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snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

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herculon
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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby herculon » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:27 pm

regarding a safe harness, there is something very nice: a cross-over harness for kiting, speedflying and paragliding. its called kortel carver:


http://www.korteldesign.com/spip/?Karver,144

Image

this is the same harness that is used by sylvain (the guy soaring the dune-de-pyla using flysurfer speed3) this harness is load tested, so you can really thrust it not to break under higher loads ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSsKAzyKzhc

hope that was a more useful post than my previous ones ;-)
(nonetheless: play it safe, as every accident is a good reason for the haters to prohibit kiting and flying in general.. they are just waiting for mistakes..)

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby SuperKiteDay » Thu Jul 05, 2012 10:46 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aj_zU8USaE

this is a video i made with chasta and jerome, i stayed with them early this year durring the Snowkitemasters. there are a few clips about hill gliding etc. let me know what you think, send me a comment on youtube

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby plummet » Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:44 pm

SuperKiteDay wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aj_zU8USaE

this is a video i made with chasta and jerome, i stayed with them early this year durring the Snowkitemasters. there are a few clips about hill gliding etc. let me know what you think, send me a comment on youtube
Very nice vid. interesting harness info too.

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby windrupted » Sun Oct 28, 2012 5:15 pm

plummet wrote:Well this has been a useless thread. I asked what customised safety gear the snow kiters use and i get the paraglider police.

Im not jumping off massive mountains and gliding hundreds of feet off the ground. i'm jumping off a very small shallow sand dune with clean wind. I'm limiting myself to several feet off the ground. So in reality i'm not jumping any higher than i would on the flat. just gliding longer.

So.. . . . . please discontinue the paraglider police and if you do have your own personalised safety devices post them up.
:rollgrin:

Hi Plummet. I felt the same way when being lectured by The Masters of Safety. I am a middle aged kiter and I do little glides once in a while. Biggest I ever go is enough for two slow rotations, and I try not to get so high that if the wind bubbled I would break something. (For some reason the fear of busting my head in prevents me from gliding backwards, when snowboarding. I am afraid of heights.) I like to be rotating low so I can come in a bit hot and only want solid, fast, clean landings on rail or I feel like I blundered it. Dangling for me is not something I want to do for very long. I double harness and use a larger thicker waist harness for a "Turtle Shell" effect if I don't get all the way around and come in sliding on my back, and just a very light climbing harness looped over the hook.

The parts that fail are the swivels and the QR could pop, so I lock that off with just enough tape to make it stay unless I ask it to release. The swivels get uber-loaded climbing up and once one failed because I had let it get full of sand, and then climbed steep sticky snow, so now I have removed that variable. (It loaded it so hard that the stainless steel line separator/ring connector thing snapped.) I have a special "Ruben Pro Bar" that has ultra ultra thick 20m lines and has a giant, doubled up chicken rope that is 1/2" thick (1/4" Amsteel doubled back through itself.) That part of the equation is pretty much accounted for by trial and error.

Plastic skatepads over the knees if there's any rocks hiding in the snow. The nature of windy ridges is they tend to be pretty boney at the top. I mostly ride waves so I tend to be toeside a lot, and habitually drag that knee at times. One rock could sure destroy my knee-cap. I suppose in sand dunes that's not necessary. Sounds soft anyway.

The best safety device for me is, like you, flawless thermal ridge-lift with no voids or bubbles. Sort of have to test the waters on that, being invisible. I hate crap and prefer control over plastic armor. Bottomless fresh fluffy snow in the landing zone, void of any hidden rocks is a wonderful thing. Then you can huck a bit more with very little risk of injury. In higher wind this is sometimes hard to find, it doesn't last very long. N-Zed must have some. Ahem. Second best is a slight windpack that you can slide on. I wear an oversize, ultra slippy, insulated vintage nylon "windbreaker" jacket that has no friction on packed snow, it works a bit like a vert-ramp skate boarder uses the giant knee-pads for failed attempts. Maybe that would apply on sand? It comes in handy when I under-rotate and am coming in heelside, I just lift the board up and slam on my side/backside, sometimes I just bounce up and get my rail in. I always wear a helmet of course (fingers crossed). And stay super low!

PS. Loved that youtube you did with a massive Orca bodywhomping your local spot. The commentary was absolutely classic. I'd be up in the Dunes too after that one. Could you re-post or bump that back up so I can see that again? Thanks! DH

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby Billy B. » Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:11 pm

Billy B. wrote:
plummet wrote:Well this has been a useless thread. I asked what customised safety gear the snow kiters use and i get the paraglider police.

Im not jumping off massive mountains and gliding hundreds of feet off the ground. i'm jumping off a very small shallow sand dune with clean wind. I'm limiting myself to several feet off the ground. So in reality i'm not jumping any higher than i would on the flat. just gliding longer.

So.. . . . . please discontinue the paraglider police and if you do have your own personalised safety devices post them up.
I use lines that I trust and are new inspected n befor flying I do some loops while I edge hard and massively load and unload the rigging. As a preflight check. I also run a spectra sling that I web wrap around my chicken line above the chicken loop and release in case it fails or releases by accident..( so no safety release). I run a ozone harness with a hook, I back up the hook and bar by using a locking carabeaner through the leg loops and waist belt so if either fails the other will be the back up. I have had, bars hooks n harnesses break from several well known brands so this is what I trust the least. I also use new rigging and a current bar.

I fly north kites that have Parts I trust ( rebals, with out pulleys or plastic block pulleys that have a big loading) and I inspect my gear daily. I also go out and do little flights with powered loops to again load the rigging hard. before I send it hard..

I also ignore the shit that dribbles out of people's mouths on kiteforum about gliding unless they have flown with the kite...so much of it is just false, and imagined.....Ohhhh this might brake or this might...I would not trust this or that...just. Pussy ass wimps...check your gear and send it...that's what I do..so far so good!

I have flown with about 15 different types of kites and probably 35 different kites and never had any issues, ozone edges, c-4s, mantas, frenzys, instincts zephyrs, best waroos, waroo,pro, targa, bullaroo, taboo, kahuna, North dynos, rebels, evos, fuses, Vegas. Fly surfers, f1, slingshot rally, turbines, etc.....no problems to date.

Gliding is super fun and as safe as your gear and attitude is about it. Instill some one mAkes a true flying kite we can only run what is out their. I have never seen a kite fail only harness bars and lines and all of the failures I have seen where due to old and worn gear, or a manufactors defect...

Good luck n have fun....

No lectures from me...fucking send it!

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby windrupted » Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:00 am

herculon wrote:join a taster course at your local paraglidinig school. there you will experience the joy of real flying ! hill-gliding will always be very short and on top of that extremely dangerous.
i promise you: once you got your first few real flights under a paraglider, you wont waste any thoughts anymore about short and ridiculous uncontrolled and unsafe hill-gliding with kites...

if you have mastered paragliding (thats not without a certain risk level) you can come back and try to master speed flying. my favourite video:

this is real mastery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM1l0DQumDw

hill gliding is not. if a thermal or turbulence of any kind hits you, your previously smooth glide gets into an uncontrollable nightmare, making you into a ragdoll getting tossed around, finally crashing you into the ground and leaving you there, crying if not instantly dead.
Easy there Billy. THIS is the Master of Safety.

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Re: snow kiters hill gliding custom safety gear.

Postby g-force junkie » Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:10 am

Billy B is one of a handfull of kiters that pushes the limits and survives , his advice is true and invaluable.


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