Crazy, mad, bonkers ...

The Stranger Level 7 is one of the weirdest sport kites around. I'm sure anyone who has flown one will agree with me that it's in a category of its own. On top of generally being mad as a bag of ferrets, it has the tendency to, all of a sudden; decide to fly towards you ... yes, you read that right! And with your lines getting slacker and slacker, there's nothing you can do until it decides to behave again ...

Quire early on in our kite-flying journey, I had the opportunity to add a SL7 to my quiver, and I felt I just had to get it, had to get the experience of flying it; or rather attempt to fly it .... Well, I had that experience, ticked the box, and our 'retro' SL7 is not a kite that is out of the bag a lot ...

Fast forward by quite a number of years, and someone on the Fractured Axel forum posted that he had a SL7 and would give it away to the highest bidder in a rather unusual auction: "That's right, I'm not interested in monetary bids: you bid with the number of times you promise to fly it before it ends up in your attic." Staying in the spirit of things, I put in a crazy bid, saying that we would fly a pair of SL7s in formation at least three times. Maybe I should have expected it: I was the only bidder ... Week or so later, we had a second SL7, in the 'mango' colour scheme.

So here's the pair of SL7s on our flying field, with me thinking "what did I get myself into ...."

But we actually flew them together! And I even managed to take a picture while doing so. Of course, they had their moments when they were bored with flying in formation, and decided to do something utterly different ...

Apologies for the kites not being in focus; I was pleased enough to fly them and at the same time get any picture of them together!

Next time we got the SL7s out, we played a bit more with bridle settings, as the first time we flew them they weren't perfectly matched.

Second time flying them together did work out a bit better (read: a bit less mental), and I managed to get a better picture this time.

I promised three times, didn't I? And I guess I have to up the ante in terms of evidence, so here's a brief video taken while flying (with the aid of a headband mount for my phone); at least they behaved during that video!

It definitely was a crazy, mad, bonkers idea in the first place, but I secretly enjoyed fulfilling our initial promise. Don't expect us to fly a pair of SL7s regularly at festivals, though!

Brighton Kite Festival

If you have followed our blog over the years, you may remember that Brighton was the first kite festival to give us an arena slot as invited flyers, back in 2012. Keep that Brighton debut in mind; I'll come back to that ...

Brighton wouldn't be Brighton if it didn't present us with some challenging conditions. Saturday was a gloriously warm and sunny day, with very low (0-3mph) and often thermal winds in the morning, and more steady 4-8mph winds in afternoon. Sunday was drizzly for about three quarters of the day; winds were 2-6mph. All pairs and teams present struggled with the wind, and each of them suffered kites falling out of the sky more than once.

The arena programme was very much focused on dual-line pairs and teams, more so than in previous years. So, without further ado, here are the pairs and teams flying in the arena:

Team Spectrum, flying their usual programme of Carl flying two kites, Bryan joining Carl for pair-flying, and Carl flying three kites.

Following on from their Brighton debut last year, Twisted Bridle flew their Aerosmith routine as well as a new routine to completely different music. Good to see them varying their performances (yes, I know I'm biased ...)












Skytracks performed in the arena in their second festival appearance, following their debut at Bridlington. Due to technical glitch, routines in their first slot had to be flown without music, but fortunately, the problem could be sorted for their subsequent slots. Great to see a new pair coming on the scene.

As Flying Fish we used the opportunity to practice the technical routine we use in competition, with musical background ("Ruthless Queen"). Given the very low (and often nearly absent) winds, we decided on our "Ivo" routine for our second routine of the slot. This is one we debuted at Basingstoke last year: a 'make it up as we go along' routine for very low winds. The start is choreographed, but we then basically jam it. As the end of the music approached I decided at the last moment to try refuel landing. We'd never done this before, never even practiced it, but I thought what the heck ... didn't tell Irma what I was planning, to prevent her overthinking it. Just called for a refuel as the kites went up, turned the kites down as soon as the refuel was locked in place, and went for it. And we did it!! Really chuffed with that and another kite flyer referred to it as an 'awesome landing'.

Twisted Bridle and Flying Fish present at the same festival of course means that L-katz flew. We flew our standard two festival routines, to Gloria Estefan and the Targaryen Theme.

L-katz also joined with Skytracks at the end of the dual-line team block on Sunday. No pictures have as yet surfaced from this 'Sky-katz' mega-team.

Even though there was a clear emphasis on dual-line pair/team-flying, there were other performances in the arena: Paul Thody flew his massive Flexifoil Stacker 6 stack ...

... and several quad flyers performed individually: Simon Franks, Jeremy Wharton, Andrew Jones, and Tom Greenfield (with his gorgeous 8-stack of Phoenix kites).

More pics of Brighton Kite Festival are here; note the giant Pegasus! I usually pick out something specific towards the end in these festival blog posts, and I want to highlight Jaiden here. Following his arena debut at Basingstoke last month, where he flew in the 'mystery ballet', he was now given two full display slots, flying his own routine to music. Nine years of age, but he showed maturity beyond his years; the future of sport kite flying lies with kids like this!

So Jaiden had his full arena debut at Brighton, as did Twisted Bridle last year, and Flying Fish in 2012; clearly, Brighton is fertile ground for debuts!.

Picture credit of Team Spectrum, Twisted Bridle, Flying Fish and L-katz: Carl/Jan Wright

Powerhouse Blades

About six years ago, Neil, one of the members of our L-katz team brought one of his older kites to team practice. It was a Powerhouse Blade, which he had dubbed "The Black Bastard" as it had seriously pulled him of his socks in a stiff breeze once.

Of course we flew the kite: strong pull, and excellent tracking were the key characteristics.

Three years later, I saw a Powerhouse Blade on eBay. Remembering how "The Black Bastard" flew, I put a bid in and won! This Blade came with long whiskers, going from stand-off to upper spreader connector. For some reason, these long whiskers weren't present on the 'Black Blade'; possibly lost over time?

Anyway, we now had our own Blade to fly, which showed the same flight characteristics: excellent tracking and strong pull.

Few weeks after we got our Blade, Neil brought another Blade he still had, which was missing some spars and other bits and bobs (as well as the long whiskers), to our flying field. Between us, we had the right spares to get that Blade at least flying again (even without the whiskers; still not sure what they really do).

So now we had the opportunity to fly a trio of Blades! Wind was quite strong that day; the kites flew fast and pulled considerably, but we had a hoot flying them together.

Since that day about three years ago, I had been keeping my eyes open for a second Blade for Flying Fish, given that they are fun kites to fly together in a good breeze. No luck, until a fellow kite flyer recently offered one for sale on Facebook, in a colour that would match our earlier Blade pretty well. Needless to say I pounced!

So here is our Blue Blade on the ground (with long whiskers) ...

... and in the air (following a small tweak in bridle setting). 

As the whole point of this was to have a pair of Blades to fly together, 'Blue Blade' was duly partnered with 'Teal Blade'.

The colours really do match nicely, and they flew together as I remembered: good tracking, and developing strong pull when the wind picked up. Not kites that we will ever use for competition, but kites that are simply fun to fly and put a smile to your face!

Basingstoke Kite Festival

A few months after we bought our first kite we attended Basingstoke Kite Festival. That was ten years ago; we've been back every year, and since 2013 as invited flyers.

On Saturday, the weather was gorgeous, but the winds were very light (and occasionally almost absent). Sunday saw a bit more clouds and stronger, but also more erratic, winds.

We flew as Flying Fish and as part of L-katz (together with our friends from Twisted Bridle) in two slots on both days. On Saturday we flew our Airdynamics T5 Cubans, whereas on Sunday we flew our new KiteTec Impulses. The Impulses dealt very well with the highly variable wind on the day; more on these new team kites in a future blog post.

For our routines on Sunday, we tried out new music for our 'make it up as we go along' routine: 'Rise like a Phoenix', by Conchita Wurst. This includes a new move we have called, quite appropriately, 'Phoenix'. I think it worked quite well, so we're definitely going to keep that music as an option for future festivals this year.

With L-katz, we flew our standard Gloria Estefan routine.

I already mentioned Twisted Bridle, our sister pair. They flew their Aerosmith routine on both days.

Of course, Team Spectrum was present again, flying their usual set of three routines.

The final pair, though not flying under an official pair name, consisted of Josh Mitcheson and Jeremy Wharton, flying quad-line routines.

L-katz also joined in an 8-strong mega-team (together with Keith, Vee, Josh and Cam).

More pictures of the festival are here (for Saturday) and here (for Sunday). I do want to highlight one flyer, though: Jaiden, aged 8, flying in the Mystery Ballet on Sunday. His very first public performance; well done, Jai!

Picture credit of Flying Fish and L-katz: Carl Wright; of the mega-team: Patrice Peigné

Streatham Common Kite Day

It looks like 2019 will be a bit of a lean year for us when it comes to kite festivals. No Minchinhampton, no Dunstable, no Exmouth ... Fortunately, Streatham Common Kite Day had invited us back again, for our fifth appearance. Following last year's flooding and postponement, it was back to its mid-May slot, making it our first festival for 2019.

Weather was gloriously sunny.and the wind was .... well, what you can expect from Streatham: very light, sometimes dropping away to nothing, and changing direction a lot. But the show must go on, and we simply did what we could.

As Flying Fish, we decided to fly our technical routine to "Ruthless Queen", and incorporated a number of short-listed compulsory figures for this year into our make-it-up-as-we-go-along "Adiemus" routine. Good opportunity to get some extra practice for both of those elements, in difficult conditions, under our belt, given that we have mainly focused on our new ballet in training. I think we did all right; far from perfect, but we kept it flowing and didn't drop out of the sky (more on that in a moment).

Besides Flying Fish, two more pairs were part of the show: Team Spectrum and Twisted Bridle. As you may be aware, we're more or less acting as coaches for Twisted Bridle, and I was proud to see them keeping everything going, despite the tricky conditions, and also flying their second routine at a festival for the first time.

Team Spectrum was decidedly unlucky this time. They seemed to get all the slots where the wind just switched off, and despite being given a third slot (third time lucky?) by the organisers, they struggled to complete their routines, and fell out of the sky repeatedly.

Even though they're not an official pair, I should definitely mention Carl Robertshaw and Josh Mitcheson, who flew impromptu quad-line routines with their Fulcrums.

Flying Fish + Twisted Bridle = L-katz! As a team, we flew our choreographed "Gloria Estefan" routine, and, for the first time at a festival, our make-it-up-as-we-go-along new team routine to the "Targaryen theme" from Game of Thrones.

Due to the difficult wind, we kept it simple, and one comment on twitter from a member of the public said our flying was 'particularly magical'. I'll take that any time!

Take L-katz, add Andy Taylor and Josh Mitcheson, and you have a 6-(wo)man mega-team! Been a while since Streatham saw a mega-team flying in the arena.

We struggled with the wind switching off at times, but I think we did give the audience a bit of an idea what mega-team flying is all about.

Kite Day at Streatham Common gave us a bit more than we bargained for, and we went home with more kites than we came with ....

More on those two kites in a future blog post; stay peeled!

Picture credits: Clare David (Flying Fish), Andy Taylor (Twisted Bridle, Team Spectrum), Bryan Wright and Marie Coombs (L-katz), Roy Reed (mega-team)