jhmountainkite

The new 2013 Ozone Edge kites are super fast and efficient which makes them great flying machines. It is kind of interesting that, while many snow kiters are debating the safety and sanity of flying with kites, there is whole other group of people just flying, nearly every day.

This is a good opportunity to talk about flying styles. So, the most popular and, I think common style is to jump off a sloping hill, bring the kite overhead, and fly backwards, or facing the kite as you would normally ride. The advantages are that you are flying as you would normally steer the kite. The disadvantage is that you are flying with your back to your direction of travel, which can present some problems.

The second style is forward gliding. This involves spinning the bar so the controls are more like paragliding or speedflying, the opposite of what is “normal” steering inputs for kiters. It is almost strictly the realm of skiers, because they can point their body straight down hill as opposed to the sideways stance of snowboarders and they are more aerodynamic in the air. The obvious advantage is that you are facing forward and can see the terrain better and respond to obstacles in your flight path. This approach is very similar to normal speedflying, at a slightly slower speed, with much longer lines. The disadvantages to this approach are that you have to re-learn your steering inputs and having to master body position in the air. You have to be able to control your body position relative to the kite by “steering” against the wind with your skis while in flight. As I found out recently, it can be dangerous to get spun backwards, when the controls are reversed on a forward glide. Having to figure all that out, far off the ground, will get your heart beating fast, I can assure you.

Which brings us to the style demonstrated by Pascal in this video. We’ll call this technique three.  Basically it involves launching off of the hill, with your hands on the “regular” side of the bar, flying forward, with a one half twist in the lines. It requires an amazing amount of control, both of the kite and of your body position. I first saw it done by Robbie Whittal, one of the founders of Ozone and it’s current kite designer,  in 2005 at the Snow Kite Masters at Skyline in UT.  I asked him how he kept from spinning backwards and he said “Eddie the Eagle man!” Meaning he would do a spread eagle of some kind to keep from spinning backwards. Check out this video from 2006. Robbie’s jump at 1:05 shows the technique perfectly!

I would say that technique three is the realm of professional fliers and jedi masters. I have tried and crashed mightily and I don’t know of anyone other than Pascal using this technique in the United States. Something to aspire to I guess. So sit back and watch the master from a birds eye point of view.