“Off the Ground” is the title of the soundtrack in my latest video. And it’s the title of this blog post too!
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The 26th Nordic Kite Meeting
Blokhus Denmark
May 13th - 19th 2024
Blokhus Wind Festival
Blokhus Denmark
May 18th - 19th 2024

Ahhhh…. It’s quite amazing what good ten hours of sleep can do to your body and mind! And when the weather is as good as this it gets even better!

I never go to work on a Saturday, but yesterday was the annual exception. Got the work done and was home at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Grabbed a bite and a cup of coffee and got granted permission to fly for an hour or two!

The onshore wind hitting the beach at a steady 7m/sec (16mph) making conditions just about perfect for yet another go with the A-Quad Hardcore with its newly installed activators. As you might remember from another post, the wind was a tad too strong at the first attempt. Now this time it was more like it!

I drove that five minutes drive downtown to the Sjøbadet beach, carried the stuff down to the boardwalk and started to fly.

Wow, once again this fabulous kite was a dream to fly, handling the 7m/sec wind with ease! Not pulling you out of your socks but building up the perfect pressure in the sail. Making it easy to do any kind of manoeuvres. You know… Fast or slow, just pick your choice! Backwards or forwards, no worries. Hovers and side slides, bring ’em on! Axel’s… easy peasy!

How about the activators? Do they have an impact?

Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure. Like said previously, I think they add stability to reversed flying and (this one is quite vague) a somewhat different feel to the axels. But… it’s hard to tell actually.

I think I must do my next test with a more methodological approach. The activators are really simple to attach and remove so I guess I will be needing to do a certain move with the activators installed, then remove them and repeat the move to see if I can spot any difference.

I will also contact Anders for some more information on the activators, the installation and what they should improve.

So, just like good ol’ Arnold S. used to say, I’ll be back!

But until then, why not check out the video down below, and … JUST FLY!

Off the Ground

2 Responses

  1. Seeing this leads to one thing – I want to go out! I want to go out in the fresh breeze, feel the control and touch the sky (OK the lines were short here, but the colour combo was very nice) ! I also get the impression that the pilot was listening to some high paced music here?

    Here and there in the video I see that the pivot point of a turn is at the lower end of a down spar (the inner down spar of course). What is the “natural” (but somewhat pilot dependant) pivot point of a turn? Myself after having some some QLK abilities I initially did all turns a dead stops followed by clockwork-like rotations. After that I saw it as an ideal to do wing tip pivots when doing turns (or alternatively I just don’t care about the pivot point and instead focus on doing the turn as *quickly/sudden* as possible). I rarely “let the kite decide the turn” when turning at normal speed – Therefore I’m not sure about the natural pivot points of a turn.

  2. Yes, grab your kites and get out there! It’s unbeatable!?

    …I also get the impression that the pilot was listening to some high paced music here?…

    You’re spot on! I have created a handful of playlists on Spotify that represents different … well … moods. The playlist I listened to on Saturday surely was high paced funky stuff!

    … What is the “natural” (but somewhat pilot dependant) pivot point of a turn?…

    Now that’s a good question. I don’t have an obvious answer to this one, so I guess I’ll have to come back on it.

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See you at the 26th
Nordic Kite Meeting!

Blokhus, Denmark

May 13th - 19th, 2023

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