I learned the QLK Axel more than three years ago now, and they have ever since been a repertoire of my flying. You know, set up the lite in the correct position and give it a pop so it will spin around kind of backwards flat on its belly. Making sure the lines stay slack so the kite is allowed to spin around all of those 360 degrees.

And when you start to get the hang of it, you can do a lot of variations when it comes to speed. From really slow and gracious to fast and snappy, and everything in between. I’m always trying to get them as flat as possible and when I get everything right, they are flat as pancakes!

But quite accidentally I kind of discovered a new way of popping those axels. For the normal (?) axels I pop the lower line so that the kite rotates kind of backwards. But for this new – reversed (?) Axel – I pop the front line, thus having the kite rotates in a forwards direction!

Here’s a quick run down on how I do it.

First you’ll need to put the kite in the correct position. Make sure it sits like in the photo below.

The right wing is pointing up and slightly towards me (the pilot) and the left wing pointing down and a little away from me. The LE is at a 45-60 degrees angle.

Now comes the magic! Give your right front line a significant pop immediately followed by loads of slack in all four lines. This will allow for the kite to do a complete 360 degrees forward (in the direction of its leading edge) rotation!

With a bit of practice you can make them flat as pancakes too!

In the video below you can see both types of axels so why not check it out?

Yes…. I know…. This trick has probably been done by many pilots many times before, so I guess calling it a new trick might not be quite correct. But … It’s new to meet, repeatable and pretty damned fun to do, so…. Just Fly!