Re: British competition results please

Subject Re: British competition results please
From abw@cre.canon.co.uk (Andy Wardley)
Date Fri, 10 Oct 1997 08:37:43 GMT
Newsgroups rec.kites 
Barry Savell <barry@savell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Well, I was only going to report the overall individual results in my
> brief summary of the year, but if somebody flying a Benson won
> something, I could definately run to a few extra lines (not that I'm
> at all biased). Send me the placings. :-)

Yeah, but the overall results don't reflect my one moment of glory :-) I don't have the full results (Simon Dann will) but I know I came first about 8 points clear of Carl and (I think) Richard Marsh just a point or so behind him. I needed to beat Carl by 8 points to win the season overall, but the scores also had to be above a certain watermark, which they fell short of by a few points.

There's no doubt anyway that Carl was consistently the best flier throughout the year and he deserved to win. The nice thing about kite flying is that the people you compete against are also your friends. If you don't win yourself, you can at least feel good for your mates who did. 

> BTW, as I've got your attention, could you comment briefly on the
> Freestyle Phantom and the Outer Space that I believe you've been using
> this year? What are they like, what wind range, how do they compare
> with Tim's other kites, that sort of thing. I was lucky enough to try
> an Outer Space at Bristol, but only for a few minutes and on 10 foot
> lines, so I wasn't brave enough to try much othe than a few axels.

The Phantom Freestyle is Tim's smaller Phantom. It's more tricky than the fullsize version but also has better tracking. I flew a range of them, from Ultralight to Vented during the year. They're great kites in low wind, but in 20+ (as 2 out of 3 rounds were) they fly too damn fast.

Tim took the light wind one and changed the shape of the tail a little, changed the graphic and the cut of the sail. This is what has become known as the Outer Space. It has razor sharp precision, very good trickability and a nice controllable (i.e. fast and slow) flying speed in winds up to about 10mph. It will fly in winds up to about 15mph, maybe more, but at that point it's strictly for fun and you have to accept that it starts flying fast. It will fly down to less than 3mph. I can state this categorically, as I flew it comfortably at Hackney when the wind meter was hovering around the 3mph mark (this is significant for competitors, because 3mph is the STACK (and AKA?) minimum wind speed).

The Outer Space will be just one kite (i.e. there won't be Ultralight, High Wind, Vented versions). It complements the Inner Space which is for Indoor flying and very light wind (say < 5mph) outdoor flying. The next challenge will be to design the kite that suits the wind range above the Outer Space and it will be no doubt be a variation (but possibly quite different) of the same kite.

The Outer Space is, in my opinion, the closest thing to a "Holy Grail" of kites that both perform precision and tricks as well as any specialist kite. I'm about as biased about Tim's kites as anyone can get, so you'll all want to make your own opinions, of course. I think the kite is ready for release. Tim is almost convinced. I expect we'll see something available soon. I hope.

(I'll probably get in big trouble with Tim for spilling all these beans too soon :-)

The Phantom Freestyle, by the way, is a prototype only. It has evolved into the Outer Space in the lower wind range and will no doubt evolve into something else (The Deep Space?) for the higher wind range. 

> And on the subject of pairs - I'm sure its been said before, but -
> well done Firefly.

Yay! Pity they got screwed at Euro Cup because they would have stomped it if they had been allowed to fly ballet. Still, they got a 2nd place by a fraction of a point which was an excellent result.

I wish I had some pictures of Patrick yakking up all over his bathroom after the Saturday night party. Alas, I was probably comatose under a carpet somewhere...

A 

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