What a Blast !!!

This article is in response to a post by John Mitchell on the group “ Revolution Kite History”. Rarely do I fly a dual line kite. I will be putting a link on the group timeline. This is part of my “history” with Revolution kites.

I had been exposed to dual line kites for some time when the occasion came to attend the Zilker kite festival in Austin, TX. While cruising the field and watching numerous demos being flown I saw two guys flying these really strange “bowtie” shaped kites and they had FOUR LINES!! They were doing these amazing spins, dives,, and then stopping in mid dive and just “hanging” there!! Unheard of in any kite flying I had seen thus far. Well, those two guys were none other than Tye Harrison of Austin and Troy Gunn of Wichita Falls, TX. I walked over to Tye and humbly asked to interrupt him a minute, asking how? Where? And how much? Next paycheck I was the proud owner of a brand new Revolution EXP!! Well, that was it!!

As many Rev kiters know, it becomes a bit of an addiction and my “bag” grew over the months to follow. John was looking for more content about “speed” and Power” Revs so let’s skip forward a bit. My tastes in kiting had graduated to buggy and ATB riding so when the Blast was presented by Revolution I burned up the phone line to Lolly in California and received one of the first to go out. I received it just in time for my annual trek to Dead Bird Buggy Bash on Galveston over the Thanksgiving season. What a great tool for the ATB [all terrain boards] and I demonstrated the Blast as Joe had asked me to. Later in the spring I took the still relatively new Blast to Zilker to again show it off to the kite community and the public. We had formed an impromptu quad line flying team as the festival and called it “Quadzilla”. The morning of the festival was very cold, and winds were gusty, rough, and quite strong. As they say, the show must go on, so undaunted I set up the Blast and began to fly it about getting the feel of the wind before mounting my ATB for some demo runs. About the third pass through the center of the “window” there was a very loud “crack” sound like a pistol shot and I watched in horror as my favorite new Rev fluttered to the ground in front of almost 10 thousand spectators!! The leading edge spar was in several pieces, totally decimated. I, of course, was done for the day at this point. Next day I call out to Poway, Ca and speak to Joe about the failure of the new kite. He then asked me what conditions were like and I replied, “a bit gusty, about 27 at ground level”, at which Joe exclaimed, “Well geez Dano, the high end rating is about 15 on that kite!” 

But I am a member of the Coastal Bend Skypirates, live on the Gulf where a late afternoon breeze is usually 20ish, it was just another day playing with kites to me.

Joe was kind enough to send me a replacement leading edge kit for my Blast, and I have been very conscious of wind conditions heretofore when playing with my Blast. Most of my fellow kite club members who have flown the Blast still think I’m nuts!! But once a power kiter…..yeah!!