Power kite

A Power kite is a kite originally designed to pull a kite-surfer. It's most often seen as a sort of brightly colored horseshoe floating above a beach. It's a flexible wing, about five meters (15ft) by a meter (3ft). Unlike most flexible wings, it has semirigid flotation panels so that it can take off again after it hits water.

A power kite pulls too strongly to be held with one's hands. Instead a cross bar is attached to a belt that goes around one's torso. This belt uses the flyer's bodyweight to hold the kite, and can support the kite-flyer, who can fly under some conditions. Some bars have swivels to permit acrobatics.

Generally, the first step of using a power kite is to fly it into neutral position, in which the kite is stright overhead, and therefore not pulling except against the vehicle's weight.

After that, one flies the kite toward the surface in the direction that the vehicle points. The pull of the kite propels the vehicle as long as there is wind.

A beginner can turn by going to the shallows or another stopping place, putting the kite up into neutral, and then turning the kite in the opposite direction. A quicker, more skillful turn moves the kite toward the wind, to swing the vehicle so its path is a half circle, centered on the kite. As the turn ends, the kite is flown over to be in front of the vehicle again. Turns away from the wind steal lift.

An unskillful turn will cause flying, often followed by a tumble. Sometimes untangling and reflying the kite can be difficult.

If the kite is only turned partially, or is not straight up, the vehicle can swing up and fly, sometimes very quickly, causing harm to the vehicle or its passengers when they recontact the surface. Even in water, flying a power kite can be a brutal contact sport. The kite is usually twenty meters (sixty feet) in the air, and a careless turn in high winds can easily swing one five meters (two stories) into the air and then down to an uncontrolled contact.

Controlled flying is possible but not recommended. Flying occurs when the momentum of the vehicle is used to pull the kite. In controlled, straight flight, the kite is flown quickly (snapped) to an overhead position, usually just as the vehicle goes over a hillock or wave. The kite must then be quickly turned to glide in the direction of motion, usually into the wind.

Some kite flyers claim to be able to catch a "rotor," a horizontally cyclonic ridge updraft, when flying above large waves or ridges in high wind. Of course, this is extremely difficult, and occurs only in dangerous surf and wind conditions, or above land (not recommended!).

To fly the maximum distance, a flyer should reduce aerodynamic drag. Some people recommend laying flat in the air as long as one can't reach the surface. Others claim that attempting this maneuver adds more danger to the already dangerous maneuver of flying.

WARNING! Powerkites can be DANGEROUS! Lightweight people can easily be carried off, and dashed against water, buildings, terrain and power lines! Even in water, a helmet is recommended when flying a power kite, because a gust can (theoretically) carry one over the beach.

Another hazard is that at fifty kph (a typical speed for a skillful kite surfer), one can easily get farther from shore than an easy swim. If there's an equipment failure, or a tangle, one can drown.

For more information see kite surfing.