let's start the safety debate again...incredible vid!!

[Kobrin]

I'm afraid it is real.

It was also published in some newspapers and probably will get some coverage on national tv.

If it was fake, it would be known by now..

[The Captain]

FAKE.....watch the cars frame by frame...on just appears, one just moves.

[Rorke]

It was probably meant to be an April Fool's joke.
If so, I can't blame them for getting impatient and releasing it early. It's killer.

Videos of stunts usually consist of a few moments of suspension build up, replay, and celebration. Why was the clip so brief?

If a longer version pops up, my suspension of disbelief may kick in again!

[RickI]

Need some help, these two frames were taken during the jump over what appears to be 10 seconds of run time. As others have said, a LOT of changes went on with the cars during this 10 seconds. Lets say they cut out some video, so why not triple it to 30 seconds, long jump too.

Anyway in 10 to 30 seconds, some cars are missing (G for gone), some have changed into other body styles (C) and still others have appeared out of thin air (N for new). Missed labeling one too, there should be a G in the lower right hand corner of the roof where a fifth car change happened.That is some fast car moving, how about one of the many witnesses of this epic event help us to understand with an explanation?


Captured at 23 seconds


Captured at 13 seconds

Nice video and early for April 1rst too!

[gonewiththewind]

I'm afraid it is real.

It was also published in some newspapers and probably will get some coverage on national tv.

If it was fake, it would be known by now..

You're such a f*cking kook, and so is the guy in the video trying to milk this for publicity. I'm sorry, but I have no more patience for total idiocy in this world. It's already been proven as fake WITHIN THIS VERY THREAD. If you're going to go to that much trouble to make a fake video like that, at least spend an extra two minutes using your brain so that you don't include such obvious tipoffs as MOVING CARS!!! Losers. Or as others such as yourself often like to say: LOOSERS!

Also... can some of you with YouTube accounts please go post some comments there telling people that this is fake before this gets a million hits from unsuspecting non-kiters?

[RickI]

Still lacking any input from the witnesses of this jump. Maybe they're waiting until April 1? Absent explanations or verifying input, here's a public service announcement. Imagine that!

Anyway, as cool and easy as it looks in the video ... its not! The only guy I have heard of who tried to do this off a high building also landed on another one but died from the impact. He was found there some hours later. No one apparently saw him jump or subsequently die, just a bizarre after the fact casualty.

The air flow around buildings can be very complex. If your kite sees less than stall speed, you will likely fall until you drop fast enough to exceed the stall velocity for your kite when you first launch. You can easily have this if you fly into rotor as well.. There can be tremendous uplift local to the side of the building. Then there can be rotor from wind shadow off other buildings and terrain. If you are trying to land on another building, the same bizarre factors might be present too, uplift, immediately downwind of a building side lots of nasty rotor. If you had to model it, it could get pretty complex. Flying into it, could be a suicidally exciting experience. Add to that the odds of hurting someone else on the ground, flying into high tension power lines, screwing up the depower of the kite to where you get dragged off or into something. The millimeter threading of that remarkable landing close to and between cars, fencing and steep walls is pretty amazing and apparently unrealistic. Here's a nice Catch 22 to go with this. Say your kite has a stall speed of 26 mph, as a guess or 30 ft./second. If you fly in during dead air, not rotor perhaps some thermals cooking off though, you have to be moving faster than that to stay aloft with steerage. You could easily be off the building LZ in bare seconds. The closer your head wind is to 26 mph, the slower you can land BUT the higher the mechanical turbulence. Tricky.


Checkout those chaotic streamlines downwind of the tower. Those can run out a good long ways and can become even more confused with interactions with other structures.
From: http://www.caebridge.com/urban-wind-and ... -placement



They even came up with a name for these confused winds that are cast off of a collection of buildings, "Urban Canyon Wind."
Imagine this, you're coming in for a landing and you get caught in those uplift streamlines and get flown over the building and dropped over the other side into intense rotor. Having some fun now!


You want to stay out of those rotor or gyre zones downwind of the structures. Stalling to lofting to stalling kites, not a lot of fun.
From: http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/e ... tywind.htm


A powered aircraft enjoying some time in the spin cycle courtesy of rotor or mechanical turbulence.
From: http://www.atsb.gov.au/

Short version, don't try this regardless of the video guy's apparent prowess. From current indications, lacking confirmation, the most amazing and hazardous parts of this jump, may have happened only in a computer some place.

If I'm wrong about the video, just speak up and explain it to us. Otherwise some strong disclaimers would be a good idea.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[toyletbowl]

My hat goes off to these guys for such creativity and making everyone wonder if it's real.

Maybe they edited things out of the video on purpose to make it look fake on purpose.
Maybe they did not go to great lengths to promote and authenticate to keep the mystery high.
Maybe they were way ahead of all of us knowing the reactions would be as expected.

That being said, I doubt anyone with any hint of a brain would go out and attempt to duplicate except to duplicate a similar video. Cool job creating this video.

bob
www.kiteridersllc.com
























shhhh...it's fake.

[Kobrin]

I'm afraid it is real.

It was also published in some newspapers and probably will get some coverage on national tv.

If it was fake, it would be known by now..

You're such a f*cking kook, and so is the guy in the video trying to milk this for publicity. I'm sorry, but I have no more patience for total idiocy in this world. It's already been proven as fake WITHIN THIS VERY THREAD. If you're going to go to that much trouble to make a fake video like that, at least spend an extra two minutes using your brain so that you don't include such obvious tipoffs as MOVING CARS!!! Losers. Or as others such as yourself often like to say: LOOSERS!

Also... can some of you with YouTube accounts please go post some comments there telling people that this is fake before this gets a million hits from unsuspecting non-kiters?

Who's the f*cking kook here, it's you gonewiththewind!!

You are the biggest LOOSER ever, what's you're problem to little attention??

Need viagra?

They did a great job creating commotion and make people wonder.

The video is seen and discussed by people over the world.

That's the goal, and it's spot on.

Off course it's fake, but nicely created!!

[RickI]

Bob, I would like to say, yes, no one would try this. Reality is, some people imitate what they see regardless of common sense. This happens a fair amount in lesser degrees still with lethal potential. I doubt someone would jump off a 20 plus story tower in a dense urban setting anytime soon with a kite. Smaller buildings, maybe still with wind shadow problems, more likely. Look at all the folks out in squalls, doing tow ups and dying to try dune soaring with our tissue paper gear. Bad ideas but people like what they see, ignore common sense and just do it.

Again, someone already tried this from what I recall, years before this video. They killed themselves in a pretty nasty way, likely falling from a mid rise tower in a severe stall into another roof top. Or maybe when they put their kite up they were ripped off the roof and then dropped in an out of control stall or kite loop. Or maybe, he was flying until his kite fell into the wind shadow/dead air zone of a building upwind. I tried that once on a tandem condo soaring hang gliding flight with an instructor, we dropped like a rock and almost slammed into the roof of the building causing the dead air upwind.** The instructors idea, not mine. No one saw the guy go off the roof with the kite, he was found later on. Still trying to find the original post. Art copies life then?

Intriguing video comp nicely edited, but I would fess up, before someone not thinking very clearly tries some variant of this.





** We were trying to figure 8 down into the lift band from the tall condo to the right, in lighter cross winds. Trouble was, there was no lift band in those marginal conditions. We figured 8'd below the roof level and down several floors, then the lift turned off. That small six story building to the right cast a pretty nasty wind shadow down wind. We went into a power dive, barely cleared the roof of the lowrise building and did and skimmed in for an immediate landing on the water. The glider was setup with pontoons for water landings routinely. This was a very simple setting, nothing like one with a bunch of buildings. We were on a hang glider, still subject to stalls but able to come out of them light years better than a "kite" and a great deal more appropriate for flying.

[kitester]

A couple of years ago some guy posted video of himself riding ridge lift with a waroo. he jumped off the edge of the cliff and went back an forth. Leroy also sailed off a high dune and actually gained altitude. The Naish video "13 dayz" has video of guys jumping off a cliff. So I would say its possible. However if I wanted to fake this sort of thing I would use real video at the beginning and end and just fake the flying stuff. There is a lot of soft wear that combined with clever editing could produce a passable result. I wonder how many people saw the airliner that snatches the kiter off the water or the pilot that lands the plane with just one wing? I think its fake.

I also think that there is a small group of people who would say "I can do that"! It would be better to know its faked than to hear about someone who tried a similar stunt and got killed. For anyone who says no body would be dumb enough to try it just remember the kids who tried to repeat the movie stunt of lying down in the road so cars could drive over them. That did not work out so well. I guess I am a kill joy but its better that people (even one without brains) getting killed. Also think how bad the press would be for kiting.