Hi all. I'm new. Come from FNQ. I have done what is apparently the responsible thing to do and that is to go out and buy a trainer kite so I can get a feel for kites before I endanger the general public by plowing through women and babies on the beach with a real kite. Also, so I can exude a responsible and professional image for the industry in general.

So I did this because I read HEAPS of articles advising me how to get into the sport. They all said 'buy a trainer kite it will be the best investment you will ever buy and you will learn quicker and save money on lessons and can use it whenever you haven't the time to go real kite surfing and learn new tricks etc, etc...

Who can argue with that?

They also universally said that until you are able to:
Fly said trainer with eyes closed, do loops and figure 8's with eyes closed through and across power window and basically pick your nose while flying and drinking a beer while cooking a BBQ on the beach you are NOT experienced enough to try a real kite. So I bought a HQ 300 pro. Nice trainer and have absolutely no issues with the trainer quality. Cost about $280.

The following is a pretty accurate log of my experience and not necessarily continuous - but without a single lesson:
Hour 1 - learn to steer like motorbike not car and how to relaunch.
Hour 2 - easily doing figure 8 cross vertical and horizontal across power window.
Hour 3 - Gave my 8 year old daughter a go. She was tossed a bit but generally enjoyed herself. I was kkidding down the beach in full power window.
Hour 4 - Eyes closed on everything in 20 knot winds. Fun but starting to get boring.
Hour 5 - drinking beers on beach with buddies and easily knocking beer cans off the sand without crashing in 20 knot winds. Fun? Hell yeah!

But did I need to BUY this trainer? Would I have saved money in lessons?
In 3 hours I could have easily mastered this trainer. The hype stated people advised we would need around 10 - 20 hours to achieve this. I'm not super human. I'm 45. My daughter is 8. I'm not saying I threw my money away but I think there's a definite hype to make money from trainers. I don't feel cheated but this is way easier than the hype spun out there...

Any views?.

yeah you can buy like el cheapo off ebay for 5 bucks. Won't pull like a 2.8m but you will get an idea of where the power is in the wind window

Yep agree, trainer kites are not a total waist of money, but close to it

Should've just bought an old Waroo and just flogged that for a few hours (so it doesn't matter when you crash it).
Then throw it in the bin when your done.
Then buy proper kite.

Trainer is pointless IMO.

In a nutshell I think that the kitesurfing fraternity, like any sport, is trying to establish and market an industry. Hell, one look at how many people are getting into it shows there's money to be made. Image, gear, lessons, instructors. I seen it in the Dive industry as I was an instructor for a while. IMO there's nothing wrong with creating a legitimate industry but when it projects a notion/image/safety awareness campaign out of proportion to the facts then this is just a marketing campaign to force people to buy gear perhaps they didn't really need.

I feel guilty in a way coz I'm not trying to stop people buying trainer kites ( I learned heaps) or lessons (I'll take a few) but if we want this industry to be real we need real and honest advice and not stuff promulgated by what could be industry wannabees all over the internet.

trainers are awesome...,you just gotta think outside the box

imagine the hours of fun you can have watchin your eight year old and her friends supermanning themselves and dislocating body parts all over the park on weekends

and the sexy nurses you'll meet @ the hospital and @ the department of community services when they come to take your kid away...

besides, a trainer kite with shortened lines and a skateboard on a cycletrack in ten knots is mad fun

Cool Doc. I see your point. Nurses are sweet but I'd rather not pay for them.

I agree 100%, trainers don't teach you to power or depower,you do not have a safety to eject, you don't learn valuable lessons like depowering when the kite stall(which always seem like the wrong thing to do until you realise that it works every time).

Flying a kite is not complex, you pull on the left and it turns left,you pull right and turns right, anyone with half a brain will have it suss in 30mn.

Any modern kite is piss easy to fly across the window, the issue is that when it goes wrong and you accidently loop the kite, it gets ugly very very fast.

So although it may not seem obvious, the few hours spent flying a trainer without risking your life may still be worth a fair bit as you are training your brain to have the right reflexes.

The other option, probably more efficient is to fly a real kite on a huge beach with no obstacles nearby and get pounded a couple of times and eat a couple of kilos of sand.
That is definately my prefered option as it teaches you to respect the kite and all your mates will thank you for the entertainment.

PS:if your daughter can hold a camera, you might also make a fortune on youtube.

I watched my girlfriend get dragged down the park facefirst kitelooping for 80m on a 3m airush trainer kite...the kite $250...the look on my face PRICELESS.

I also launched this kite off my roof rack in 18kn at Hillaries to and it was rocking my car violently before pulling 2 apparently unbendable occy hooks straight. A fast kite with no depower can get powered quikly.

About time we had another "trainer kite or no trainer kite?" free for all. IMO there are lots of opinions

A decent quality two string stunt kite, costing around $60 is perfectly adequate to learn kite skills.

After that, it's great to have in the car to fly at surfchecks, with the kids and anytime you want to feel the joy that flying a kite brings.

The one thing I will say about trainers that most new kiters don't realise is that the reason sites recommend 30 hours is to give you time to feel the kite. To put it into perspective, you learn to drive a car, you can do that pretty quickly but the government wants you to get 100 hours or more under your belt so you don't just know how to drive, you know how to drive without having to think about it.

Lets give you some examples of what this means in kiting. Classic new kiter mistake is the one where they are putting on their board and every time they look down they accidentally pull on one side of the bar and they get pulled off to the side before they can get the board on. Second example, you are getting up on the board, but now you have to look up at the kite to understand what its doing so you don't watch the water in front of you for waves, people etc.

When it comes to kiting, you should really be able to kite along without watching the kite. Although a lot of kiters look up, I'm willing to bet most of the kiters with more than 2 years under their belt could easily ride, jump and land without looking at the kite once, purely because they can feel from the bar where the kite is and what its doing. That skill isn't miraculous, it comes from understand the feel of the kite and the bar pressure.

I agree with most the comments above about a trainer being easy to fly
watching the kite or not, might be easy and quick to pick up in 10 to 20 knots, but how much more attention is required to fly it when it starts to windy.
Can you still do the same things at 25 knots + as you would do at 15 knots.
Do you earn a little more respect at 25 knots+, for the power that your little trainer kite can generate.
These changes in wind can still feel significant on a little trainer, but when you translate those effects to a larger kite, it's wiser to have an idea of what may be expected.
Either way you are always learning something.

Trainers are not pointless,
I have used mine to kitesurfing (3m Air Rush Foil) in 35 knots at Brighton.. good times ahead mate.

$280 is a cheap insurance policy for not waking up in hospital unconscious after using a 10m kite in 20 knot winds, for the first time.
I never learnt on a trainer but have recommended friends that want to learn that this is the way.

Just like when learning to ride a motorbike or car, restricted vehicles for learners or p platers, help make it safer for the individual and other road users.

Learning to use a power kite is the same thing. If you have never done it before, it certainly takes a bit of learning to master the wind window, and utilising safety systems, and safe kiting.

Can you avoid using a trainer kite, when learning? Hell yeah, you can, but know the risks and use other experienced kiters judgement, on the better methods.

Sweetriffs, learning what you have learnt on the trainer kite, has probably saved you close to 6 months af aggravation, and being dragged around the beach being frustrated. This has quickened your time to get up on the water, and hopefully reduced your upwind walk of shame by a month.

Sweetriffs, i agree that blowing that much $$dosh on a trainer kite seems like a waste, but look you have started to share the stoke with your 8 year old. What a great birthday present that may make for her.


Goodluck with your next stages in kitesurfing. You certainly did do the right thing.

KR

Conspiracy? By your own admission you had Fun(Hell Yeah!) , learned heaps and you've got a kite to take home. What exactly where you hoping to gain from your bank breaking $280.