Kite Regrets

[andy666]

Following on from @.Joel $10,000 new kites post...

What kites or gear do you wish you never purchased. 
Were they a waste of money, didn’t perform, out performed your flying ability or maybe spanked you so hard that they scare you to this very day. 

for me it’s

Quiver of HQ Montana’s: they were nice kites, flew well and I learned on them. But once I tried a flysurfer speed 3 I realised what I should of been spending my money on. 
 

flysurfer boost 9m: my first lei kite, which I purchased for high winds. I have only flown it about 5 times.
On the 5th time, in 22-25 knots, the chicken loop rolled off the harness hook And yanked my shoulder out of the socket. Dislocated shoulders and self rescue do not go well together. Never flown again, that kite just brings up too many bad feelings.

pansh sprints: cheap and cheerful, but needed tuning and the kites actually out flew my ability’s. 

If I really think about it and I’m honest with myself there are probably more, but that’s the top 3. 

[.Joel]

14 hours ago, andy666 said:

What kites or gear do you wish you never purchased. 

1) Rhombus Firebee, biggest spanking of my life from that kite.  At the time I had 1 kite a PKD Buster 3.0M and decided I needed something larger so following the advice of a local retailer I purchased a used Firebee from him.  I took it out in some gusty winds and it promptly lifted me out of the buggy, slammed and dragged me for 20m.  The kite was beyond my abilities at the time.

On a positive, that screw up with the Firebee led to me buying a Flexifoil Bullet 4.5M which I loved.

2) The first ever Extreme Kites banner.  I couldn't afford one of the nice OzFeathers banners at the time as I was studying again, so I went online in search and found a place in Weifang that would make feather banners or so I thought.  They had some nice images of different promotional banners they had done, so I ordered a single banner as a sample with plans to order 5 more and send one off to each capital city.  What arrived was our logo screen printed on some shiny dress material, and the leading edge where the banner pole goes in was made out of two different types of kid's printed curtain material, one of them with teddy bears 😂

[slide]

i have many flexifoil early blades -1, 2 ,3 that i love , but my biggest regret is blade iv 4 metre and 6.5 metre , they are easily beaten by , blurr 3.5metre , and blurr 7metre which i also have ,blade iv's  are easy to fly , but not my favourite blades -if you like bladeiv's , get yourself an earlier version of a truely classic kite that will never be beaten for jumping and freestlye

[Pari]

I'd have to say my 2014 Liquid force Envy 12M. Just felt heavy, not very much power for a 12m and crap up wind ability. Got a Pivot 11M after it, much better kite.

[Mfwetu]

None. Even the dogs taught me something  - mainly "don"t ever buy this kite again " 

[.Joel]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:10 AM, slide said:

i have many flexifoil early blades -1, 2 ,3 that i love , but my biggest regret is blade iv 4 metre and 6.5 metre , they are easily beaten by , blurr 3.5metre , and blurr 7metre which i also have ,blade iv's  are easy to fly , but not my favourite blades -if you like bladeiv's , get yourself an earlier version of a truely classic kite that will never be beaten for jumping and freestlye

That's really interesting, of all the Blade's the IV 6.5 was my favourite   
There's a whole quiver of Blade II's for sale at the moment and I've had to delete sending the guy a message no less than 4 times the past week.  Not sure how long I can keep up this self-control  

[slide]

its a good kite just not my favourite blade 

[Northern Kites Australia]

HQ Neo II 11m. More like an 8m gutless piece of &^%#&^%#&^%. No upwind ability. Hardly any power. Trashed it. Kept the bar and lines though.

Ozone Octane 4m on fixed 4-line bar. Oh that was the kite from hell. Only tried it on land, but has no tolerance for gusts, which is a bad combo. Kept lofting me. Crash landed more than I can imagine, but heck... I learnt landboarding with her. I hope the guy in Adelaide that bought it is still alive.

And yess.... the one and only.... Peter Lynn WaterFoil - urrghhh... I shudder even now thinking about it. Got this for free from Jon. Great kite in the right hands. I changed it to a have a basic mixer with both B and C lines off the one pulley. It "worked"... well it had some depower. But I think the campher was too curved and she pulled like a truck! So much power for such a small little kite. Could not dive it. It spun around on the spot! Forget kite control. This thing was built to control, chew and later kill you. Had some great moments on water though. Funny, but on water it was fine. 18knots and I was boosting nicely, but had some great back slides down the park. Great depower though - once you can reach the QR whilst being churned like a dry piece of turd down a hilly road!! Sold it to a guy that I warned in NSW hunter region, about it. I tried to reach out and see if the kite was to his expectations. No reply!

[Mfwetu]

4 hours ago, Northern Kites Australia said:

Ozone Octane 4m on fixed 4-line bar. Oh that was the kite from hell. Only tried it on land, but has no tolerance for gusts, which is a bad combo. Kept lofting me. Crash landed more than I can imagine, but heck... I learnt landboarding with her. I hope the guy in Adelaide that bought it is still alive.

Funny, I had the same kite and enjoyed it. I guess any fixed bridle kite will be a handful in janky conditions.  

[slide]

On 9/19/2020 at 1:51 PM, .Joel said:

That's really interesting, of all the Blade's the IV 6.5 was my favourite   
There's a whole quiver of Blade II's for sale at the moment and I've had to delete sending the guy a message no less than 4 times the past week.  Not sure how long I can keep up this self-control  

i do understand why the bladeiv 6.5 would be great for buggying as its easy to fly  , no luffing like earlier blades , and has a big wind range - i remember when the iv came out and all the flexi riders were flying them and going really well , mark everitt said to me the iv has lost the glide that the 3 had and the more i thought about it ,he was spot on ,i had the full set of 3's on handles ,(always flew on handles), and even the 3metre b3 had that glide  , i have had many great sessions with that kite in high wind and it is so stable in big winds and a lovery kite to jump with -the only blade3 i sold was the 10.5, , mainly because i needed some guitar speakers at the time , but i wish i hadn't , but there you go life takes us down many lanes , pete

on the quiver of blade2's jump on it fast , 6.4 and bigger are slow in modern standards , but still great , 4,49 are amazing for freestlye in good winds , and the 3 and 2 are just loverly too , so yes joel ,these kites stand the test of time so well if the previous owner was a good flyer and even if they wern't they hold up well and i have seen on ebay the second  prices are going up , which its hard to get a good price for a old second hand kite on ebay -it needs to be something special and flysurfers do it well and anything with flexifoil written on it is a hardy kite and the blades are extremely hardy

my b2 6.4 has 6 sown patches on it ,and they are very neat, repaired by the flexifoil sowing girls ,team, in the day many years ago  and it still fly's brilliant -i brought it like that and never had any worries about jumping with it -hell my favourite 2's and 3's i have in both colours 😍 and all my blades are all set up to go on handle's ,rope strop and waiting to go 👅