PowerKiting

First, there are lots of resources regarding power kiting and I'm no expert. I have several kites, yes, and I enjoy playing in strong winds.  And yes, my jeep is rigged with special tow hooks and guards. I attach myself to the jeep and then the kites to me. Yowza, it's some fun! You can get lots of listings regarding powerkiting and kite jumping on the 'net. If you have trouble finding some let me know and I'll send you some lists.
Second and very important, I'm not encouraging you to do these things. In fact, I'm putting it in writing here that I'm DISCOURAGING you from doing these things.
Third, having DISCOURAGED you from this foolhardiness, I'll share with you what I've learned. Any kind of powerkiting is potentially dangerous, and I've learned to be careful by getting bumped and bruised in the learning process. Start small. Alot goes into computing how much lift you'll get in what kind of wind from what kind of kite. I'm not tiny (I'm just over 6' tall and I weigh 236# with most of my weight in my chest, arms and legs). My SkyTiger 26 can pull me off my feet in a 15mph wind if I'm not paying attention. I can be flat on my back on the ground and the SkyTiger will lift me to standing in a 20mph wind with me pulling back on the lines (kind of like doing pull ups, not bending at the waist). In stronger winds, if I fly the SkyTiger at the sweetspot of the flight envelope (about 65 degrees above the horizon and parallel to the wind) I'll be lifted. This is where you have to be careful (helmet, knee and elbow pads, wrist guards if you want them. If you're in an uneven field where there may be rocks or stumps or logs, consider leather chaps or thick sweats until you feel confident). As soon as you are lifted the geometry changes. You are no longer attached to the earth, the kite no longer has the drag angle to the lines which got you airborne in the first place, and you become a two body pendulum with the mass of the second pendulum (the kite) being determined by the surface area, angle of attack (of the wind) and speed of the wind at the kite surface.
What I tell you next is extremely important and could save your life; YOU CAN ALWAYS LET GO OF THE KITE! I'm serious. You can get injured falling from five feet or from fifty, but a five foot drop you will probably walk or at least crawl away from. A fifty foot drop? Make sure you carry insurance. So, when you get dragged too far, too fast, or begin to think you're going too high, LET GO OF THE KITE.
The other version of this is that, if you are using a quadline kite (the NPWs, SkyTigers, QuadraFoils, CQuads, Quad Deltas, ...) just release any tension on the upper lines. You're releasing the air when you do this and essentially applying the brakes. The kites will shoot down, and you with it. Having said all that, you should also know that you have to be able to steer your wing once you're airborne in order to make as safe as possible a landing. Also to stay airborne as much as possible. The larger the kite, the more you're hangliding but without the control or a true hanglider.
For all these reasons I suggest you start with a small quadline kite or a good dual line kite. Give yourself the time to learn how to steer and catch the wind, how to recover, and most important to learn how much pull a given kite will have in a given wind. Please, please, please don't go out with a big kite your first time out, put it up in a high wind, and go for your first and last ride in one day. Take your time and you'll get a hell of a good ride, love it and be able to walk away to ride again tomorrow.
Ok. Now. Using my size as a guide... I use my SkyTiger, my CQuad and my Maxima (not sure if they still make those) for powering. The Maxima (a 10' delta) will pull me around but not get me off the ground. Even in the strongest winds, I'm too big for it to seriously lift unless I help it alot. More often than not my weight against a strong wind will damage the kite (this has happened in the past so I'm careful now). The Maxima is a dual line, strutted kite which is excellent for getting a feel for the air and rapidly changing winds. My SkyTiger will pull me around in a reasonable wind and lift me in a good wind. In strong winds I use the jeep to anchor me because the 'Tiger will snap me hard if I'm not paying attention. The CQuad 3.2 -- my God -- even a gentle wind and that'll have me across my fields. Anything over 10mph and I'm rigging myself to the jeep. The CQuad will easily lift me for a good distance in winds over 15mph. I'll let you know about the NPW in a few weeks. If I survive.
How to judge windspeed if you don't have an anemometer handy; if you can run a 6 minute mile you're running at 10mph. The wind you feel running a 6 minute mile is what is lifting the kite in a 10mph wind. A bicycle rider will usually travel along at 12-15mph on a flat, even surface. The wind you feel riding a bike is what's lifting the kite in a 12-15mph wind. Get in your car and drive at 20mph with your hand cupped forward out the window. The wind you feel is what's lifting your kite in a 20mph wind. Remember that the surface area of your kite is larger than your body or your hand.
Remember to fly safe. When you go out with a big, new kite or even a moderate size kite with which you're unfamiliar, take a buddy with you. Yes, I fly solo (I have quite a few different kites), but I don't do serious powering solo.

Question:
Hey dude, I've been power kiting for about 4 months now and I love it.  There's nothing like the feeling that the pull from a kite give as the wind picks up and you sail into that sweet zone.  I recently purchaced a NPW5 6.9 and I would like to get into jumping but I have a few questions. First, I am well aware of the safety issues, but I want to try it anyway. I have a HQ harness and I know I shouldn't hook into it to jump.My problem is I can't figure out where to position the kite to get off the ground.  Should I sweep it across the zone, up over my head, or what?  I weigh about 200 pounds and am 6 feet tall.  I have no problem getting dragged across the field and I've been lifted about a foot or two with the wing over my head, but I can't seem to get the timing right. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer:
Ah, young Jedi...
Yeah, power kiting will either hook you or not and if it does, you're gone. There was one day I had literally everybody in my club powerkiting -- even someone's 75 year old grandmother who just came out to watch! Good thing most of us are farm people. Strong, peasant stock! -- most of them still do it in addition to their more, uh, mundane flying. LOL.

About jumping; you're aware of the safety issues and yet you still want to do it? Ok. I've been the good older brother and warned you away. I also think I mentioned that you could use the HQ Harness for jumping in the previous email I sent you. Funny thing was, about a week after I sent you that review of the harness I was out with mine and it burst apart in a strong wind. I was using it for lifting when a true gust came along. We figured each line had about 290# of tension when the seams burst on the harness. Wowza! I went for an unexpected ride that day, I'll tell you.

Ok. The simple stuff; don't try jumping uphill. You may be tempted because the winds will be stronger going uphill than they will be over a plain. The problem here is that you'll swing into the hill. At least I have a few times until I got the hang of it. Once you do get the hang of it it's kind of like bungy-jumping uphill and neat.

Sweeping the wing up through the zone: I've never been able to get enough vertical acceleration on the wing to lift me by doing this. Most times I end up wrestling for control through the climb and by the time the wing is at or close to the zenith it's lost any energy or momentum it could have used to carry me up with it.
You mentioned using 85ft x 300/200 lines, which are fine. I've been told that shorter lines are better but I routinely fly with 100-125ft lines without a problem. If I could find longer lines I would just to find out what happens.
I think part of the problem of getting a really good jump may be that you and I are of a kind; you're 200# and I go 40# beyond that. Because we're such delicate people we need a truly strong wind to get hoisted on our own petards...or wings. I will start to get lifted by the NPW 6.9 (the LK-300) when the winds are a steady 12mph. When I say "I will start" that's exactly what I mean. I'll get up on tiptoes a few times but I won't achieve neutral bouyancy (where the kite's vertical pull up equals gravity's vertical pull down). I won't bore you with the calculations but I'm guessing you'll need winds in the 10-13mph range and steady for the NPW to neutralize your weight.

How to do it:  You'll need to get your wing up close to but not at the zenith, say 85 degrees up, which is 5 degrees off of directly overhead. This is fairly easy to figure. The NPW itself when fully inflated takes up about 10 degrees of horizon. Get the wing directly overhead then coast it until it's about half it's own width from directly overhead downwind. So, if the winds are from the east blowing west, get the wing directly over your head so that if you look up you see wing, not sky. Now let the wing go with the wind so that it's just starting to move west with the wind and if you look directly up you see sky over the edge of the wing. If the winds are good, this'll happen easily. When you do this, you'll probably have equal or close to equal tension on the top and bottom lines just to keep the wing stable in the sky.
Here's the trick I use; I listen to the lines. No kidding. You've probably had the experience of hearing the wind vibrate the kite lines so that they "sing". The higher the pitch of the lines the stronger the wind. As the pitch goes up, I GENTLY relax the upper lines. Not much, just a little. Not enough to bring the kite down. I'm really only talking maybe an inch or two. If you look at the little pix I included, the top part shows how how your handles should be when the wing is just shy of overhead. This is how your handles are just before you're preparing for a jump. The design of a handle makes the distance from you to the bottom of the kite longer than the distance from you to the top of the kite but not by much.
The bottom of the pix shows the handles during a jump or lift. What I've done is JUST SLIGHTLY released tension on the upper lines for a second or two. When I do this, I make the distance between me and top of the kite either the same or a little longer than the distance between me and the bottom of the kite.
What this does is bring the nose of the kite up enough so that I have a "wing" shape facing directly the wind. As the wind picks up lift is generated and as long as I can hold the kite right there, I get airborne. The stronger the wind, the more you'll go up and also across. Make sure you're not near something that'll hurt you or get hurt because you can really climb if you're not careful. KitesOnLine has a review I did of flying the SkyTigers and it includes suggestions on how to steer from five or more feet up. Here's the part of that review where I mention steering:
Steering from 5 (or more) feet up

Having said all the above, you should know that if you do get
airborne with the SkyTiger 26 or any kite your concept of control
goes out the window. You don't have to be able to steer once you're
off the ground but it's kind of nice should you want to avoid little
things like people, cars, fences, farm animals, deep water, ... take
your pick. Another good reason to practice steering once you're
airborne is in order to make as safe as possible a landing and/or to
stay airborne as much as possible. The larger the kite, the more
you're hangliding but without the control or a true hanglider. Give
yourself the time to learn how to steer and catch the wind, how to
recover, and most important to learn how much pull a given kite will
have in a given wind. Remember that the geometry of the kite
control has changed should you get lifted. You're not longer
attached to the earth and hence providing horizontal tension (or
some horizontal component of tension). You're now swinging
underneath your kite which is going to work quite hard to make
you the bob at the end of its pendulum. As you swing out of the
wind your weight will cause the kite to put its back to the wind and
the SkyTiger 26 will want to deflate and fold quickly. As you swing
into the wind it'll want to offer more of its face to the wind and climb,
taking you with it. Pulling on either set of lines will cause the kite to
fly in that direction and down. Be careful of crosswinds when doing
this because you'll still go down but you might be going down with
the acceleration of gravity but laterally with the acceleration of both
the gravity and with wind. Ouch! Be Careful!

Hope this helps, Dave.
Let me know if you need more and I'll do what I can. Right now there's a wind out there and it's just begging me to get out in it.
Safe Flying!