Flapping Rev
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:34 pm
Last weekend I took my 1.5 SLE out for a bit of fun in the sky. Had a good time, but I noticed the sail was flapping around a bit. Rather embarrassing, actually. Glad there was no-one there with any expertise to tell me how awfully badly I was managing my kite..
Resolved to look at all the connections, but didn't get around to it until today.
I discovered that one of the rubber things (they look a bit like tap washers) holding the top caps of the vertical struts just wasn't there. Must have been bashed off when I did one of those 'scream-down-to-ground-level-and-suddenly-stop' manoeuvres that didn't quite work.
However, I've found a bit of fat, flat rubber, and bodged up a replacement. Everything looks OK now, in my sitting room. But I can't be sure that it'll all be well when I go out for my next real session!
I've found a super site for kite flying, only 9 miles from my front door. It's up in the Eppynt (the range of hills just north of Brecon) and the prevailing wind sort of funnels, ever so steadily, through a gap between two little hills, leaving me happily whooshing my kites all over the place just adjacent to a vast Army training area.
I've been there a couple of times. First time I attracted no unwelcome attention. Second time, a guy in a 4wd sort of stopped and looked pointedly at what I was doing, but departed before I could find a sensible gap in my activities and go and speak to him.
Presumably, if he had any interest in the terrain I was using,he'd have leapt out and harangued me. But he didn't.
I have no wish to be a trespasser.
Any hints, anyone, about how to find out who owns nice, kiteable areas? And about how to persuade them that flying a kite really doesn't interfere with their ownership of the land?
Resolved to look at all the connections, but didn't get around to it until today.
I discovered that one of the rubber things (they look a bit like tap washers) holding the top caps of the vertical struts just wasn't there. Must have been bashed off when I did one of those 'scream-down-to-ground-level-and-suddenly-stop' manoeuvres that didn't quite work.
However, I've found a bit of fat, flat rubber, and bodged up a replacement. Everything looks OK now, in my sitting room. But I can't be sure that it'll all be well when I go out for my next real session!
I've found a super site for kite flying, only 9 miles from my front door. It's up in the Eppynt (the range of hills just north of Brecon) and the prevailing wind sort of funnels, ever so steadily, through a gap between two little hills, leaving me happily whooshing my kites all over the place just adjacent to a vast Army training area.
I've been there a couple of times. First time I attracted no unwelcome attention. Second time, a guy in a 4wd sort of stopped and looked pointedly at what I was doing, but departed before I could find a sensible gap in my activities and go and speak to him.
Presumably, if he had any interest in the terrain I was using,he'd have leapt out and harangued me. But he didn't.
I have no wish to be a trespasser.
Any hints, anyone, about how to find out who owns nice, kiteable areas? And about how to persuade them that flying a kite really doesn't interfere with their ownership of the land?