I tried my new 9m kite out yesterday in the surf and thoroughly enjoyed it, but on two occassions of flying my kite in light winds (barely enough to keep the kite up, Friday 14/03) and strong 25+ gusty conditions (Perth yesterday) and doing the same thing (land based jumps/hops to feel the kite) the kite has luffed / hindenburged and fell out the sky straight downwind luckily without any incident (both times crapped myself especially yesterday).

I have not mentioned the kites name as I am still figuring out the tuning and feel it would be unfair to associate hindenburging until I know what I am doing, the first light wind flight I had the backline to long and felt no power, the second I had the backline to short and had the depower fully in possibly causing the front lines to be to short (the depower strap has about a foot of movement).

I would say the kite is medium to low aspect, maybe very similar to the RRD HT look (which I like, but never flown). It is mainly for wave/wake use.

My questions are:

1. How do I prevent hindenburging / recover from hindenburging (somebody metioned a sharp tug on the centre lines which seems a bit radical)?

2. If necessary modifying the kite, Ozone uses 2 anti inversion lines run from the 5th to the 2 back lines? The kite does not have 5th but maybe from the centre lines as there are 4m extensions.

3. Installing a 5th line so that if it does hindenburg just release on the 5th, nice and safe?

Any constructive help would be appreciated.

Happy sightings

UFO, I bought a 9m 07 Rebel just after xmas, first time out I hated it. Would shudder in turns and fall out of the sky. Very disappointed since I love my 12m.

I then went through some mods recommended on this forum and it did improve the kite but I still wasn't that happy with it.

I returned the kite to its factory/default set-up but inflate the LE to about 7/8psi (on my gauge, how accurate are these?), book says 6psi and much better.

Now I have also shortened the steering lines by one knot and I am in love with this kite.

Bottom line,. Persist with tweaking the kite, it is amazing how much a small change can affect the way the kite fly’s.


Slack

Did your lines go slack when it fell out of the sky? Run upwind quickly! If you're swinging downwind under your kite, make sure you start to dive it a little into the power zone as you descend (like landing a jump on water).