Are there any good cheap kites around that I could fuck about with on the beach?
I dunno. I see they have ones with 4 strings on now. Something to generally **** about with that'll pull my arms out of their sockets please. It'd also be nice if I could use it to scare horseriders and knock over sandcastles.
Believe it or not, those 99p disposable ones made out of a square piece of polythene seem to fly in anything more windy than a mouse's fart. Top VFM.
God forbid that anyone should want a kite for a laugh rather than pay a week's wages to have one that's considered half decent by the kite cognoscenti...
Hmm. £50 would be what I'd be looking to spend TBH. I have a strong suspicion that a kite is something I'd use a couple of times a year unless I got hooked. OTOH I have flown kites before and I actually have one with a broken spar in the next room, so perhaps I should fix that one. Can you order bits for them online too? Offline is fairly out of the question as I have no free time at the minute to get anywhere...
That isn't a winning combination, although, for fifty nicker, you might be able to persuade the local thugs to pull your ams out of their sockets. If you want easy to fly, cheap to buy and some pull, then a two line Flexifoil stacker is the way to go - I would suggest the Super 10. retail is about 130 but I'm sure you can pick up a second hand one for less, in fact there's a Super 10 one ebay.co.uk now at 62 quid with 54 minutes to go. Beware, they have a rigid pole, so crashing is not wise. As a beginner, you do not want a Blade (or similar style kite) of any size, you will get dragged down the beach on your face. I see that Flexifoil now has a Sting and Blurr which appear to be (relatively) lower cost proper kites, I know not if they are any good.
Perhaps I'd be best to fix this one then. It's been sat in the spare bedroom for years (probably 10 years at least). Will the line still be strong or will they have degraded? The rubber bands have perished and a couple of spars have gone walkies, so I've got no clue what length they want to be. Can I cut them with a hacksaw to get them down to the right length? OTOH I think this kite cost around £40 in a sale years ago, however it doesn't appear to be totally cheap - the spars are hollow at least. I expect kites are much like mountain bikes and someone turning up and asking "What's cheap and good" is a perrenial and annoying question. The good stuff's dear, but the cheap stuff's enough for you to find out whether or not you want to buy the expensive stuff...
If this gives you any more clue as to whether the lines will still be any cop or not, they're rated at 150lbs and the kite's a 6 foot delta.
Fairynuff. The bits are relatively cheap, but as I expect with most things, a £50 one from 10 years ago is far less good than a £50 one now. That and the fact that I'd have to go to the shed and cut things up and so on... That link doesn't work.
heh. I had a cheapo polythene two-liner for a while and it was great fun. One thing to watch, though: that cliff might look far away, but it's nearer than you think. A kite nosediving onto the clifftop path makes quite a thunk.
I have a 6' Flexifoil I bought in '94 for IIRC £60. It still gets flown a few times a year. Part of the fun is teaching other people to handle it.
I have a Super 10. Same here. It is just about right for a casual flyer and in heavier winds can be a real handful. For a power kite they are a great compromise between power and speed.
<nods> I've had Flexis since they first came out and my first one is still very flyable. It's now joined by (names from memory) several 6' Stackers, a Speed 6, Pro 10, Hyper 12 and a little 4' Hotshot (that's too quick for me but the daughter flys it well). I think I've only ever broken two spars, once when I hit a concrete post at full chat and another when I trod on one (easy with several kites laying about). None of the Flexi's really pull, well compared to the 5 sqm Wallend-Air traction / two line thing I've got. In anything like a breeze it's absolutely brutal and I have video footage of it pulling our daughter, her b/f and my missues over (all at once) and dragging a lighter mate across a field on his arse (plouging two furrows with his heels)! It gives me a good workout though. The 12' Flexi pulled a fairly large (ex CID) mate of mine over and he broke his collar bone. :-( As platypus mentioned, much of my fun is now gained from letting other people fly a Flexi (as they are virtually indestructible, fun and can be self/ ground launched) and it's nice to see their little faces when the control penny drops. http://www.flexifoil.com/ As Alex mentioned the 10' is probably as big as you would want to go. No only is it quite a handful for the lighter / less fit person but the wider they go the more careful you have to be keeping the lines untwisted (flying the same number of rights as lefts etc). The narrower kites don't suffer quite so much [1]. All the best .. T i m p.s. For Doki, a low ground pass with the Pro 10 has taken our daughter straight off her feet (I didn't notice she had walked out into the flying area in the dusk ... and the line mark across her neck lasted a while) :-( [1] I once few the Flexi "Euro stack", something like 20 6' Flexis joined together. Now they did pull! ;-) http://www.cobrakite.com/jaclad.html
I have an RC-Cam allowing you to transmit live video from yer kite down to a ground monitor / recorder. It's quite unnerving seeing a kites_eye_view of the ground rushing up at ~70 mph! They even use those Oregon Scientific ATC2000 Action Cam's All the best .. T i m
Lidl had a load of different sizes and styles from monday http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20080804.p.Kites.ar11 Great for the kids mucking about on the beach, Mine survived from last year (the kites and the kids)
The RSPB will be on you like a ton of bricks. Get a seagull instead - cheaper on fuel (they eat anything) and are used to the salt.
Flexifoil Sting - £89 for the 1.2m one though, so not in your price range. I have a 1.2 (4 years old) and a 2.4m (a year old). I pretty much, 85% of the time, fly the 1.2 - it's great in all winds and gets particularly interesting in high winds - not because of the pull (though surprising how much they do pull) but the speed - extremely quick. Others have mentioned the stacker - to me the Sting is worth the extra to get the extra control. FWIW, I've landboarded with the 1.2 - the speed makes it extremely tricky, but it can pull that hard - need uprated lines for this mind you. In four years I've flown it loads ,crashed it a few times and it's like new as far as I'm concerned. The 2.4 is the same, only slower and a lot higher pull - no lift though. So, I'd recommend the Sting. As others have said, don't be tempted by a second hand Blade or the like - I had a 3.4m Blade 4 and it absolutely scared the life out of me (and caused a few minor bruises) - motorcycles have controllable power - that bloody thing had uncontrollable power and a load of lift - I would not buy one again - ever. If I were to buy another big kite, I'd get a depowerable (Sabre or the like), however I've kind of given up the land boarding due to dodgy knees/back, so I just stick to the Stings now.
Cheers. I'm thinking of getting a second hand Flexifoil 10 of some variety TBH. Not over dear, and if I don't like it I should be able to get my cash back on ebay straight away, whereas new stuff is always going to depreciate pretty rapidly just for being out of the box.
