I just heard about an amazing story of survival, and I thought it might be worth retelling as a sort of warning to all us power kiting addicts, especially the less experienced.
The rider in this case wants to remain anonymous, the incident happened approx 3 yeras ago, there were several credible witnesses, but none thought to take pics, I think they were just too stunned and possibly were shocked and thinking they were witnessing the death of a friend??

There are lots of other stories and excellent info on this website put together by Rick Iossi
fksa.org/forumdisplay.php?f=80
Or just explore his amazing website here. fksa.org/


If you power kite for long enough there is a fair chance you will experience a lofting incident, there are many stories and lots of articles on the problem on Ricks site.

The incident happened near the top of a valley or bowl near the summit of Mt Bogong in Victoria, Australia. The rider, quite experienced, was snowkiting on a snowboard with a Flexifoil Blade1 kite on handles, on 25M lines. He was using a wichard style shackle, and pulley system, with a harness.
The rider was kiting along the ridge of the bowl and was approaching some rocks in a slight downward and downwind direction, so as he redirected the kite to jump over the short section of rocks he was lofted. Moments before this he said he had noticed the wind had picked up a bit and he was getting a bit overpowered and starting to lose his edge slightly.

As he jumped he said he immediately felt himself go up, not super rapidly, like my own near fatal lofting, but still he realised from that first instant, he was going up for a while!

He was lofted to approx 50M high initially, but as he glided down into the valley below, he reached a vertical height from the valley floor of approx 100M, maybe even a bit nore at times. He estimates the flight lasted for well over a minute. He was able to control his flight direction and descent slightly, but towards the end of the flight/lofting he said he started to lose hight rapidly and needed to select a landing area quickly. He aimed for a patch of snow on the side of the valley, in between a stand of smallish snowgum trees and a rock filled gulley/shute.

The flight distance estimated by him was approx 2klms, his friends say it was several hundred metres in a straight line, either way it was one enormous jump!!!

He overshot the snow and landed on the only relatively smooth section of rocks and then skidded down the rocks to a heavy but safe landing, completely unharmed except for a tear in his snow pants (maybe a brown stain on the inside too?!!)

He had already pulled the wichard and had grabbed a handful of brake lines so he could not be lofted again, but the kite had landed over a tree and was immobilised anyway.

His friends skied down to him from their observation point near the top of the bowl where they were trekking for a run down to the bottom of the valley, the rider was white and stunned.
Later the rider got back on the horse and ascended the bowl with a smaller Ozone 3M foil kite.

I have seen pictures of the area, on the day, and I am still amazed that the person survived. The most probable cause, due to the wind direction and his place of lofting, was Ridge Lift.

Ridge LIFT is a phenomenom, that occurs when wind passes over any object in its path with a vertical or upward sloping surface that helps to accelerate the air flow.

Causes can be dunes, trees, buildings, upward edge of upward sloping land, etc. Be very careful to not let a kite fly in this area, especially if you are shackled in and especially if you are well powered already, like we are in kite surfing, snow kiting, etc.

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

PS will post a pic of the valley/bowl when I get hold of one, there are no pics of the lofting itself.