That totally happened to me too....but I was 151 feet up. By my estimation...and I have the pic to prove it....

(but yeah cool story)

Glad it turned out ok. I have yet to fully understand why we don't suffer uplift lofting more than we do. Not that I am complaining of course, just puzzled. It is similar to gliding into ridge lift which is extremely common in hang gliding and paragliding. Escaping gravity while inserting the kite into a viable lift band may be part of it. A number of us have been lofted after small jumps on land after we have escaped gravity. Soarable lift bands can develop in fairly low wind speeds and can extend well to seaward upwind of the vertical feature and well above it too.

Anyway, there was an indepth thread about uplift lofting that came out in 2010 with some good videos, figures and discussion at http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2362950

Insane story. sounds like he just made it. yikes.

I had a similar thing happen to me but in a lot smaller scale. my estimation was i was my line length above the water. i sent my 11m edge for a jump in gusty 20-30 knots and wind up to a normal hieight then got pulled up again double that... then a third lift up with the bar completely out. I hover super high for what seems like a long time. but probably only a couple of seconds.
Then i start to decend normally. So i just held the kite at athe zenith bar out and landed normally with a bit of a redirect and power up of the bar.

So no where near as dramatic as this bloke. I had about 1km directly downwind before land so i was sweet. as far as land goes.

Another happy ending, glad you made it down ok Plummet. It is a hard way to learn it but it seems once you have been uplift lofted, the kites variable AOA feature with BOW/flat kites doesn't seem to have much impact on your climb rate. You go up until lift forces transitions to sink, letting you down again, sometimes very hard. A graphic example of a 1200 ft. elliptical lateral uplift lofting to about 80 to 100 ft. up in which the kiter was amazingly uninjured is described at: http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2358333&hilit=1200

You are in for a Nobel prize in physics

Hi all. Lofting? Probably yes. Something similar happened to me four years ago. I was kiting in marginal conditions (7/10 Knots) with a Cabrinha Contra 14 and a SS Glide when during a front loop suddenly I was lofted. Before this gust I didn’t notice white cups or other sign of it whatsoever. In the picture below you can see, in front of me, a windsurfer with no wind in this sail! I landed properly that jump and I was lucky because the gust hit me on the water!
A big ciao from Italy
Carlo

I say you get full credit for lofting IF you sent the kite meaning to jump (not just random accident) AND you land and kite away. Probably a lot of our big air jumps get a little updraft which has a a bit of a loft...

if you loop on the way down you get bonus points

Think of ridge lift as a river of air, and likewise for a rising thermal column of air.

There isn't much space for such a phenomenon to materialize in the short distance between the surface and the height of a normally flown kite.

That's why I suspect most vertical air currents that affect kites are the result of rotor turbulence, or similar conditions.

Cheers,
James

Billie Bordy
Dude you've been pushing the limits from the beginning and I'm proud to know you! I'd like to know you for a long time!!!

A dust devil can pick a paraglider up off the ground at launch. See a few u tubes of this. Agree?