What I want to do or know
Has anyone else flown a 9' Levitation Light by Into the Wind? Have you seen it dive in turbulent winds? Any suggestions to stop that behavior?
Background story
As an urban kite flier in a city in a valley, (Portland, OR) I expect a lot of trouble in the first few hundred feet of turbulent wind. For several years the Levitation was my favorite kite for just such conditions, but I left it in an airplane overhead bin in early 2013, and just recently replaced it with a Levitation Light.
My first two flights have been nail-biters. I'm no stranger to cross-wind driven dives and overflights when the wind drops, but I expect those to be exceptional events, not regular behaviors. The Levitation Light just kept flying straight up over my head, circling, and occasionally diving. On my first flight I dunked it in the Willamette when it flipped over about 60 feet up.
I've tried adjusting the cross spar, placing it in the center, top, and bottom of the pockets, but that doesn't seem to change the behavior. Tails also didn't reduce the flying angle.
Here it is circling overhead with three tails in otherwise constant 8-10mph winds.
any thoughts?
that is a very heavy tail. I got a similar recommendation of putting a 15' fuzzy tail on the levitation over at the KAP forums: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/5783/levitation-light-dive-happy-in-turbulent-winds#latest
the other suuggestion was a variable spreader. I think its not really a high wind issue, however. i think its primarily a variable wind/turbulence issue.
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