Recovery Techniques - Help Needed

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[Kitemac]

I have spent 4 hours trying to learn the cartwheel and leading edge recovery techniques.  Maybe you can provide some insight as to what I am doing wrong:

Leading Edge - Every time I get the top edge falling forward the bottom edge moves forward.  On two occasions the kite did launch but I have no idea what I did different.  Could the problem be too much tension on the lower edge line? 

Cartwheel - I can rotate the kite side to side.  I cannot get it to turn over.  I am very successful in getting the kite on its back with the upward side point toward me and the bottom side point away. 

I have been practicing with a Beetle.  Winds today were 8-10 mph.  I don't know if this is a hard kite to recover.  I can say it takes a beating without falling apart. 

I have taken the "walk of shame" so many times that people stopped laughing and are feeling sorry for me.

[chilese]

1 Practice your recoveries on really short lines. You can just wrap the lines around your hands several times. Get within 30 feet of the kite.
2 Watch the kite and the lines from this position.

The Leading Edge Launch is the tougher of the 2 you've listed. You want the nose of the kite pointed away from the center of the wind window. If you can get the nose sliding forward, start trotting backward to gain speed to fly the launch. The rubbing of the kite on the ground eats up lots of energy.

The Cartwheel should be done with the nose pointed toward the center of the window. You want to tumble toward the center. You will pull (fairly quickly and a short distance) on the wing which is pointed up toward the sky. Give slack with the other hand. After the initial pull, quickly give slack so now both hands are holding slack line.

Watch what the kite is doing when you make your pulls and pushes.

There are many here more skilled than myself who can probably describe this better than I just did. Good luck.  

[robot]

To add to John's comment about the cartwheel: It can be easier to have the kite towards the edge of the window (with the movement of the cartwheel being towards the center of the window), so don't forget the obvious: To set up any recovery or launch, you can walk around to change where the kite is with respect to the wind window.

[fidelio]

john gave great descriptions, and personally, i'd forget about the leading edge launch and focus on the cartwheel. you're likely to use it 90% of the time to recover anyway.

you can check out this page for animations of what it's supposed to look like.

http://www.prismkites.com/training.html#

[ainokea]

I'll show you two ways to recover and relaunch on Friday night. 

Ian

[Bob D]

It takes practice. For starters, practice rolling the kite from one leading to the other. You'll get the feel for how to tension one side and give just enought slack to the other line to roll it over to the other LE.

Once you get the feel for that, the next step is to keep it rolling towards the middle of the wind window. If you keep too much tension it won't keep going so you have to really watch your slack. I noticed that the kite leans back as it's rolling over.

When you get good at it, it's a really quick movement. It takes practice though. Like all the other tricks, it's all about line management. Not too much slack and not too little.

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