gammajonnysdad1600949556

Introduction But ye gods, this is a responsive kite. The handles are shorter that any other kite I have flown, but to me this is an advantage. The control that I have over it is instant. I was flying it at Skypark, using my buggy, and the winds, although coming from the west from the sea, were unusually blustery. The gusts were between 12mph and 25 mph. A large range, and it gusted up in a second. The kite just took all this in its stride. It happily let me ride on a close reach, using the strength of the winds, it let me buggy round the mound in the middle of the field, and it let me turn at will. This combination of winds and a good high wind kite helped me improve my skills round the obstacles arranged around Skypark. The kite also has some lift and quite a powerful pull in higher winds. I find this a stable kite to fly, once the wind is strong enough to pull me along, you can place it in the wind window, and it stays there. When the wind drops, you can instantly start swooping the kite, which, as I say is extremely responsive. Buggy and Board You could use this kite for the buggy or the board, for the beginner / intermediate. I mostly use it for my buggy, but my son has used it on his board. With the kite set up as per factory settings (see below Adjustable bridle) it does not give a great deal of lift, but there is some there, particularly if you set it up to give lift, so don't expect it to be a pussy cat. I would stress the importance of safety gear, at the very least a helmet should be worn even when static flying. My son and I have experienced the consequences of not doing this, resulting in concussion from being pulled by a small kite in blustery winds. Adjustable bridle This kite comes with an adjustable bridle. I have just kept to the factory settings, and the kite has performed well for me. It is now becoming more documented as to how a kite responds regarding different bridle adjustments so, if you would like to know more about it, Flexifoil have written instructions on how to adjust the Blade IV. http://flexifoil.com/downloads/instruction_manuals.php Click on Blade IV - Triple A Bridle System The principles are the same for this kite. I have also attempted to explain it myself In my review of the 5m Buster. Build quality To me the canopy of the kite is built well, which makes it such a fun kite. I like the bridle set up as well, but the lines are all one colour, white, which later become grey as you use it. Because of this the single colour of the lines the bridle can look confusing, so when you first unwrap it take a long careful look at the set up. It comes in a white stuff sack, not particularly cool, but practical, or at least it would be if it wasn't white. Value for money Definitely good value. For the £80 I paid for it new, I get a huge amount of fun out of iit. Downside It does not come with kite-killers, but I always fix them onto any kite that I am flying. Unfortunately an emergency release of the handles one day resulted in the break-line fixing to one of the handles breaking. This is repairable, with a globule of resin and some tape to secure the fixing whilst it set. Also these first busters have line stretching problems. For the kite to continue flying well, attention has to be paid to line length adjustment after a few good sessions. Conclusion Intermediate Once the problems have been sorted out, I think this is an excellent kite for higher winds for the intermediate and for getting the feel of the location you are flying at. I sometimes use it as a warm up kite, as it's responsiveness allows me to land it quickly, or to fly it away from danger in an instant. I don't tend to fly if the winds are gusting up to 30mph, so in my view, this is the time to put it away. Beginner If you are new to flying this would be good starter kite to fly in lower winds, to get the feel of how four line kites respond to the controls. Once you gain confidence, you can take it out in higher winds, and it will start to pull you on a board or buggy By : gammajonnysdad

I look at the PKD Buster 5.5 metres squared. Firstly I try to explain how the kite works. The PKD Buster is unusual in that it has adjustment that no other fixed bridle kite has. Then I look at what I feel are the bad points. Following this, I look at its good points; this is definitely in the flying of the kite. Finally this I draw a conclusion. To begin I will try to explain how the kite works, this centres on the unusual knots on the bridle, which allow for the adjustment. I have been in contact with the UK rep for PKD and the information given was as follows in my own words and my understanding of how it works: There are a set of 4 knots on the bridle, which can be used to alter the angle of attack. There is a good explanation of angle of attack here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_attack Here is my explanation: If you have ever put your hand out of the window when you are driving, you will have a good idea of how this angle of attack works. I have done this mostly when driving through France in the Summer, as I have often found myself driving down long, even, steady, roads with little or other traffic – fantastic! What you do is face your thumb in the direction that you are travelling. The wind created, has quite a force, particularly at higher speeds. If you keep your hand level, it will, more or less cut through the air. You should be able to move it towards the car and away with relative ease. Now if you tilt your hand, thumb now moving upwards, you will immediately feel the drag of the air, your hand will try to slow, or move towards the back of the car. It will also try to rise. It also become more difficult to move your hand from side to side, towards the car and away, keeping your thumb facing forward. This is how aircraft get lift and this is how your kite gets lift. In a sense, you have to pay for the lift with drag and a slowing of movement. You get the drag because a larger surface area of your hand has been presented to the airflow. For a kiter, this drag is good in the right wind, because, just as your hand tried to move towards the back of the car and rise, so a kite will, giving the kiter pull and lift. For a kiter to be able to alter this angle of attack is useful, and this is how the more expensive depowerabel kites work. You can use this facility as you are flying a depowerabel to take advantage of both extremes of angle. The point about the buster is that you can alter this angle of attack to suit your needs. This is an unusual feature in a fixed bridal kite, but you have to set the angle of attack before you fly the kite, it is not like a depowerable, where you can alter it as you fly the kite. So which angle should you choose? If you have the kite facing into the wind relatively level at the Zenith, as your hand initially was, you can move it about relatively easily, just as you can with your hand. However, because the drag is at a minimum, then power and lift you get out of the kite is also at a minimum. You also have a bigger wind window than when the kite is at an angle, but as you move to the edge of this you will find that the power falls off. This is the kite in its "depowered" state, and this is what the depowerable kites derive their name from, as fixed bridle kites have to be ready angled to fly If you have the kite angled to the airflow, it is slower to move, but the power and lift is greater. The wind window that you have is smaller, but within this, the power will be greater than if the kite was in its depowered state. How do you alter this angle on the Buster? Imagine the Buster in the air, and you are looking at it from the side, in profile. Looking at the bridle, you should see about 4 knots with in a couple of centimetres from each other. Attaching the main lines to the knot closest to the leading edge of the kite, that is the edge that faces the wind, will put it in its "depowered" state, giving you less power, but making the kite easier to move and a larger wind window. At the other end of the spectrum the knot furthest from the leading edge, and towards the trailing edge, will set the kite up in its powered up mode. Which knots do you choose? Speaking for myself and from the people that I have spoken to the tendency is to go for a compromise and thread two of the knots, say 2 and 3, counting from the front to the back, through the Lark’s Head knot. However experimentation is a good way to find out how you like to fly. I have talked about lift and power. The buster is undoubtedly a very stable kite, and rarely does anything unexpected. It is slower to move about, and therefore relatively predictable. If you place it at the zenith, at the top of the wind window, it will pull, but it has not yet pulled me off my feet. Because of this I think that it is a good traction kite, I like predictability. You should always be aware of the pulling power it might develop as you launch the kite, or any kite for that matter, and when you bring it down. Don’t do what my son and I did with our 2.5 Bullet and launch it in the power range of the wind window in stronger winds. You will find that an ability to roll helps at this point! The buster definitely gives you a good upper body work out. The pull can be quite strong, bear in mind that I am talking about a Buster 5.5. I use it for boarding and in the right winds, Say 12 to 15 mph, it is fantastic. I can place it in a position in the sky and it just stays there. The disadvantages; Gripe 1 ARRRGGGG the lines and bridles often look like, and tangle like several balls of string. I have spent ages untangling the bridles and lines. The lines and bridles are the same colour – white. They are not of the same quality as for example, Flexifoil. You might not be aware of this, but good quality lines take a lot of the frustration out of kiting. If they have some body to them, they tend to stay in one place, and don’t have a habit of looking incredibly tangled, even when they are not. Lying the kite on the living room floor and holding the bridles up whilst untangling them has at least given me a good understanding of how the kite is rigged! I have invented ways of overcoming this problem, I have had to, otherwise my son and I were never going to fly it! Gripe 2 The lines tend to stretch, so after a few flights you have to get involved in an "evening the lines up session". Great! The way to do this is to undo the Double Overhand knot in the line sleeves at one end of the longest line, run the sleeve up the line to taste and redo the knot. If you have difficulty doing the knot again, a Figure of Eight knot is a good one to use. If the lines become uneven, it runes the flight. It will do all sorts of odd things, like after launching it will just slip back to the ground backwards. What ever you do there is no control over this. You just have to spend an hour or so and even the lines! From a reply to my question to the Buster dealers about the lines, the main lines are slightly longer than the break lines on some kites, so as long as the Main lines are both even and the Break lines are both even, you are ok. You should be flying the kite with the break lines slack, but not so slack that you cannot apply them. Having messed around with the line lengths though, I have found that, the main lines do seem to stretch, so I have now evened them up so all the lines are the same length. I did not note comparative line lengths when I first got the buster, so I don’t know how they came out of the factory. Nor did I note the position of the lines on the knots. This was because my son opened the kite when it first came. The postal worker knocked, and Jonny opened the door. I was a bit slow off the mark. The words "Its ok dad I have undone all the lines!" drifted up the stairs. Great, I thought I will never know how it was set-up. The good points: When it flies well, it flies well. The first time we had it out was in a low wind, not much more than 6mph. It seemed to me that all the other kites were having problems, but our buster flew like a huge and graceful bird. The first few sessions of static flying were great, they were mostly in low winds. It’s turning is not quick like a Flexifoil kite, but this is what I wanted. It felt slow and deliberate. Akin to the feeling of a depowerable kite. It did not deliver any surprises. As we took it out in stronger winds, it became apparent that the power delivery was pretty even. Again no surprises, if it felt too powerful, it pulled strongly, but evenly. All you had to do was to land it out of the wind window. There would be no sudden unexpected tugs. Any tugs were expected. It has quite a strong pull at the Zenith, so good upper body workout, but when you put it to the side of the wind window, it feels steady. We bought it for landboarding, and we have some good sessions with it. It is a bit powerful for Jonny, he weighs 6 stone, but is is fine for me, 12.5 stone. The site http://www.pkdkites.co.uk/docs/buster_windrange.pdf gives you the wind strength set against weight in Kg. I don’t like to fly it in winds much over 16mph. In a clean wind, it does everything you want it to do. It will just hang in the sky at the angle you want for boarding. This is not a lifty kite, but you can get some jumps with it, especially in stronger winds. It is great for scudding as well. Funny watching my son scud off down a football pitch. In conclusion, I would say frustrating lines but a great kite for static flying, scudding, boarding, and some jumping in the right conditions. It flies well within the wind range as suggested by http://www.pkdkites.co.uk and we get a lot of fun out of it, but the lines have to be set up properly. Definitely value for money. The expense has gone into the kite. The bag is just a white oversized cagoule bag, and the handles are fine, no frills. I find that the lines at the handles do rub your fingers a bit, but this can be overcome with something like cycling mittens. It is built well. We have accidentally dumped it down onto the ground several times, leading edge first, with no problem. I have actually seen one flying with a burst cell, where someone did this one too many times. It was flying well, despite two cells converging into one. I would say that this is a beginner to intermediate kite. If you want to start doing tricks and jumps to any competitive level, then you will have to move on, but personally, I am happy with what I can do with it. Author : gammajonnysdad

We (my son and I) have a bullet 2.5 metres square. We bought this as a first kite, but the question that I ask is this a fist kite for a novas flyer? Actually we had been flying a Protein 8 for a year prior to the purchase of this kite, so we were not quite in the novas category, but all the same, the jump from 2 line to quad line was bigger that I had thought. Just a quick comment about the Protein 8; a fun kite. It has pull and lift to some extent particularly in higher winds. We took it into Dartmoor and it pulled us about like mad. Jonny ended up in a hole, having unexpectedly been pulled along the ground. We have even had successful land boarding sessions with it, in winds that are too high for our Bullet or Buster. To return to the Bullet, the kite taught us quite quickly, if it can be said that a kite can teach you.. It taught us that full concentration was necessary to keep it under control. It is quick to react to movements from the handles so a laps of concentration, or lack of knowledge is likely to bring it into the centre of the wind window. Here it is extremely powerful in stronger winds. It will certainly pull me over (12.5 st) and has done on several occasions. On the whole it has more pull than lift, but I have found that a jump into the air when the kite is in this position is often a good strategy. In a lesser clean wind, it is beautiful and sweet to fly, a seemingly 'butter would not melt in its mouth' side to its other persona in a blustery wind. It responds to movements on the main and break lines instantly. You can get it to turn quickly. In a wind that is not too high, I love to see how close I can get it to sweep the ground from edge of the wind window to the other. For my son, it is a great scudder, and will pull him along on the land board. I haven't quite got it to do that for me yet. If I was asked to recommend a good first kite, I would have difficulty answering this question. I would say that learning to fly kites for me is not a linier process, more a circular process, it depends on where you jump into the circle when you first start as to what type of kite you fly. For us, I would say that the bullet is a good first quad-line kite, so long as you take it out in low clean winds to start with. Only take it out in higher winds when knowledge and confidence has been gained, oh and it helps to know some good rolls and break-falls. A few lessons in Judo or Aikido should sort this out! By : gammajonnysdad