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7. Flying of the kite
7.1. Steering
The steering of FLYSURFER kites works the same as on any other kite. For those
who don’t know how to steer and control a kite, it is strongly recommended to
participate in a kite-course before attempting to use the kite. Kites can be extremely
dangerous in untrained hands, not just for the user but also to innocent bystanders.
Pull on the left side of the bar to initiate a left hand turn and vice versa.
7.2. Power/Depower
To depower a kite, push the bar away from your body; to power up, pull the bar
towards you. A depowered kite accelerates and moves further to the edge of the
wind window. That’s why it goes better upwind.
7.3. Trimmer
The Trimmer adjusts the basic setting and angle of attack on the kite. The Trimmer
on FS kites should always be pulled in slightly in order to avoid possible back-
stalling/oversheeting.
With a completely released Trimmer and the bar fully pulled in, the kite is overly
powered up or over-sheeted. This causes the kite to fly backwards. We recommend
that you only pull the bar in slightly when the trimmer is on the most open setting.
The advantage of an open trimmer is that in light and constant winds experienced
riders can ride with the bar resting against the gust-absorber, providing relaxed and
effortless sailing.
If you power up too much, the kite is very wet and/or you fly it at the lower wind limit,
it is possible for the kite to back-stall = fly backwards and loose its lift. In this
scenario, immediately depower = arms out and if necessary pull in the trimmer.
To depower the kite more in strong winds (less angle of attack) pull on the larger,
yellow handle. To power up the kite some more (more angle of attack) pull on the
smaller blue handle. In light winds you will generally power up the kite some more
with the trimmer further out (but not to such an extent that it won’t fly forwards
anymore, then depower again).
In case you have problems with back-stalls (PSYCHO²), just set the kite more to TIP-
BRAKE and WAC – (see MULTIWAC-System). The HARD-STEERING option of the
SPEED lets you effectively prevent backstall. In addition, you can decrease the
depower length.
