Hi,

Looking for some light-weight advice/ideas.

I have twins (10 yrs old) who are looking to try kiting but they only weigh 25-28kgs. I acquired a 6m Switchblade and made up some 15m lines for it.

The trouble is that the Switchblade needs 14+ knots to fly well and at 16 knots the kids are way overpowered (feet not touching the ground/water much).

I think the trouble is that the kite is designed for 30 knots.

Thoughts / Ideas appreciated.

I'm a 48kg intermediate rider and just bought an 8m s-bow starkite - wanted something easy to handle in high winds - i absolutely love it!!! i can get out in 14 knotts with a big board and handle it on a smaller board in 28 or so - it has great depower, i think it would be awesome to learn on, but i still have great fun in 16 17 knotts, can do big jumps etc. i bought the 2009 model brand new with bar and lines for $600 and can't recommend it enough for someone just wanting something easy to fly. not high performance but it suits me... not sure if they have a 6m model? good luck and happy kiting!!!

my son is 32kgs he is on a dna 4 meter but i would not recomed it for under 12 kn as it falls out of the sky . also try the ozone triner i think it is uno pump up uses normal 4 line bar only 2.5meter looks like the go .

2blackducks said...

Hi - thanks all for thoughts so far.

I thought of an Ozone Uno but only comes in 2.5m - not sure if this would be enough - has anybody used the Uno with a small rider - what is Uno's minimum wind speed.

Will look into Viron & Catalyst.

Have a chat with Jon or Rhys at Kitepower Brisbane (07) 3284 1186, they can help you with Ozone Catalyst. The Catalyst will fly well from 8-10 knots. The Ozone Uno is a trainer kite and although it will fly from around 10 knots upwards, its a bit small.
I'd recommend a 6M Catalyst, they have great depower, simple and very effective front line flag out, and very easy relaunch.
Kitepower sponsors a 10 YO rider, Aaron Kenny he rides Ozone C4's, his most used kite is his 5M, which could be another option?

BrisKites said...

At under 30kg we find that no LEI kite works. There are always too many issues with the kite being too powerful or not re-launching of flying too fast.
The best bet is to wait until they gain another 5-10kg or look at a water re-launch ram air kite.

Well thats not our experience. We taught a lesson to a 7yo last week, he was able to fly the Ozone Uno, completely unassisted on the beach and was able to relaunch it and learn to rig. Towards the end of the lesson, the instructor took him into the water for some tandem body dragging, although the youngster was not actually flying the Uno at that time. Next lesson, he will revise the land based part of the lessons and will be going into the water with an inflatable kite, with something like a 4M or 6M Ozone Catalyst.

They key to successfully and confidently flying the 2.5 Ozone Uno with this young guy was that his parents had taught him to fly a trainer kite on land for several months before asking us to do the lesson.

Inexperienced beginners (ones that have too little or no kite flying experience) will fly the kite across and through the wind window creating large spikes of power and consequently getting overpowered.

A competently skilled beginner will know to keep the kite at the edge of the window and only dive it deep enough on one side of the window to get some useable power. They have a thorough knowledge of the wind window, and know when to fly the kite deeper in the power zone and which side of the window the kite should be flown in.