LET'S STAY TOGETHER
Beginning team basics
by Bert Tanaka
INTRODUCTION
For a comprehensive study of team flying (which this is not), Ron Reich's book, "Kite
Precision" is highly recommended. This article will provide some recommendations that
may help new teams and team members to adjust to the experience of team flying and to each
other. The intent is to introduce some ideas that might help new teams and new team
members to get more out of the team experience.
IN THE BEGINNING...
Before you attempt to form a team, one of the first things to do is to have a meeting with
all the potential team members and have a frank discussion about goals. You need to find
out whether or not you all have the same goals. Maybe you just want to fly for fun.
Perhaps you are interested in competition. The goals themselves are irrelevant, but no
matter what they are, they must be commonly shared because what they are will certainly
determine the amount of time and expense, and the level of effort the team will have to
expend. Otherwise, there will be different
expectations and different levels of commitment which will pretty much guarantee that the
team will not last.
In order to be fun, team fliers need to understand that they have to sublimate a certain
amount of their individual identity and personal expression. There is a certain amount of
discipline necessary for the fliers to function successfully as a team that not all fliers
will like.
EQUIPMENT
For team flying, there are a number of characteristics to look for in the kite you choose
to team fly with that will make the team flying experience a lot more fun:
1. Tracking - A good team kite needs to be able to fly a straight, steady line. No wobble.
2. Turning - The kite should be able to execute an excellent push turn.
3. A little bit radical - Modern routines regularly will contain slack line tricks and
ground work. You would do well to use a kite that does not accelerate at quite the rate as
one you would use for individual flying but still has good speed.
4. Available in sets - You will need ultra-light, normal wind and high wind kites. It
is an advantage to be able to draw from a family of kites that will handle similarly,
model to model.
Lines are expensive, but you should have several sets. The longest lines should probably
be a maximum of 150'. The shortest, maybe100' (for really light wind). For small fields,
125'. Most teams will fly with the longest lines they can get on the field with. Different
weights may include, 50# short line for light wind competition only, 100#, 200#, 300# for
heavy wind, and 500# for extremely heavy wind. Generally, you try to fly with a heavy line
because you don't get as line locked as often as you might with light line. 300# line is
good for most wind conditions. After a while, try using 200# as your main line because you
get less line sag and better reaction time with the kite and you won't be breaking it as
often as you might when you first start. Putting 10' Kevlar leaders on the lines will do
much to increase line life.
Some teams fly with staggered lines: that is, where the number one kite has the longest
lines, kite two has the next longest, kite three the next and finally kite four with the
shortest lines. We do this to avoid the wake and turbulence that a kite leaves behind it
for the following kite to try and fly through. In this configuration, all fliers can stand
shoulder to shoulder. Speed matching is harder but you can use the speed differences
between the kites to help you do certain maneuvers. More flexible is just to use even
length lines and create the offset with ground position. Speed matching is a lot easier,
plus the team can fly lead from any position.
Other good stuff would include: a wind meter, sets of wind screens,
spare rods and fittings, boom box, electrical tape, material tape (to repair torn sails),
and crazy glue (Cyanoacrylate). You will need the repair items. Every team breaks
kites.
SETTING UP THE TEAM
For a four kite team, usually the most accurate pilot flies lead. The most agile pilot
flies tail gunner. The least experienced pilot would fly number two and the second most
accurate pilot might fly number three spot. At least, this would be a place to start. Line
ups can affect team performance. Teams can vary in size from three persons to whatever
(nine is the largest team that I have ever seen in competition). Generally, the difficulty
increases geometrically as you increase the number of fliers.
TECHNIQUES
Skills that an individual flier can improve that will greatly affect
the quality of their team flying are:
1. Being able look away from your own kite to either focus on a target, or to see your
kite in relationship to other kites. Being able to fly without looking directly at your
kite.
2. Knowing how to read the wind window in terms of percentages. That is, as an example,
knowing where the 50% height is, or how far off the ground 20% is or where the physical
center of the wind window is. This is a developed skill.
3. Being able to execute a quality push turn. The push turn is one in which you turn the
kite by pushing a hand forward rather than pulling one hand back.
If we are flying only one kite, we will tend to focus on that kite. However, in team
flying, we need to expand our vision to be able to focus on keys. A key may be a targeted
space to which you are flying to, or the spatial relationship to another kite(s). To avoid
hitting other kites, or to form certain figures, we use keys to guide our kites on
specific paths.
Each flier needs to learn how to read the window in terms of percentages because a lot of
maneuvers are set up by using a spatial target. For example, certain maneuvers like
bursts, and threads, become much harder to execute if the formations are not centered. The
difficult part is knowing where the center of the window is with relationship to the whole
team and not just to the individual pilot.
Pull turns skew the kite's position in the turn more and make it harder to hold formation.
Pull turns return to neutral with more wobble than a push turn. Pull turns are slower. The
push turn is so much better for team purposes, most good team fliers do not consider it an
option to use other types of turns.
ON THE PRACTICE FIELD
If you are a new team, it would be wise not to have fliers correcting each other. Avoid
this like the plague. First of all, as simple as it may seem, being able to see what the
kites should look like to judges or an audience, is difficult because it takes practice to
be able to "see" the two dimensional picture the team is trying to construct in
the distortion of a spherical window. Its an acquired skill for sure. Secondly, nothing is
more depressing for the flier that is making a good effort to fly well then to be told to
make a wrong correction, which results, in poorer performance despite greater effort. If
you are a new team, its pretty unlikely that you know which kites are keys, and which make
the adjustments.
For example, if a four kite team is flying a box formation, left to right, the top
right hand kite should be the key. The bottom right kite sets the vertical spacing and
flies directly below the top right hand kite. The top left hand kite sets the horizontal
spacing and flies directly behind the key kite. The bottom left hand kite keys off of the
bottom right and the top left kite. In this scenario, the top right hand kite should fly a
perfectly even speeded horizontal line. The pilot will use light line tension in the
middle of the window, and will gradually increase line tension as that kite nears the edge
to keep that kite's speed from dropping and collapsing the box horizontally. The top right
hand kite makes zero adjustments to any other kite. It if does, it actually makes
constructing the figure harder even though it is trying to "correct" it. Or, in
the example of executing a four kite horizontal thread where one pair of kites threads
through another pair, you can make this maneuver extremely difficult by flying it without
keys. I call this dodge-a-kite. However, if you assign one pair of kites as the ones that
will set the line and spacing, they then become the target and the other pair become the
threading kites. One pair is the key, the other pair makes the adjustments. Also, one kite
in each pair may serve as a key for the other kite to line up vertically with. It's
clearer on the field and not as complex as words may make it appear.
You will assign keys to every maneuver. If your kite is one of the keys, then you need to
fly your line and not flinch. If you are one of the kites that fly off the keys, then you
need to put your kite in the right space in relationship to the keys.
The best thing to use is video tape. Watch it all together. You won't like what you see
but it will become very apparent why making field corrections with an untrained eye is
such a bad practice. You'll hear comments like: "Oh, I thought I was level", or
"Omigosh, That's me", or, "Uh-oh. My bad". Not to worry. Just don't
rush it. Eventually you will find the person that sees the window the best, and can
mentally make the adjustments to compensate for window distortion, and that person, will
make the field corrections. I think that most beginning fliers aren't aware of how
difficult this is to do because they never test themselves and have always assumed that
their perception of the window was correct. Use video first.
In the beginning, make as few corrections as possible. Let's face it, if you want to, you
can drone on throughout the whole routine with: "You're too high, now you're too low,
you're too fast, you're too slow, you didn't match the wing, you missed turning on the
call, and quit wobbling...." It can go on forever because nobody flies perfect.
Here's the problem with that type of "coaching". First of all, most of the time
the offending fliers know that they're off. It's not a bulletin. They're learning to fly
team and their skill level is not at the world class level yet. So, reciting a history of
their errors does zero to correct them. The kite never stops, backs up and does it
correctly. It just keeps on moving forward. While the flier reciting the monologue is
having a great time, the target of this speech is not. And, even if the criticism is only
mild, after a couple of hours of it, you can bet your kit, kite and kaboodle, that that
flier will have lost all interest in team flying. In fact, the only interest the listening
flier will have after that length of time is maybe killing the flier reciting the
"error log". Or, at least wounding him. This kind of coaching can turn practice
time into let's-get-ready-to-rumble time.
Make the corrections while the kites are paused, or on the ground. While flying, you may
want to yell out reminders BEFORE you get to a particularly troublesome maneuver, but it's
really a waste of the team's time to point out errors while flying. It's too late to
correct them anyway, the kite keeps flying forward. But the worst thing is that it makes
the pilot that made the error, look backward. Absolutely the last thing you want any of
your team members to focus on. You always want your fliers either looking forward in time
and anticipating the next maneuver, or concentrating on the keys and maneuver presently
being executed. If a team member makes an error you may want him or her to "get it
back", but never to "look back". If you are flying with someone that has
become the vocal error history commentator, this person needs to be told that, however
well intentioned it may be, this hurts the team. So, stop it already. I mean it. Don't
make me come over there.
The best thing to correct are tendencies. A poor technique. Sloppy turning, not locking
the kite up to the line, following too close, dropping out of loops. The thing with
correcting tendencies is that this often improves performance in the whole routine instead
of just one part. Sometimes you have to use a little common sense. If, for example, the
pilot is executing a horrible push turn because it is a NEW skill, then let it ride.
Ignore the sloppy turn for now, but it should be understood that it is expected that that
pilot will practice their turns on their own and not use only team time to practice an
individual skill. As long as they make the effort to make team time more productive, is all
that ought to be required.
The next best thing to correct are repetitive errors. As examples: always flying low in
the box, flying at 20% when the maneuver requires you to fly at 10%, not walking forward
when your kite is heading down. The magic word here is "repetitive". The great
thing about a repetitive error, is that the correction usually is obvious. The correction
has to be in the description if it's repetitive. If you think about it, there isn't much
point to drawing attention to single occurrence errors. Unless, of course they are a result
of a tendency. Then, we're back on track correcting a tendency. And that's a good thing.
The worst corrections to make are non-specific comments like: "the flying didn't look
good, you were off, you were flying weird, you were following all over the place".
What's that's supposed mean? If you want to make it worse, be more vague, don't even pick
out an individual... "you guys look awful". The only thing that this type of
commentary does is to make the team feel bad or angry.
The rule is this:
If you can't say something nice, then at least be specific. Try to supply a fix with your
criticism. If you don't know how to fix it, then be specific about where in the routine
things look whacky to you and be prepared for the possibility that the fix may quite
likely end up being a correction that you need to make. Better yet, if you don't know how
to fix it, say nothing. Think about it for awhile.
As mentioned, each flier should practice and strengthen individual skills on his own,
whether it's groundwork, landings, stalls, push turns, whatever. To make all the kites
react the same, there should be a single technique that is adopted by all members for each
skill. Find out which flier has the best execution for a particular maneuver, and then
clone that technique to every other member.
As a team, you need to really establish ground rules regarding a common etiquette for
field practices. It's important. This is where a lot teams begin their breakups so give
these examples some careful consideration. I don't think that it is necessary that the
team gets along really well with each other off the field. It's great if they do and we
all should try to do this. It's optional. But, it is very necessary that they get along on
the field. Once a team hits the field, they should attempt to practice behavior that
promotes respect and effort for the team because those are the two things (a lack of
respect for each other, and poor effort) that can break a team up very rapidly. And since
I have seen this where the fliers can still be great friends off the field, I would
suspect that it had a lot to do with the standards or lack of standards set up for field
practices.
Some wonder how a team can have fun with so much discipline and structure? Isn't kite
flying supposed to be free and easy? Well, that's a good point. A very good point. Team
flying isn't for everybody. Depends on what you call fun.
Every practice ought to have performance goals. Maybe learning a new trick, getting
further in a new routine, tuning up the ballet, but have some written goals the team hopes
to accomplish at every practice. First of all, you will make progress much more quickly.
Secondly, for some, the fun of flying team is being able to see progress. Building,
shaping, and finally executing a team routine is a project that takes a lot of time. It is
very rewarding to be able to measure progress as we "work" on that project.
OFF THE FIELD
Every team member should have a play book. The play book has the routines that the team is
flying. Each pilot should make notes in their play book that helps them fly the routine,
for example: what their keys are, ground position changes, corrections to errors, and the
like. Some feel that it's too much too ask, but my personal opinion is that every flier
should have the routine memorized, regardless of how new the routine is, or how recent
changes and corrections have been put in as long as they have at least a few days to look
at it. Personally, I don't consider it optional to know the routine well. Field practices
are tough to arrange. The team dedicates this time, usually on a weekend, usually making
plans around family and personal matters so that they can fly together. So, you make your
choice. You can use the time to practice your routine, or you can use the time reflying
your routine so that one or two fliers can learn it during field practice. Be aware that
the difference in quality between a practice in which the team is learning to memorize the
routine, and a practice where they have already memorized the routine and are tuning it up
is mega.
Sometimes the team can meet during the week, after work. Problem with that is they usually
can't fly. The next best thing is to practice "flying" the routine with laser
lites. Maneuver the lites on a wall (pretend sky), and move them as you imagine your kites
would move. You can practice keys, memorize the routine, and have open discussion. The
other thing you can do with lites that you can't do with kites, is stop them in
"mid-air". At that time you can study keys, discuss errors or problems with a
maneuver at that precise point. All of which, makes field practice more productive.
Another on-the-ground method is to put miniature kites on the ends of three foot sticks,
and practice the routines by using these little stick kites. For solo practice without the
rest of the team present, the sticks are the best instruments to learn the routine with.
They're better than laser lites.
COMPETITION
The pressure of competition is a little bit different for team fliers than it is for
Individual events. In some ways, it is more intense. Generally, mistakes in team routines
have graver penalties than mistakes in Individual routines and there are more
opportunities for catastrophic errors. A kite, for example, in an Individual routine
cannot hit another kite or have its line tangled or even broken by another kite. For some,
there is the fear of letting down their team mates by making a mistake. However, if
everyone has made their best effort, the team should be well prepared to accept whatever
happens. There are so many ways to crash when flying team, that the best course to take
regarding errors in competition is to consider any error, a team error. The only thing
that is hard to take when an error occurs is if it is the result of a lack of effort.
Otherwise, deal with it. You're supposed to be a team.
One way to reduce the anxiety a little bit, is to have pre-planned alternate maneuvers in
case of mishaps. In the case of a single kite crash that cannot be recovered immediately,
the downed kite should be set up by field crew while the rest of the team continues on
with the routine. The lead kite should know where in the routine the next opportunity will
occur where the lines will be unwrapped so that the down kite may be called back into the
formation. Generally there should be a great effort not to pause the routine and just hold
for the correction but to keep the flow moving as much as it is possible. If you practice
these "outs", the team will be able to recover more quickly instead of
compounding the error due to a loss of focus and the inability to get it back.
Keep your eyes on your keys, and your ears on the calls. Curiously, in order for the team
to fly well, no member actually sees the whole routine. Each person should be focusing on
their keys and mentally looking ahead to what they need to do next. If a team member has a
mental lapse and for a moment begins to watch the routine like an audience or judge would,
that's the time that becomes ripe for mistakes. Have someone take video if you want to see
the whole thing.
SUMMARY
I think that a lot of new teams spend most of their time focusing on the technical part of
team flying and sometimes forget about working on just the 'team' part of it. Hopefully
this article will assist some new teams to at least establish themselves to this point
before moving on to more technical matters.
If parts of this article are too vague, e-mail me directly or through
Kitelife and I will answer ALL questions. Of course, some of the
answers may be, "I don't know", but the intention is there.
Have a nice windy day!
