How can it be? A hardcore duallie aficionado like me converting into a quad lined head? You can check out the background in a previous post, and continue reading about the conversion down below.

Conversion…. Perhaps not the correct phrase though. Because I still love to fly my duallies, whether alone at the field or together with my buddies, laidback freestyle solo flying or more structured manoeuvres with the AERIALIS Team Flyers. However, I must admit that lately, I’ve been clocking many more hours with my quads than with my duallies.

Why you might say. That’s a good and relevant question and in the rest of this post, I would like to say a little about my newly found fascination for the four-lined – or quad lined if you like – kites.

Logistics

Logistic? Ehhh… What do you mean with logistics you might ask.

Well, my to-go kite bag measures approx 1.8m and it surely takes up some space in the car or on the bike, which I rarely use when I go kiting … because of the size of the bag.

The REV bag, however, is a handy 1.1m (ish). No problem hauling it over the shoulder when biking or chuck in into the backseat when driving. Ease of use is always positive. But I must admit this is far from the main reason for my four-lined fascinations. 

Flying spots

This is much more important the logistics. When flying dual lined kites you need quite some space, both in the air for flying and on the ground for walking/running about.

The dual lined kite comes with no (efficient) breaks so speed control must be carried out moving about on the ground. In low wind conditions walking is largely sufficient to put some brakes on your kite. But when the wind picks up, running is the only way.

Not so with quads. They come with brake lines. Just angle your handles and the kite will brake, stop, hover and even reverse! No way you can do that with a duallie.

This means you can fly in (much) smaller and many more areas. You don’t have to run all over the place anymore!

It also means that the surface of the flying field does not have to be as … smooth as for flying dual lined kites. When you have to walk or run about on the field, it’s easy to trip over any kind of obstacle lying around. This is mostly avoided when flying quads. You (normally) don’t have to run about at all!

Flying

No questions about it. The flying is off course the most important reason for my fascination. In the early days, I didn’t feel too much about the flying itself.

Why?

Well, my love for dual lined kites is built on tricks and freestyle flying. Putting together trick combinations in between carving figures in the air. Quad line flying is different. There are way fewer tricks to perform. Yes, there are a few, like the axel, the flic-flac and caches and throws, but trick wise the quad flying is somewhat limited.

However, there are other flying characteristics to explore. Like braking, stopping, hovering and … flying backwards and inverted!

This literally adds a new dimension to the flying and after a while practising, when you get the hang of it, this flying can be pretty awesome! …and very different to dual lined kite flying. 

You can also let your quad lined kite “play” with natural objects, like flagpoles, rocks, benches, streetlamps, boards, cars (well… you own 😉 ) litter boxes, water, well, the list is endless. Tipstabbing your kite on a rock or pasting it onto a flagpole … drop your handles and goo for a drink, submerge the kite in the water (also possible with dual lined kites). Like mentioned above, the variations are endless and adds yet another dimension to the flying.

Strong winds

My opinion is that you can fly the quad lined kites in the stronger wind than the dual lined ones. At least if you’re after quality flying.

The quad lined kites are easy to ventilate and the more vents you make, the more wind it takes. Venting a quad lined kites does not alter the kite’s characteristics as much as venting a dual lined, and feedback from the kite stays more more less the same as for a non-vented one. That’s a major feature in my opinion.

The quad kite is also easy to ventilate yourself if that’s what you opt for. …and I’ve seen VERY vented Revolutions fly like hell in VERY heavy winds.

My physics

They say age is just a number. I used to think that myself, but I must admit it’s not quite true. 😉

Flying quad lined kites is generally – in my opinion – less demanding for the body. You don’t have to run (at all) that much and I find that the body input required to get that quality flying also tends to be … milder. 

This is especially noticeable in heavy winds where the super vented kite takes the edge out of the wind power and puts (way) less strain on your body. …and that’s a nice thing when your middle-aged! 😉

Filming

I love to film kite flying and I’ve been doing it since I started flying twenty years ago. I have MANY CDs and DVDs with tons of kiting videos sitting in the archive at home and only a few of them have ever hit my Youtube channel.

Filming dual lined kite flying using a tripod only will not always give you a good result. Very often the kite is (too) far away to get all the details captured on film or if you put the tripod up close, the flying space gets very limited and makes it very easy to fly the kite out of focus.

Not so with quad lined kites. Put your camera on the ground and hover your kite 10cm off from the lens if you want, no problems!

With a kite so controllable as the REV or other similar quads, makes shooting video a blast! Especially if you fly on short lines (10m’ish). Both yourself and the camera comes so close to the camera that all the details are revealed. For better and for worse. 😉

Check out AERIALIS Kites’ or other Qadline aficionado’s Youtube channels and see for yourself!

Pure Pleasure

Having fun! That’s actually all there’s to it! Finding pleasure in flying, single line, dual line, quad line, whatever, that’s the most important!

…and for the last year or so I’ve found a big hunch of pleasure flying quads. Improving my flying skills, broken a couple of rods, experimented with line lenghts, playing around with natural objects, discovered new flying spots and publish posts about it all here on AERIALIS Kites and the Youtube channel gives me exactly that…

THE PURE PLEASURE OF FLYING!