In the air tonight

Forecast looked very weak indeed, but it's been so long (a week) with no frickin wind AT ALL so I thought I've got to give it a shot. Loaded up the car with the goodies ... was up north for work today so I got a good eye-ball on the wind - looked like the thermal arrived early :-/ so I hurried away at the bell for the lake ...

Forecast said the wind would die by 6pm so as I hit the lake at 4:30pm, I put up the S3 21 and jumped on the water with my Flyradical. Oh, nicely powered - I guess I managed to catch the tail end of the thermal ...

And then the wind picked up LOL

So I was having fun. Big jumps! That's all really :D Many, many good ones ... started to get lazy with the redirects towards the end of the session, and really got some big pendulums in - landing going right when I started off going left - all good fun!

Actually had to trim the kite for the first time in ages - full trim for a while, then half then back to full power. The wind was up and down but was very smooth and consistent - best wind in AGES!!!

Same issues with nob-ends not looking behind themselves before changing direction though ... Mr Fujii nearly had me land on him when I jumped then on the way down, he turned around under me.

That's the problem with the Speeds - you spend so much time in the air that there's plenty of time for the mongs to do stupid things and come in under you ...
The other problem is how much ground you lose downwind! :D need a GPS thingy ...

Had to go to work at 7:30 so I got off the water before I wanted to and packed it up around 6:15 - only just made it in time!

Mood of the session was surprised stoked psyched!

Song stuck in my head was In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. Oh lord!

Weather was reported as 6.5 to 8 knots, gusts to 14 at 28°C, 62%. O RLY.

Wind felt like it would have spanked me if I dealt with the kite ham-fistedly but was clean and smooth!

What I learned today ...
• Sometimes ... it's just awesome!
• After sending the kite, a brief redirect does indeed make for a higher jump with less penduluming back the other direction ... means you have be spot on with the timing of the final redirect though else you either get dropped or land without enough power in the kite to ride away. Well I do anyway.
• Pscyho4 19 would have been spot on, I bet. Wink wink nudge nudge.
• Almost managed to get through a whole session without re-tweaking the ankle ... actually did it over again when it was the front foot. That ain't right. But it was only a mild tweak ...
• Taki looks even smaller when viewed from a couple of stories up.
• Why would anyone want to wank around doing handlepasses and unhooking when there's so much fun to be had flying around like a bird?