It's windy this week! Everybody go grab a kite and fly it!
If you don't have one, you could do a lot worse than shopping at World Wind Kites for a fresh flyer.
I went to the Austin Kite Festival last month, and got the urge to return to Zilker park alone on a weekday, instead of fighting the entire city for airspace. It seemed every time I got in the air (with a borrowed kite, Thanks Monica O.!) I got tangled in someone else's line. No bueno.
Enter WWK. They are located in NW Austin, between my house and a nice park with an open field. It couldn't get any more convenient for me.
I dropped in one day and picked out a cool kite for $22. That was more expensive than some, but I wanted the best easy-to-fly model they had.
Off I went to Zilker. My beautiful nylon sheet was up in the air shortly thereafter. I'd flown it for about 20 minutes when it crash landed. I found it broken in half. There's a piece on the center pole that attaches the spreader poles. That piece was snapped in two, with half of it missing.
My mind flashed back to what the salesman at WWK said when he was ringing up my purchase. "We stand behind our kites. If anything goes wrong with it, bring it back."
I brought it back.. And walked out with a brand new kite of the same model in about 3 minutes. Great!
Fast forward a week to another flying adventure in that nearby park.
The kite broke in mid-air, after about 15 minutes of flight, on a regularly windy day. Gusts up to 20 mph. Nothing that should break a kite. The culprit was the exact same piece of plastic that holds the spreader poles. One pole had busted out and poked a hole through the nylon.
I drove straight to WWK, and the man let me pick another kite out. I chose a different model, as I believe my first choice had a faulty component. In the three times I went in, there were three different salesmen to help me, but none of them gave me any guff about a trade-in. I like that.
The next week, I went out with my fish-shaped kite. (A Mahi Mahi)
It flew easily, and looked pretty cool too. No breakage, even though the frame flexed heavily in the wind.. When I decided to pack it up for the day, I slowly reeled it in for a landing. As I did, a leashless dog was underneath it barking. I tried to steer clear of him, but it landed right on top of the dog, who proceeded to attack it. After I shooed the dog away, I expected it to be torn, but no damage! Just some dog slobber..
Moral of the story is, the friendly staff at WWK really do stand behind their kites, but I wish I didn't have to go through two faulty kites to get the best kite for me. Hopefully, my Mahi Mahi will last a long time. read more