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Shorter flying lines for flat / hypro kites?

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bob wendler
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Shorter flying lines for flat / hypro kites?

Postby bob wendler » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:45 pm

I was just going over my gear for the start of another season and decided my longer sets of flying lines are becoming useless. After flying Raptues for a few years I found that 18m to 23m lines work well and I seem to like 20m the best. Now that I have tested most of the new kites out and many people are using hypro kites, I was just wondering what other people have been finding?

Since these kites have so much range, I no longer find the need to have longer lines to get big jumps and ride in light winds. Shorter flying lines seem to have so many advantages over 25m+

Just wanted to see what others have found and if you have not tried shorter lines with your new kite, give it a try.

Boarding Bob

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Peter_Frank
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Postby Peter_Frank » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:47 pm

I've tried using shorter lines.

Below 20m, I find it does not generate better wave redirection... At least not anything worth noticing.

Thats odd - on C kites it works great, you get so much better control with shorter lines 8) But loses windrange totally.

On the other hand - you can shorten your bow lines, and still be able to jump just as high, as you are using a very different technique for jumping.

My tests showed me, that it does not matter much, the line length.
Short goes equally well as long ones, with bow kites it seems.
I went down to 17meter lines when testing.

Whereas for C kites, long lines gives better jumps, and short lines gives better waveriding capability.

Just my observations, and they might be wrong and only for me.
The good thing is, you dont need to change lines - one (or two) "flat" kites does it all :thumb:

Kindly, Peter Frank

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kiterfreak
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Postby kiterfreak » Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:09 pm

For me 27m lines for the Rapture 2 16.5 works much better. In low winds, before, I was struggling sining the kite. With the longer lines I just park the kite and ride. I guess it all depends where you kite. In steady winds probably the shorter lines will work fine on the contrary with the kite higher using longer lines you can catch better winds.


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