I remember one day, we had our first plastic hi flyer kite, a 2 stick with flat wood sticks. It was breezy and i recall my mom calling us in for lunch, and the kite had 150 foot of line out, so we tied it to the swing set while we had sandwiches and soup. It was still flying when we came back out.
From what I could tell, it looks like you were flying in an aerodynamic bowl...frequently difficult to lift out of those things and get up to good air.
Even so, the winds you had showed to be enough. Maybe it was too turbulent right there to get a clean launch wind. Any kite can be fickle if there's muddy wind.
I just bought a box kite. I've wanted to learn to fly one since I was a young kid. We had kites, but they were rhe delta style because those are easy to fly. I hope I can learn without getting too discouraged!
I have square box kites like that one. Sometimes flown on the diagonal, sometimes flown flat. I stand it on its tail and unreel a hundred feet or so of line, keeping tension in the line to keep the kite from blowing over, then a quick pull gets it up out of the slow ground air into the faster air above. Box kites are generally heavy and need more wind than flat kites.
