Some say it is a fake, some say it is real.
Who is right?
If you take the picture and go closer with the resolution you can see pixels aound the kite and kiter. This is what some say.
Other say that they know people who were witnesses.

Who can really tell if it true or not, because if it is a fake, it ain't funny since it scares many people.

No matter if it is real or not.

The truth is:

If you use a kite that is much to big for the actual wind speed, kitesurfing becomes very dangerous. If the wind speed is greater than the maximum flight speed of your kite(in case of gliding)it is possible that you are blown away and lifted up if you have a big angel of air attack. Remember the wind gets stronger the higher you go.

I have seen a video of a real crazy guy that was lifted and the kite did not stop to go up.In a hight of perhaps 10-15 meters he let the bar go and fell into the water. I will search for the video and try to show here.

Regards

Manfred

This looks like the photo of Eric's fabled lofting in Oahu from several months ago. There were many witnesses including some HKA members and the media and I understand that some of it was also caught on video. Since that time I have heard of several other lofting cases attributable having your kite getting drawn into the standing pressure wave or uplift against the windward face of a building, wall or cliff. This phenomena is what lead to the death of the kitesurfer in Holland. Eric was reportedly propelled 225 ft. or 68 m for about a minute by a thermal bubble that he managed to break. There was a case of a local hang glider who sunk out and was coming in for a landing popping back up to 11,000 ft. or 3343 m by a thermal bubble that was torn open by the hang glider that landed directly ahead of him. My Airblast 16.4 m has the same area or perhaps more than my hang glider, hmmmm. For more info on the phenomena of lofting and Erics wild ride, which he survived by the way checkout:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... 0Database/

and:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/message/34927

Fly safe,
Rick Iossi

Bullshit !

never underestimate the power of the nature....

@Paraflysurf: do you perhaps refer to the short movie (you can find it on
http://www.kitesurfing-kiel.de/ under pics/movies) showing Alexander Nassiri famous but stupid stunt?
But this was not a high jump - Alex was dragged by a jetski with his kite, the jetski driver was on full throttle and therefore the kite was rising constantly up. After a while Alex could not stand the enormous pull so he had to let go the bar and fell down from around 15 m height.
He was lucky - no injuries but a lot of people called him crazy....

bye mic

I heard about two French kiteboarding instructors that were out towing one of the pair aloft with a kite when there was no wind. I don't know the details but one of the guys reportedly fractured his back when things went wrong. I think I will sit out the calms and kiteboard the old fashioned way, with wind!

Rick Iossi

Yeah, I saw the video clip of that jackass stunt. Ugly. Found it on the internet somewhere...

a lot of stuff happens when there is no wind to kitesurf....
So as Rick says, relax and go kiting when there is wind.

http://www.eloranta.fi/suomi/tuotemerki ... wnload.wmv

Here you can find a video about Finish man, jumping about 10 - 15 m high jump. On the winter time and on the land..

http://www.jupu.com, nice pictures from water sport in finland