Dodd Gross Flight School 2003

Shipley Country Park - 16th August 2003

During the course of Internet surfing I had come across the name of Dodd Gross a number of times - both as a kite maker and as an instructor. I was even aware that there was a series of instructional videos out teaching how to do trick flying. But beyond that it all passed me by.

Until, that is, I saw a posting on rec.kites saying that not only was Dodd coming to the UK with his Flight Schools but one was going to be held in Derbyshire - about an hours drive from my home. Without much hope I sent the e-mail off to the organizes and was very much surprised to find there were still places.

And so it was on August 16th 2003 I found myself on the road to Shipley Country Park to have a flight school lesson. Now I thought to myself - I'm not that bad. I have been flying kites for 3 years and I'm getting there - just need a push in the right direction on this dual line trick flying and I will be axeling and 540ing with the best. If this day taught me one thing it is this: I haven't a clue about dual line trick flying!

The day was nice and sunny, but with very light winds - the kind of wind that can't make up it's mind which direction it's going in. Also because of the tree lined slopes surrounding the flying site the wind was also 'lumpy'. Not the best combination!

After the introduction to Martin and Dodd we were split up into two groups - precision and trick flying. I choose trick flying. First thing was to take turns on one of Dodd's kites - a New Jam - just to get the feel. I found that it hard just keeping the kite flying due to the low winds and certainly didn't have much luck trying my one and only trick - the axel (a right handed axel at that). Dodd then asked what we wanted to learn - "Basic Tricking" was my answer to that. The others were mainly looking to improve a specific trick or consolidate what they were already doing.

As the morning wore on we kept taking turns, with members of the group dispersing to other parts of the field with their own kites to practice what Dodd had shown them - another chap, Neil, spent quite a while going through the axel launch with me (thanks Neil!) - especially to get a left handed axel sorted. In the end I thought I really needed to back to basics and work on the Snap Stall - and after Dodd showed me a couple of times and a) sort of did and b) realized that my push turns need work!

About lunch time hampered by lack of wind and a even more lack of success to do anything useful I got out the Revolution 1.5SUL - just to give my confidence a boost you understand. And here I learnt a couple of very useful things via Dodd. I had been shown previously how to do the throw launch and the catch, however often the launch would fail due to the lines getting tangled, and the catch - well - I would normally miss. Dodd showed me another way of holding the Rev for the throw, and a very easy method of setting the kite up for the catch - which works nearly all the time!

The rest of the afternoon I spent flying various deltas and trying to learn the difference between the pancake, fade and turtle from Martin. I also began to get the idea of flic-flacs (going from fade to pancake. Or is it to turtle? You see? I still can't get it!). As the afternoon drew to a close I decided I would buy one of Dodd's kites - a New Tech Pyro - in order to use as a training kite for the tricks. My HQ Obsession is a great kite, but in the hands of someone learning tricks it is a) rather frisky and b) rather fragile (like I'm getting fed up of replacing wingtip and lower spreaders on it). So I ended up with the Flight School DVD (which is excellent), a kite (which is good for learning - already made progress on it), and a T-Shirt! And most importantly a came away with some very good pointers as to learning trick flying - as well as a more realistic expectation of my dual line flying abilities!

Would I go again? Yes - I just hope Dodd makes another trip here in 2004, and hopefully I will be able to improve further.