like Jared888, I taught myself and have always self-launched and landed, and haven’t had kiting banned from my locals
I say leave a small space for those who want to take on the fairly unforgiving self-learning curve. Most people aren’t going to hang in there and will give up or get lessons pretty quickly
Also, the general public need to take some responsibility for their own safety. I always gave myself plenty of distance in the early days (or wouldn’t go out if beach was crowded), yet would still have parents watching as their toddlers trundled over to play with the big pretty kite I was wrestling to the ground.
And good luck in trying to get consensus from this group about what “compulsory lessons” entails
Then next we can tackle the dickhead drivers in this country(especially WA)...some people shouldn't be aloud to drive let alone fly a kite.
i think it would be nice to see this compulsary thing happen but its way to hard to police. one of the first things to consider would be a standardised teaching programme like flying a plane?? some simple steps are easily implemented
the main problem with learners is kite control, if they are made to fly a kite for a certain amount of hrs they would be more proficcient and less prone to nasty accidents.
i was lucky enough to have a mate teach me the basic's who knew his stuff and he made sure i could fly a trainer and a kite with control, made me body drag upwind before even letting me look side ways at a board (thanks jeff!!), most of the learners these days dont know how to get back to their board themselves let alone have any kite control. they seem to be just up and riding by using boat lessons and then cut free to to create chaos! (there are some instructors out there using boat lessons that are doing a good job - im not naming anyone)
after a while we all forget the hard early days and get complacent. the greater influx of learners each season is making our beaches more crowed with kiters and if we ignore it it will be a problem which could cause banning at certain spots in the future. i think this is a subject that is well worth talking about but very difficult to implement a workable programme.
take 15 minutes to talk to a beginner if you see one, it could help the restriction of kiting at your local in the long run. :)
