![]() The kite stays nailed to the sky and you'll feel far more in control. The seabreeze can be really smooth with very little variation and flying in it is an absolute joy. I've been at Kingston where I was barely flying in 6 knots and then within 5 minutes, the seabreeze of 20 knots came in. The sun heats the land and towards the end of the day, the air over the land begins to rise and the cooler air over the sea rushes in - it can be quite sudden. The best wind for kiters is the afternoon seabreeze. If the wind is coming off the bay, better still. While it still can be pretty turbulent and gusty, it's pretty good for an inland spot. Truganina is a good spot in Melbourne - it's elevated and mostly clear of trees. So, don't choose a spot surrounded by trees to fly. Sometimes thermal activity may be obvious by all the cumulus clouds building around you, but rising air doesn't always result in a cloud being formed. Sometimes your best chance of smooth wind is an overcast day where the sun is not creating yet more havoc. You might think you're in a clear location and the wind is relatively smooth, but if there's thermals going off around you, you may suddenly find serious shifts in both wind speed and direction. For a land kiter, it all adds more variability into the wind. Thermals are great for glider pilots (or birds!) as you can gain height for free by flying round and round in them - some are large and some are narrow and some can be a bit violent. Thermals in action! And when that bubble of warm air breaks free of the ground and rises - cooler surrounding air has to rush in and fill the void. At some point a warm 'bubble' of air gets heated enough to rise up from the ground - becoming a thermal. ![]() As the land/carpark/building warms up, it, in turn heats the air above it. A thermal happens when the sun heats up a particular section of land - maybe it's on the side of a hill facing the sun, maybe it's a plowed paddock that's a little darker.or a car park, road, building etc. It cost me a few smashed stunt kites to slowly work out it was all the trees and buildings that were the problem.īut it's not just getting away from obstacles that we need to think about as inland kiters - thermals can make a bit of a mess out of the wind too. If there was wind, great, I could fly in the local park.so I thought. When I was in my early 20's I used to build and fly stunt kites but I didn't know much about how the wind was affected by it's surroundings. Buildings, trees and undulations will affect the wind a lot further than you think - you need to be as far downwind away from them as you can. But with power kites, we don't have the luxury of letting out 150 meters of line to get the kite above the disturbances so we have to examine our surroundings. You need to get up and away from them to find the smoother air higher up. Buildings, trees, hills etc will all affect the flow of the wind the same as the water in the stream. Now, pick the whole stream up and stand it on it's edge and you have a pretty fair picture of how the wind interacts with the land. ![]() If there's a lot of obstacles, it can be a quite a chaotic mess. Any obstacles, rocks, trees etc disturb the flow of the water and the water will often be flowing in the reverse direction as it goes around and eddies back in behind the obstacle. It slows down as it nears the bank due to friction with the land. In the center the stream is fast and smooth. You're standing on the bank of a fast moving stream. If you've never thought about how the wind interacts with the land, picture this: Wind can be cold, dense, smooth and beautifully predictable. Wind can be fickle, hot dry and gusty and pretty much un-fly-able. With all the talk of buggys, landboards and kites, it's probably fair to say that without wind, you won't be going very far at all. Jhn.holgate, in General Kiting, December 7, 2016
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