learn landboarding. I've got the kite control down and I'm with large pendulum jumps when flying static. I fly a Blade IV 6.5 and an Ozone Riot 5.0; I usually fly on handles and always fly unhooked (I don't even own a harness right now). Today I had my first go on a landboard and I can see that I've got a lot of learning to do. I've just read through all of the archives, and there's lots of useful advice there -- but I have a few additional questions. Here in Seattle there is no landboarding scene to speak of and no instruction; I'm on my own except for this site. So any answers you can provide would be greatly appreciated. 1. Am I slowing down the learning process badly by staying with handles? I do have an Ozone Samurai bar that I can use instead. 2. Am I slowing down the learning process badly by trying to fly unhooked? My reasons for doing so are that (a) I like the idea of being able to just drop the kite to the kite killers when I screw up, which is very often at this stage, and (b) After springing for the Comp 6 board, I'm in no hurry to spend the further money to buy a harness. I realize that I'm not going to be able to do any grabs and such until I start flying hooked in with a bar, but for now I'd be quite happy just to learn to cruise about smoothly and do small jumps. 3. Today I played around with the landboard while flying the Blade IV 6.5 and the Riot 5 in gusty 15 mph; both were tricky in that they can overfly and in that they are quite lifty. I also have a New Tech Ballistic 3.6 which is more stable with almost no lift, but it's a bit small for my usual wind conditions here (8-15 mph). Am I screwed as far as kite selection goes and do I need to try to find a used low-aspect traction kite to make any progress? Any thoughts on which of the above kites I should be using to learn? (E.g., is it better to be underpowered with the stable 3.6 or better powered with the touchier 5 or 6.5?) 4. Because of Seattle's geography, if I want space to landboard, I'm pretty much stuck with flying in gusty turbulent wind. Any suggestions on handling that? 5. Are there any good instructional DVDs out there? (E.g. HQ's ATB school seems like one possibilit, Evolution Kiting Films Landboard and Buggy DVD supposedly has a "how to" segment http://www.skyblueleisure.co.uk/acatalog/Powerkite_Landboarding_and_Buggy_DVD.html ) 6. Anything else I should be doing to learn as fast as possible? Thanks so very much, Crow