Synergy Deca Flying 1

Launching

    1. Setup and place kite on ground (with the curved spar upwards and behind the sail, the wing tips away from you).
    2. Make sure lines are untangled and connected correctly to kite/handles (i.e. both left lines connected to the left handle, right lines to the right handle).
    3. Pick up handles and hold gently in the middle, with your thumbs towards the top. Basic hand position is as if you were giving someone the thumbs up sign - except your fingers are holding the kite handles.
    4. Keep both hands in front of you at about chest height.
    5. Make sure lines are taut, then gently pull both your thumbs back towards you (i.e. making the top lines tighter in relation to the bottom lines).
    6. When you are ready to launch pull sharply and take a step back (if necessary - depends on wind and how fast you have pulled on the lines) whilst keeping your hands together.
    7. The Deca should rise up vertically.
    8. Keep you thumbs back and the kite should go straight to the top, above your head.
Deca at rest
Holding the Deca handles

Basic Flying

    1. Assuming you have got the kite up to the top you can try moving the kite around.
    2. As with all Quad Kite flying it's more about keeping your hands together and moving your wrists, rather than pulling on the handles (although there is a fair amount of that later on).
    3. To turn left push your left thumb forward, whilst keeping your right thumb back.
    4. To turn right push your right thumb forward, whilst keeping your left thumb back.
    5. These are the basic turns - you need to practice these, but basically the more and longer you push your thumb (and therefore the handle) forward, the more and quicker the kite will turn.
    6. What you will notice is that the kite will continue to turn after you have stopped turning (i.e. put both your thumbs back). To turn well you need to actually stop turning before the kite does. You can correct and overturn in one direction by a very quick turn in the other, but it doesn't look as nice.....
    7. If you keep turning with a thumb pushed in, and the other back then kite will spin. Usually (at least when I do this) the kite spins downwards. This can be corrected but takes practice.

What could go wrong?

    • If the kite rises up, but then goes back down check that you haven't moved your thumbs back forward during the take off (most people do this at first).
    • If the Deca rises, but then kind of tips forward, then floats to the ground you have pulled too far back with your thumbs and the kite has gone into the inverted hover position (where the sail is parallel to the ground).
    • If the Deca spins then you will find that both thumbs were not pulled back the same - one thumb was further than the other - this causes the kite to turn, and if not corrected, to spin.
    • If everything looks OK then it's worth while checking the line lengths - all 4 lines should be exactly the same length.