FAQ

Choose your kite or gear in our shop, pick the model and color on the product page, then check out.

A free account lets you see your orders, keep a wishlist and hold any gift card balance.

We accept PayPal and credit cards (through Stripe) at checkout.

If none of these suits you, contact us and we can talk about other ways to pay.

Every Djinn and Djinndoor is signed by JB unless noted otherwise, and each Djinn comes with a free Kite Forge cloisonné pin.

All currently available colorways are listed on each kite’s product page.

Yes. For the Djinn and Djinndoor, design your sail in the KitePaint colorizer (Djinn, Djinndoor), save it, and paste your saved design’s link in your order notes when you choose the Custom color option (there’s a small added fee).

We review each design for complexity and brand look, and most pass with no problem.

Custom kites are built in production runs, and we announce each run’s order cut-off on our Facebook page.

Other kites are colored a different way. The Kaiju page has its own colorizer: choose a color for each panel, click Copy Color Details and paste the result into your order notes at checkout. For the Object, build your design with the color palette on its page and send us a screenshot in reply to your order confirmation.

Custom-color kites can’t be returned unless we made an error, in which case we’ll arrange a replacement at our expense.

Order five or more different Djinn models (the Djinndoor counts as one) and enter code SUITEDEAL at checkout for 10% off those kites, in stock or custom colors.

It can be combined with shipping codes. More in What (is) a Suite Deal?

Yes. Gift cards are emailed to the recipient with your message and can be used on anything in the shop, in stock or backordered; any balance stays in their shop account as credit that doesn’t expire.

In your order notes, add your name as you’d like it shown, the recipient’s name and email, and your message.

Our kites are only available from Kite Forge and a small number of hand-selected dealers.

In the USA, the Djinn is sold direct from us, and the Djuice is also available at The Kite Connection (California), Klig’s Kites (South Carolina) and the World Kite Museum (Washington); call or visit if you don’t see it on their website.

Outside the USA, see our international partners. Details are on our Dealers page.

Our partners are Wind-R in France (Europe), HTKite in China and Air-Rex in Japan, each run by experienced fliers.

You can also order direct from us, since we ship worldwide.

In-stock items ship promptly.

We run production as our own stock needs it, so backorders usually take 4–12 weeks, and often less if your order catches a production run at the right time. Custom colors are built in those same runs.

The KŪBE and SP|KE are made in small batches of 10–15, so their backorders are usually filled within 2–3 weeks.

In-stock orders usually ship within 48 hours; backorders follow the times above.

If we’re away at a kite event, the shop stays open and we’ll let you know when your order will ship.

Yes, we ship worldwide. Shipping options and costs for your address are shown at checkout.

You can also buy from our partners in Europe, China and Japan, listed on our Dealers page.

International customers are responsible for any import duties and taxes. If you have questions about them before you order, contact us.

Sometimes, case by case. If you’ll be at an event where we are, contact us before you order and we’ll see what we can arrange.

You can return an item within 7 days of delivery if it’s unflown and in perfect condition. Please contact us first with your order number.

Return shipping is paid by the customer, unless the return is because of a fault on our side.

Custom-color kites can’t be returned unless we made an error, in which case we’ll arrange a replacement. Any replacement ships at our expense.

We don’t offer a formal warranty.

Our kites are built to a high standard and tested in a wide range of conditions, and the parts that wear with use, like bridle pigtails and wingtip pieces, are made to be easy to replace.

If you ever have a problem with a product, contact us with photos and we’ll be happy to talk it through.

If anything arrives damaged or missing, let us know right away through our contact page, with your order number and photos.

You can change or cancel an order any time before it ships.

Choose by the wind you fly in most: UL 2–6 mph, ST 3–12, MV 5–18, VT 7–25, XT 12–35 and HV 25–55 mph.

Most fliers start with the ST, and a standard sail plus a vented one covers most days. All six are on the Djinn page.

Think of them as two good wines from the same vineyard. Both come from JB and Brett Marchel.

The Djuice is a simpler 7-panel build of the 42-panel Djinn, with a Sync Bridle adapted for newer fliers, at roughly half the cost, and a lot of thought went into it.

The Djinn steps up a great deal in smoothness and refinement, which isn’t the same as being harder to fly. It’s a bit like violins: a beginner finds a good student violin no harder to play than a fine one, but before long starts to hear the difference.

Choose by how sure you are about quad flying, where you’d like to go with it and your budget (more in Sippin’ on Djinn… and Djuice!).

The Djuice Package page lets you put together what a new quad flier needs: a Djuice ST (3–12 mph) and/or VT (7–25 mph), lines and handles, a kite stake and spare parts.

We suggest two spare rods and a couple of ferrules, since a few breaks are normal while you learn.

The Djinndoor is our indoor quad, for gyms, courtyards and near-zero wind outside (0–3 mph) on 10 ft lines.

If there’s enough wind to keep a kite flying without you moving, it’s time for the Djinn UL.

The Djinndoor is designed for short lines with no steady wind direction, so on long lines it will fly, but it won’t feel as precise as the other quad lines in our lineup: it isn’t being flown in the style it was made for.

To see the difference, compare videos of outdoor quads with videos of the Djinndoor on our Videos page.

Below about 2–3 mph, no kite performs well without some participation from the pilot.

In that range there’s far more to gain from building your skills and basic knowledge than from shaving grams off your kite, so our tutorials are the best place to start.

For flying in still air, see the Djinndoor and Kaiju.

The Kaiju is a dual line kite for indoor and urban flying in extremely light wind (0–3 mph) on short lines, 7–10 ft of 50 lb line.

It’s an easy kite to keep in the car for yards, courtyards and parks, and some of our customers enjoy flying it outdoors within its wind range on 30 ft of 50 lb line.

Our free indoor dual line tutorials are filmed with it.

Either can be a great first kite.

If you walked onto a field knowing only what everyday life has taught you, a dual line kite would be the more intuitive one to figure out. It flies nose first: pull the right line and it turns right, pull the left and it turns left, much like steering a bicycle.

Dual line kites lean toward speed, pitch, flippy tricks and aggressive moves, and as you progress, the more advanced maneuvers call for quick hands and a lot more hand-eye coordination.

If you’re willing to watch a few tutorials and learn the basics, a quad line kite is more like a helicopter. It leans toward fully controllable flight in any direction, and hovering: with enough wind, you can stop it anywhere in the sky, hold it there, and move it in extremely small increments.

Flying a quad precisely doesn’t take a lot of hand speed, and with a little study of the many resources out there, including our tutorials, the learning curve is much quicker: given the right information, people generally learn to fly a quad line kite faster, though not always.

Both are wonderful disciplines, each with its own qualities, and they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Learning and enjoying both adds to your overall understanding of kites, and to your enjoyment. Watch both in action and follow what draws you first.

Yes, a small number, in our Imports.

We only add a kite from another designer once we’ve flown it ourselves and know it brings something worthwhile that our own range doesn’t, so it holds to the same standard as everything else we sell: it’s a kite we’d happily fly, and generally do.

We also want to know the people behind it. Each one comes from an experienced designer and flier whose work we respect and whom we can stand behind when you have a question.

The Djinn, Djinndoor and Djuice come with a fully set-up sail, bridle, one frame and a kite sleeve; lines and handles are sold separately.

The exception is the Djuice Package page, where you can put together a complete, ready-to-fly Djuice kit. The Switch comes with its flying line.

The right line set depends on four things: the wind, the kite, how you like to fly and where you fly.

Wind. Lighter wind calls for lighter line, since thinner line has less weight and drag for the kite to carry. In our LaserPro Gold quad sets, 50 lb is ideal for light wind, and 90 lb is the standard for almost any other wind condition.

Kite. Bigger, more powerful kites need stronger line, and indoor kites fly on very short, light line: 10 ft Djinndoor Lines for the Djinndoor and 7 ft Kaiju Lines for the Kaiju indoors.

Dual line kites have their own LaserPro Gold dual sets, and the ideal weight and length for those varies a great deal with your flying style and the type of dual line kite.

Style and venue. Shorter lines put the kite in a smaller space, so everything feels like it happens sooner: the kite has less distance to travel before it reaches the edge of the window, or something else. That suits tight spaces.

Longer lines give you more room and time, quite literally more space for the kite to travel, which suits open fields. Most outdoor quad flying is on about 30–120 ft.

Indoors, you power the kite by turning on the spot (your radius), and longer lines mean a lot more walking; the Kaiju tutorial Launch & 360 explains radius in the context of indoor flying.

Dogstake flying halves your working line length, so it needs longer lines.

If you’d like help selecting the right line set for your kite(s) and the way you fly, feel free to contact us.

There are many 13″ quad handles out there, but the Djinn Pro Handles are aluminum with a very specific curve: its length and position give your grip a natural fulcrum point, for much more precise control.

Handles with a less refined curve tend to act more like levers, which can feel rudimentary at the end of the line. With a well-curved handle, the kite feels smoother and its feedback is clearer.

They come with our own adjustable leaders on top (throttle) and bottom (left-right balance), which let you tune your kite for the response that suits you best.

To tie your own leaders, the Djinn Pro Leaders kit has the right line and an easy template.

You can also use our free template image with 150 or 200 lb cored bridle line.

Yes. LaserPro Gold spools let you tie your own sets, the Sleeving Kit holds enough sleeving for one quad set, and bulk sleeving is sold by the yard.

Wind them on an LPG Winder (quad sets up to 120 ft, dual up to 200 ft) or a Mini Winder for indoor and short sets up to 30 ft, and make sure every line in the set is exactly the same length.

Uneven lines send unbalanced inputs to the kite, so you end up correcting for the difference with your hands. How accurately a kite responds depends as much on an even line set as on your skill.

The KŪBE is our dogstake: your lines run through a set of pulleys at the stake, so you stand downwind beside your kite, flying it and even catching it.

It works with dual and quad line kites and comes ready to fly with the head, screw stake and mount, a velvet bag, guy lines and flight and safety tutorials. For the background, read History and Science of Dogstake Flying.

The dogstake halves your working line length, so we suggest at least 120 ft lines (most pilots find this sufficient), or 200 ft for a full-size wind window (both in our LaserPro Gold sets).

The screw mount suits most surfaces; on soft sand add short guy lines to a couple of tent stakes, and for soft or deep turf use the SP|KE, a 22″ steel spike mount you drive in with a dead blow hammer.

The pigtails (one center, two shoulder) take the most ground wear and are the easiest to replace; the top leads only wear after a lot of aggressive flying.

Our support videos show each swap, Sync Bridle (pigtails) and Sync Bridle (top leads), and the Sync Bridle Kit has a full set. For hard use, L3 Clips protect the leading edge at the three bridle points.

Rod breaks are a normal part of learning, and a swap takes a couple of minutes.

Djinn spars are Mystic Spars (add two ferrules for every five spars if you’re building a whole frame); Djuice spars are Dynamic spars, with Dynamic ferrules.

On the Djinn, the center rod has a ferrule glued into each end. On the Djuice, the two outer wingtip rods each have a ferrule glued into their inner end.

• Djinndoor: Mystic 10, light ferrules
• Djinn UL: Mystic 10, light ferrules
• Djinn ST: Mystic 12, regular ferrules
• Djinn MV: Mystic 14, regular ferrules
• Djinn VT: Mystic 16, regular ferrules
• Djinn XT: Mystic 18, regular ferrules
• Djinn HV: Mystic 18, regular ferrules
• Djuice ST: Dynamic 12, Dynamic ferrules
• Djuice VT: Dynamic 15, Dynamic ferrules

For a first kite, the bare minimum we recommend is two spare rods and two ferrules (Mystic spars and ferrules for the Djinn, Dynamic spars and ferrules for the Djuice).

Between them, they can replace any one of the five rods in the frame.

Other parts, like a bridle kit or wing tips kit (Djinn, Djuice), usually come into play with longer-term use, when something wears out or after repeated crashes over time.

For the Djinn, the Survival Kit page puts these together, which is especially handy if you live outside the USA and would rather avoid paying shipping again for more parts later.

For a quick orientation, have a look at our Learn page.

If you’re starting on a quad, the Djuice video manual at the top covers setup, lines, first flights, tuning and pack-up, and applies to most quads of the same shape.

When you’d like to go further, work through Flight & Control, Wind Window and Basic Hovers, or the Kaiju series for indoor dual line.

Flying with another pilot nearby helps a lot, and you’re always welcome to contact us with questions.

Yes, three to five twists at setup are normal.

Hook up the kite and handles first, as our tutorials show, then pull all four lines tight and spread them, giving them a slight shake if needed: most of what look like wraps cancel out.

The rest come out by rotating the handles, together as a pair or one at a time, and on rare occasions by passing one handle through the other.

A good winding and unwinding method keeps twists and wraps to a minimum, and the Djuice video manual on our Learn page shows how.

Seat each leading edge joint fully, check the bridle isn’t twisted around an end cap, and keep the vertical spars outside the bungee knot covers at the wingtips.

On Mystic rods, the label end goes into the T-fittings.

When packing up, leave a gap between the leading edge rod ends before folding; Assembly & Disassembly shows every step.

Most quad bridles are fixed, so you tune at the handles with the top leaders.

Start on the longest top knot, where the kite won’t launch, and shorten one knot at a time until it feels powered but still brakes; use the bottom leaders only to even out left and right.

The Djinn and Djuice are different: both use our Sync Bridle, which links all four points of tension so the sail loads evenly, stays connected through every move, and lets you fine-tune the level of responsiveness.

The Djinn’s four settings are covered below.

Tuning Theory walks through it, and it works for almost any framed quad.

Unlike most quad bridles, the Djinn’s Sync Bridle adjusts, with four positions on its limiter: Easy (lighter feel, less sensitive), Team (the balanced setting every Djinn ships on), Sport (sharper response, easier axels) and the unofficial Hold my Beer (the most sail cupping).

JB and Team KiteLife fly the ST, MV, VT and XT on Sport and the UL and HV on Hold my Beer.

If your Djinn ever feels heavy, move it toward Easy; Tuning Theory shows the settings from 6:32.

The Sync Bridle only works properly with a sail that shapes itself a certain way under load and a frame that flexes to support it, and the attempts we’ve heard of to fit it to other kites generally haven’t given good results.

Good kite design brings the bridle, the sail, the frame and many smaller components together so they work as one and give the kite its own personality in the sky. A part that wasn’t designed with that particular kite in mind leaves things a little disjointed, so a bridle isn’t a plug-and-play part that works on any kite.

Sync Bridle – Why it Matters explains more.

Small tears and worn spots are usually simple to fix. JB explains his usual method in Need repair advice on the KiteLife forum.

For the sail, we use IC-2000 Super Glue or Tedlar tape; Insignia Repair Tape is for the leading edge. Never seal a tear with heat.

Rinse off salt and sand with fresh water, and let the kite dry fully before you pack it; a kite stored wet can bleed dye between panels, especially reds.

Air dry wet lines on their winder. Roll the kite moderately loose with the rods out, and slide it into the sleeve turning with the roll.

You can also rinse your line sets in a basin of water, shake off the excess and let them air dry at room temperature. For an especially dirty kite, a little mild hand soap diluted in water, with a soft washcloth, may also help.

Dogstake flying puts you downwind, in the kite’s flight path, so there’s a learning curve.

Wear eye protection (sunglasses at the very least), and just as important, learn your depth in the field in relation to the kite’s travel path.

Once you have a sense of it, it’s a lot like riding a bicycle: the first time can feel risky, but it’s not something we’d call dangerous if you approach it responsibly.

On a dual line kite, the travel path matters more, because there are no brakes and the kite is more often traveling at a higher rate of speed. A quad line kite gives you complete control through hovering and speed control, so it’s much easier to interact with the kite up close.

Start with the Safety tutorial in the KŪBE Guide.

The guide’s videos are for owners: open it with the personal link in your order email, or log in to your account and choose KŪBE Guide in the account menu.

Owners also share tips in the KŪBE Owners Group on Facebook.