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Thread: Does anyone still do any kite skiing?

  1. #1
    onaprwl
    I have kite skied since 1974 and I am now building my own kites and still presently skiing every weekend. Here is a link to our kite ski group.
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WaterSkiKites/
    Would love to here from anyone that still or did kite.

  2. #2
    HCS
    I wanta kite ski.
    What's the best type of kite to use?? This is not hang gliding behind a boat right?
    It's actually the original type of kite???

  3. #3
    onaprwl
    It first started off with kites called flat wings. Click on the group link below to view a few pictures. Then in later years they up graded to delta wings. These kites were able to be released from the boat after liftoff and continue to sail as long as you could find enough up draft winds. The flat wings, which are the ones I still build and fly, are only capable of being pulled behind the boat. If you were to release them you are comming straight down!

  4. #4
    Trailer Park Casanova
    I have kite skied since 1974 and I am now building my own kites and still presently skiing every weekend. Here is a link to our kite ski group.
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WaterSkiKites/
    Would love to here from anyone that still or did kite.
    I've always wanted to check it out.

  5. #5
    snake321
    My father flew kites behind sanger boats in the 60's. I'll try to dig up the pictures.

  6. #6
    rrrr
    One of my friends went to Florida for vacation in 1972.....His dad bought a flat kite from Bill Bennett at Cypress Gardens. It was a freekin' death trap.
    Hauled it down to Elephant Butte, towed it behind a tri-hull with a Merc 140 IO......had to use a pair of tandem skiis to get going.
    We hung from a harness that went around the waist and through the crotch. Uh, a little uncomfortable......
    So it would start oscillating at altitude.......kersplash!!!!
    A couple of years later we were flying hang gliders from Sandia Peak in Albuquerque. So we took someone's glider over to the Electra Flyer factory and put a stronger lower cable set and a .049 control bar with an attachment point on it and had a water glider.
    Using a 500' line we would lay out about 100' of rope on the beach and the boat would hit it. When the rope started running out off the beach it was time to run......
    We would fly around until we found a good thermal and cut loose with the quick connect somebody had machined and installed on the control bar. If everything worked right you could thermal up a couple of thousand feet and then land back at the campsite.
    Of course this and other activities like skiing behind my FJ-40 in the irrigation ditch that paralleled the Rio Grande in Corrales are the reason I need a knee replacement......but it was fun.

  7. #7
    Tom Brown
    ... bought a flat kite from Bill Bennett at Cypress Gardens.
    So it would start oscillating at altitude.......kersplash!!!!
    That is exactly what a parachute will do, if it's not modified for service as a parasail.
    They can seem stable for a while, but then they will stop flying and do their best to damage whatever payload they are carying.

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