Thats a big thing... after about 8 months of riding I still had no idea it could go from 10 to 35 in 5 seconds until it actually did. Unfortunately I was on an 18M C kite when it happened.

My hard lesson involved getting dragged 75 yards to shore (quick release did not work.. pulled it as hard as I could may many times), hitting the beach and getting lofted 10 feet in the air, crashing down hard on my stomach, looping my kite when my bar hit the ground, and getting slingshotted another 75 yards on my stomach, between trees and signs, across the street, between cars, and into mangroves.. all at about 40mph in a time span of 8 seconds. A lot of road rash and some really bad near misses. WOW.

That was the day I realized I needed to pay more attention to the weather.

The second thing I learned was to crash the kite in the water first... pulling the quick release may just leave you with a looping kite and the bar out of reach.

Don't let your first hard lesson take you out.

Later found out the QR was a poor (Best) design which could easily be rigged wrong (the correct way was exactly the opposite way you rigged the more common slingshot version). The quick release worked fine unless it was under high load... so check your gear (under load) regularly boys.