The size of the useable wind window dictates how much and what type of power your kite will generate. Try it for yourself and you’ll feel that there’s a limit to how far you can fly the kite to each side or over your head before it either stops moving and/or loses power, stalls and falls out of the sky.

With you as a fixed point at its centre, the wind window described by the kite resembles the surface of a quarter of a sphere. There really isn’t any kite that can make the full quarter sphere as this requires a full 180-degree lateral pass - it is more like 130 to 140 on average.

The illustration below shows how this works:

The Wind Window - the actual area of sky in which you can control your kite

Bear in mind, too, that the wind - especially a light wind - can shift and change direction. Your orientation also shifts with the wind until you locate the centre and edges of a new window. On a beach site, wind shift could well be associated with the tides. For example, a flat calm day can easily turn into a real hoolie following a tide change.

Where To Fly In The Wind Window

Traditionally, sport and power kites are most efficient when they are flying at the centre of the wind window and horizontally across the sky at roughly head height or slightly above. Here they move fastest and pull hardest. Keep flying horizontally and the kite will gradually slow down and lose power as it reaches the edge of its window. Turn the kite round just before the edge and fly it back across the wind window. As you reach the centre, turn it upwards and fly the kite straight up the wind window. If the wind is strong enough, you’ll notice yourself being pulled by a rush of power, followed by the same slowing down and depowering effect until the kite reaches a ‘parked’ position up above your head.

* This is known as the zenith or ‘safety’ position. There’s almost no power in the kite up here and it’s the place to try and steer the kite if you ever feel you’re getting into difficulties.

Flying a large power kite near the centre of the window will generate enormous lateral pull and this is where you’ll find yourself leaning right back, even lying down, to stop yourself being pulled over and dragged along on your front. In fact, you rarely see buggy pilots or kiteboarders fly their big kites near the centre of a window because the lateral pull would be too much to hold. What they do is use a different part of the window to generate the kind of power that is most useful to them.

As with wind speeds, knowing where to fly your kite in the wind window is something that is worth understanding in principle but will become much more of an intuitive thing with experience. Your skill as a flyer will be in learning how to manipulate the kite in the window to deliver the kind and quantity of pull you want.

Generally speaking, lighter wind means a smaller (narrower and lower) wind window in which the kite will be moving relatively slowly. You’ll need to really work it near the edges and even at the centre to achieve real power. In a big wind you’ll find that the kite flies quite differently - it has a bigger wind window, is much faster (not least because smaller kites fly faster) and has strong pull over a much bigger area of the window than it does in a lighter wind.