Stunt: The Axel
Dean C. Hines
I am curious about a new stunt I've seen and as wondering if people could
give me tips on how to perform it.
While in Rockport, Abel Ortega called over to me and said, "Hey Dean, does
this look like I'm doing this on purpose?" His Stinger proceeded to flop on
its belly (it was in the air and almost stalled), spin completely around
(180 degrees on its belly), then pop upright. The kite stayed essentially
in its original stall position in the sky. Abel proceded to do this at
least five times IN THE SAME PLACE. He called it an axel.
Un fortunately, we didn't get much more time to discuss the move, so I
never got to really see how he was using his hands --- I was too fascinated
watching the kite.
So my question: How is it performed?
Thanks,
--
Dean C. Hines
Astronomy, RLM 15.308
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
David P Butler
> I am curious about a new stunt I've seen and as wondering if people could
> give me tips on how to perform it.
>
> While in Rockport, Abel Ortega called over to me and said, "Hey Dean, does
> this look like I'm doing this on purpose?" His Stinger proceeded to flop on
> its belly (it was in the air and almost stalled), spin completely around
> (180 degrees on its belly), then pop upright. The kite stayed essentially
> in its original stall position in the sky. Abel proceded to do this at
> least five times IN THE SAME PLACE. He called it an axel.
I mentioned the axle on the net in August. The directions are as follows:
You can do an axle anywhere depending on the wind, but its easiest to learn
it at the edge of the window. I'll describe a left axle, done on the left
side of the window and you can reverse it yourself for a right axle.
Start by taking the kite to the left edge of the window and stall it in an
upright position. Then do a light push turn with your left hand just to the
point where the right wingtip starts to dip. When the dip starts do a quick
strong jerk with your left hand and a punch with your right hand ( The left
wingtip will rotate forward and up, the right wingtip will drop back, and
the top will drop a little). Some people go so far as to slap their right
shoulder with their left hand during the move. Then quickly equalize both
hands and pull back with both to recover. This is a completely counter
intuitive move, in that you are pulling with your left hand to get the kite
to spin to the right. If done correctly, the kite seems to do a sort of
sideways summersalt and flip to the right. You can either keep the kite in
position or do a series of axles across the window. I hope someone gets
some use out of this description.
The easiest kite I know of to learn the Axle is the Prism Eclipse. The
Eclipse is also capable of the "Bass Axle," and I have seen no other kite do
this particular move. The axle described above is essentially a belly down
move. The bass axle is belly up. You put the kite on the edge of the
window, pop it on its back (ie: turtle it) and then do an axle with it in
that position. Instead of spinning and twisting belly down it spins and
twists belly up, and thus add an new dimension to the move. As I said, this
is the only kite that seems capable of doing the move (and I saw many others
trying). I am curious now though as to whether anyone who has managed a
"Bass Axle" on a kite other than an Eclipse.
Later,
Dave Butler
Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: What more could you ask of life?
Aviation combined all the elements I loved... I began to feel that I
lived on a higher plane than the skeptics of the ground; one that was
richer because of its very association with the elements of danger they
dreaded, because it was freer of the earth to which they were bound. In
flying I tasted the wine of the gods of which they could know nothing...
Charles A. Lindbergh Jr.
Simo Salanne
>While in Rockport, Abel Ortega called over to me and said, "Hey Dean, does
>this look like I'm doing this on purpose?" His Stinger proceeded to flop on
>its belly (it was in the air and almost stalled), spin completely around
>(180 degrees on its belly), then pop upright. The kite stayed essentially
>in its original stall position in the sky. Abel proceded to do this at
>least five times IN THE SAME PLACE. He called it an axel.
Is 180 a typo? Shouldt it be 360? i.e. "completely around".
I have never seen the stunt and I am trying to figure out
how it happens, 180 just makes me confused.
Smooth Winds
Simo
Steve Thomas
The Axel is the greatest move ever concieved of for a sport kite.
This is bacause I was the one that invented it. :-)
HISTORY:
I started doing a move I called the "Axel" in the 92' season. This
move consisted of, in light wind, moving toward the kite while the kite is
flying downward, thus "flattening out" the kite. While in this flattened
position, carefully popping the left or right line to make the kite spin
around while in this position. I later learned to do a "double axel" with
this technique--which consisted of the kite spinning around 540 degrees.
Doing this move in competition had a major drawback--in more than, say, 5
MPH of wind, the move didn't work--you couldn't run fast enough towards the
kite to get it to flatten out. Consequently, only a few of my routines in
the 92' season contained this move.
About the middle of the 92' season, I started trying to do the move in Wind.
I noticed that if I really jerked around the lines a lot while the kite was
Ain a stall, the kite would pop out of the air--and sometimes "flatten out".
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to control the kite's popping
out of the air--without ending up with a tangled mess. This process took
quite a while; at Berkeley 92', I _almost_ put the first "pop axel" (as I
called it) into a routine. Unfortunately, the move just wasn't 100% (it was
more like 75% at that time), and the move has a pretty ugly failure mode (if
you miss it, you have a tangled mess--not real pretty in a Master's class
Choreographed routine).
By early this year, I had the "pop axel" down to a science, and was able
to teach people how to do it.
Well, here on the Left Coast, the move has caught on like wildfire.
Everybody, it seems _needs_ to do this move. This came as something as a
suprise to me, since my old "axel" move, although it got a lot of looks,
didn't really catch on. Everybody's doing it, and the move has been
renamed--for convienience' sake--to simply the "axel" (nobody does the
"old axel"--or what I now call the "flat axel"--so the simpler name stuck).
THE MOVE:
I've taught many, many people how to do this move, and I've found that some
people catch on quickly, and some take a while (Scott Auchenbau could hardly
do the move even after at least an hour of patient drilling [last time I saw
HP, Scott was in fact doing the move--I'm sure I've taught this move to
him/them at my own competitive peril :-) ]).
Some kites are much better suited for the move than others. Kites that
"oversteer" are often--but not always--apt to do it better. More stable
kites, such as the Stinger, the NSR, Big Brother, Phantom, etc. will do
the move, but don't like to very much.
In competition (here comes a plug), I fly the XTC by Buena Vista Kite
Company, San Francisco. The XTC does this move better than any other kite
I've ever flown. The only kite I've ever done a "double axel" with is the
XTC and the XTC X-10 (10 foot "team kite" version of the very radical XTC).
Other kites that are easier to do it with are Prism's Eclipse,
the UP Warrior, and--although I've never tried one myself--I've heard
that Jordan Air's Pro can do the move quite well.
The move starts in a Stall. Note the capital 'S'. The most important thing
for a good axel is to start in a good Stall. You need to be in a Stall that
you can keep for at least 5 seconds. The reason for this is that the
entire move is performed _in_ the stall. If the kite is out of "stall
mode" at any time during the move, it doesn't work.
So, step one is to Stall your kite, and learn to keep it there for a "long
time".
Next, while in the stall, push out with your left hand, while your right
hand stays PERFECTLY STATIONARY throughout the move.
Next, "pop" your left line by quickly pulling your left hand and then
PUTTING IT BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL POSITION (i.e. pushed out). While doing this,
KEEP THE KITE STALLED--RUN TOWARDS THE KITE IF YOU NEED TO, DON'T PULL BOTH
LINES.
The "popping" action of the left hand will provide the momentum to spin
the kite around.
Last, steady the kite--the move looks the best when it starts and ends in
the same place.
(The ALL CAPS instructions are the things that I've noticed people tend to
find counter-intuitive when first learning this move).
RELATED MOVES:
Since first perfecting the Axel, I've kept moving. It's also important to
note that the rest of the "Berkeley School of Flying" ("BSF"--another plug),
has also been taking this move into new territory.
Many new moves that are "axel-based" are happening on the ground. This
consists of starting the motion not in a stall in the air, but stopped on
the ground--on one tip or another. Miguel Rodriguez (maker of the "Berkeley
Wasp"--yet another plug) came up with a move he calls the "coin toss" where
the kite starts on the ground with both tips down, pops into the air doing a
360, and then lands back in the same place (Miguel developed his move
partially concurrently with mine, but the "class of moves" is the same).
Another frontier is the obvious one: double axels, triple axels. I did the
first double axel in a choreographed routine in front of people at the
World Cup a few weeks ago. The double axel is not to be confused with a
"1+1" axel when the kite gets popped again in the middle. A true double
relies soley on the momentum from the first popping action, and the kite
remains completely flattened thoughout the move. This move very much relies
on a very "slippery sail", and I've only accomplished it with the two XTCs.
(The Jordan Air Pro might be a canidate, but kites with "winglets" tend to
aerodynamically spin themselves upright during the first turn, and won't
continue to spin on their bellies).
The Triple Axel is still on the horizon for me. The only way I've
accomplished it--and I've only pulled it off a few times--is a "2+1" kind
of action. The kite remains spinning on its belly, but you need to give it
another Pop at the right time to keep it spinning. (This is real hard).
Again, the kite should never pop back out off of its belly or even start
to--this would be a (1+1+1) axel (a good exercise, perhaps, but not a true
double/triple axel).
Flying indoors is excellent Axel practice. Indoors, the "axel" action is
actually the best way to turn a wing, since you're on such short lines and
your space is limited. Also, the Axel can be acomplished at any place in the
(dome-shaped) flying window--even directly above you (this is really neet).
***
Have Fun...
--
_______
Steve Thomas
ste...@netcom.com
This space intentionally left blank.
Dean C. Hines
(Simo Salanne) wrote:
Yep, sorry Simo. That was a typo. It should have read 360! That's like the
guy that was running from the cops and told his friend the driver, "Let's
do a 360 and get outta here."
Kobi Eshun
> I am curious about a new stunt I've seen and as wondering if people could
> give me tips on how to perform it.
>
> While in Rockport, Abel Ortega called over to me and said, "Hey Dean, does
> this look like I'm doing this on purpose?" His Stinger proceeded to flop on
> its belly (it was in the air and almost stalled), spin completely around
> (180 degrees on its belly), then pop upright. The kite stayed essentially
> in its original stall position in the sky. Abel proceded to do this at
> least five times IN THE SAME PLACE. He called it an axel.
I won't attempt to describe how to do the axle. As with most of the
stunts I do, I only get confused when I try to talk about how to do an
axle. I am amazed that others are able to transcribe their
experiential knowledge in such detail. Instead, I offer a short
Berkeley-centric commentary on the axle and its derivatives.
First, Steve Thomas takes my credit as the inventor (discoverer?) of
the basic axle. I let him test fly my brand-new ultralight
competition kite in Long Beach WA in May, 1992. He rewarded my
generosity by axle-ing it all over the sky, making me feel like a rank
amateur. He and John Baressi had considered including this new move in
their pairs routine. During that summer, Steve, John, Miguel
Rodriguez, and Greg Aaronson all worked on variants of the same theme,
often playing together at the Berkeley Marina.
Greg's specialty might be called a wing-tip axle: the kite starts off
in a wing-tip, launches into an axle with the nose rotating towards the
ground first, and then rotating anywhere from 180 to 360 degrees in
its axis (still "stalled", of course.) Greg exits from his axle with
a sudden, dramatic dart, usually in the original direction the kite
was pointing. Greg choreographed this move very effectively into his
routine for the 1992/1993 competition year.
Miguel calls his variation "The Flip Of A Coin", or simply "The Coin".
The kites start with both wing-tips on the ground, from which it
launches into an axle, usually about 3 feet in the air. The really
cool thing to do next is simply to land on the same spot, having
completed a nonchalant excursion, sometimes two! Another impressive
alternative is to dart into a fast ground pass after a 270 degree
spin.
Steve is one of the handful of people I know to axle his kite (a Buena
Vista XTC, usually) while floating down, nose first. I think this
variant was actually the first one (Steve?). He also combines a
"normal" axle with a helicopter (slide, if you prefer) very
effectively in his ballet routine.
I missed out on all of this, because I was living in LA at the time.
However, it is impossible to fly in Berkeley for any length of time
without becoming infected with axle fever. Now that I'm back, My
favorite (light wind) combination starts with a Coin fairly close to
the edge of the window, followed by a full window wing-drag.
The Bass Axle is another interesting variant. I have seen this
performed with the XTC and the Wasp, but not as consistently as Mark
manages with the Eclipse. The fundamental problem seems to be that
few kites are as forgiving as the Eclipse once they are belly-up.
+----------------------------------------------------+
|Kobi Eshun ADAC Laboratories ko...@adaclabs.com|
|408.321.9100.x2457 |
|408.321.9536 (FAX) |
+--ADAC is not responsible for making me say things--+
Dean C. Hines
Thomas) wrote:
> In article <dhines-16...@beernut8.as.utexas.edu> dhi...@pan.as.utexas.edu (Dean C. Hines) writes:
[lots deleted]
> >
>
> The Axel is the greatest move ever concieved of for a sport kite.
> This is bacause I was the one that invented it. :-)
>
> HISTORY:
[deleted] But should be placed in the archive!!!!!
>
> THE MOVE:
[deleted] But should be placed in the archive!!!!!>
>
> RELATED MOVES:
[deleted] But should be placed in the archive!!!!!>
> _______
> Steve Thomas
> ste...@netcom.com
>
> This space intentionally left blank.
Thanks to all who replied!!!!!
I did try this move over the weekend. It's tough unless you can hold a
stall for a LONG time, as Steve said. I was able to do the move with the
Scorpion and my friend could do it pretty well with his Kestral. The hang
time of the Scorpion really helps with this move.
One thing that happened by accident was an Axel followed by a Turtle. I did
it once, but could not re[eat it.
Thanks again!