The high-start
Only a few of us keep calm before lift-off. But: the high start is a cool and solid method to bring the kite to a good height in no wind. Whether at the sea, in the mountains or indoors.
Although the most reliable and coolest method to bring the kite up to 200 m or 666 feet without wind (at kite festivals with hight clearing, else 60 m), we discovered, that it's not easy for people to keep calm before the start. The high start with Zero-Wind-Kites offers some relevant advantages.
When you have the time and a lot of space, perform a cool competent high start.
Start from scratch
Place the kite on a beautiful or spectacular spot: a rock, on the opposite bank of the Silvaplana Lake, your vans top, ore simply the perfect flat grass of a baseball ground. If there's a light breeze blowing, put a stone onto the spreader to keep the kite on the ground. The nose is pointing towards you.
You don't have to lay out 300 feet of your flying line to the ground, that's a boring task. Instead, attach the line to the kite and linger to your start position, until the line is running out on your reel. In my case, that's after 50 to 300 meters.
Start after a landing
A mellow landing is the most beautiful thing. Take your time. Just like positioning the kite manually, you can land it this way during a flight as well. You will want to get the kite's nose pointing towards you and a nice straight flying line. That's the clean layout for a take-off.
Ignition sequence start … Lift-off
Start the kite with a resolute pull impulse so that the long way home or whatever inclines to its kite-climbing-attitude. You can pull through (with both hands) without any hurry and observe the rising path of your kite. Try to feel the optimal speed for the highest efficiency. This way the loss of line length will be minimal. A balanced symmetry of your kite would be beneficial.
Pull it further up to the zenith, or better, much more beyond: This results in an elegant, expanded flight curve at the top: aerodynamic lift in glider mode. Or you initiate an early half flat-spin at an altitude of 20 or 50 m, followed by a fly away, 200 m far from you. In this case, make sure to have extra 100 feet of line or more laid out well sorted on the ground.
The size of the kite and the length of the flying line don't matter, but 10 m zero.4 or longer with an "i'll be back" or at least 50 m zero.6 with "the long way home" are useful. With a large kite you work a bit more, with a small one almost nothing.
Further launch methods and moves with our kites: start of the furka-movie: high start of a kite in the mountains. Movie.