So I have been messing around with a trainer kite for the past two weeks on days where i'm getting some decent wind. Have had some successful sessions but today I think I may have went a little over my head. I popped my head out the window of my house and noticed the wind was moving the trees quite well so I thought today is gonna be perfect to fly my kite. I hit up a park near my house and a soon as i got the kite up in the air, i was all over the place. I could not control the kite at all and it was pulling me around pretty good. I left a huge line in the soccer field from the kite dragging me in my shoes. After 5 minutes i packed up and went home. I checked the weather network as soon as i got home and it showed wind at 28km/hr and a wind gust of 44km/hr. My question is what wind speed is ideal to fly my trainer kite? The kite i'm using is a HQ Hydra 350.

Rails said..
Used to love getting dragged all over the place by my foil
as long as you can still fly it up to 12 o'clock and walk backwardis you'll be fine
can be a little scary how much power they have eh

Yeah I think it was a little too strong for me. At 12 o'clock it felt like it was going to lift me up off the ground. What scares me more is knowing that it's only a 3.5 meter kite. I couldn't imagine what a full size kite could do. Makes you realize what dangers your dealing with.

MBUGS, a few tings to consider here.

-A 3.5 trainer kite is about as big as a trainer kite gets. This means it's designed only for light wind flying i.e. below 15 knots (27 km/h)

-Wind strength is one thing but wind quality is another. Flying a kite in a park is typically where you find the poorest quality of wind due to obstacles around (houses, trees, hills, etc.) interfering with the wind, thus creating turbulence in the wind. The wind meter you read is most likely in an open area away from obstacles, so if it had 16 km/h of variation in it's in reading, you probably had even more variation in a park, plus the way you described your experience it seems the wind was changing direction, and I'm guessing this is due to the obstacles around you.

This video explains some of the basics on wind effects:



-Trainer kites are ''non-depowerable'' kites which means you are mostly at the mercy of the wind and all it's power is held by your arms. The feeling you will get from an inflatable ''depowerable'' kite will be very different and will require some adjustments. As said before a 3.5m foil kite probably pull as much as a 6 or 7m inflatable kite.

My advice is to avoid flying this size of trainer kite beyond 30 km/h, especially if the wind is of poor quality

My other advice is to get your hands on the kitesurfing beginner progression DVD which will cover many essential basics and safety concepts and will facilitate your progression when you book lessons.

Stay safe,

Christian

1.5m trainer kite and a longboard.... that's some smoothness. 15-20 knots is good.

BrisKites said..
Trainer kites will feel more powerful because you are holding all the power with your hands instead of through the harness. The wind strengths actually needed to lift you would be a lot more than you had on the day.

On windier days practice keeping the kite at the edge of the window and not driving it through the wind.

Any inland gusts will make the kite surge and create additional power as it's travelling back to the edge.

Next time it's that windy maybe head for some shallow water and practice some body dragging. The Hydra relaunches fine from the water if you crash it.

Jas
BrisKites

Yeah the issue im having right now is finding an area with consistent winds. Trees really mess things up and i always get these huge surges of wind that pull my kite straight up. Do you think it would be a good idea to add a chicken loop to my bar so that i can attach it to a harness. I believe HQ makes some type of D-loop that can connect to my bar and then i can connect to a harness.