While reading this months copy of Kitesurf, I noticed that in a review of the speed3, it stated that they did a downwind launch of the kite. This got me thinking and I had a look through some back copies of some magazines and saw that most foil reviews say that they launch the kite downwind.
Now I only ride foils (flysurfers) and have done for about 6 years, but would never launch a kite straight downwind.
Even in the kite manual is shows that you side launch the kites. And this is my point, I wonder how many people have come from small foils on the land or see these reviews and think its ok to do the same kind on the larger water foils.
As a result of one downwind launch I witnessed, the guy got lofted and smashed into a car. It wasn't down to the kite (before PMU sticks his nose in it) it was down to the person flying it.
Schools are teaching people to side launch their tube kites, but this should be the same for all kites. Would it not be a good Idea for the Magazines to reflect the too?