gammajonny1600949555

The HQ Bongo is a small, 2 line, soft foil, high wind kite, a very small, 2 line, soft foil, high wind kite; I'm not going to write an epic thesis because you can't do much in the way of traction sports with it. It has the classic HQ Symphony Arc and rainbow colours it packs away to quite literally pocket size and comes with a little draw string stuff sack. The lines are wound separately round two rings which are also used as the handles, there are no worries of these being too week or uncomfortable for the pull that this kite gives they are fine, nicely rounded loops. The loops also make packing and unpacking easy and quick, if you have got some one to hold down the kite for you it's just a case of running back wards, but if there is no one to help you it is still a quick job of unwinding them yourself. If you haven't got some on to hold it down for you it does seem to have a horrible tendency to fly a meter off the ground and un controllably spin leading to some frustrating minutes of unwinding. Once you have got the handles at the other end of the untangled lines of the kite it comes to launching it, this usually takes a good few fast steps backwards but once done it will fly up to close to the top of the window but not quite get there. Before I carry on I would like to emphasise the fact that this is written in the perspective of someone flying it in a wind just above 20 miles per hour. I do find my self having to slowly walk backwards to keep it in the air, bring us too the fact that this is a high wind kite, if there isn't sufficient wind or walking/running backwards it just turns flat to the wind and falls to the floor. Due its small size it is very quick through the air and can be fun to static fly but doesn't absorb gusts too well, but the lack of any traction means this doesn't matter, you just get an arm massage/shake. The build quality is fine, nothing like mesh vents but it holds together. Although the bridle attachments are just knots through holes. All in all I think this would be a good kit for the young or old to play around with on a particularly windy day at the beach. Not a kite for anybody who wants any traction. By : gammajonny

The Bullet 2.5 is a comparatively small quad line traction kite, but don't be fooled by its size, it can pack some bite in higher winds but is good to learn with in lower winds. It is ram air which means the cells are closed at the back. Build quality As with all Flexifoil's it has excellent build quality and loads of useful innovations like bridle tidies, sleeved line ends and colour coded line sleeves. The handles have good quality padding and kite killers (also nicely padded) as standard. First flight The day it came I was lucky that there was a perfect wind for practicing on. It was my first quad line kite but I already had a Flexifoil Proteam 8 bar kite so I knew the basics. It was easy to set up and I had it flying in no time. Using the instruction manual I was able to land, solo launch and it was only a few days until I could reverse launch. Overview It gives you good pull and is perfect for starting recreational land boarding but it does not give much pull. So it's a great first quad line and excellent value for money, but if you're looking for a budget kite to start with you should go for the HQ Beamer. By : gammajonny

The Proteam 8 is a slightly larger version of the "Original" power kite, the stacker 6, having a 2 ft longer wing span hence the 8/6. It has a spar (bar) through the front edge, It has 2 flying lines both of which are attached to either end of the bar. The bar is extremely flexible and will be the last thing to breaking a crash (so no worries there). It has 2 30 meter 90kg flying lines. This is an excellent beginners kite as it is easy to control, simple to assemble, the strings don't get tangled if you look after them properly because there only attached in one place, and wont whisk you straight off your feet (if you are planning to by a kite for a slightly smaller child (under ten) then a stacker 6 might be slightly more appropriate as it has less pull) but still fun for the more experienced flyer. This kite has excellent agility and i have been able to pull it out from dives only inches from the ground, it is excellent for recreational flying and gives enough pull from a tiny bit of scudding. It's a great work out as well. More Flexifoil kites can be attached above this kite so it is easy to increase power and looks really good! I found stacked kites are fun to fly when flying my mate's stack of 2 stacker 6s. Following suit of Flexifoil's excellent build quality, it has survived a bad crash in to a tree, countless high speed crashes into hard ground and only suffered a loss of a few rubber end caps, which cost pence so no worries there. This kite has some down falls though; the snooker cue style bag is awkward to carry but is the only way to fit the spars. The long lines mean it can only be flown in a large un-crowded area and the spar makes a loud noise if you have quite a bad crash attracting a few glares from people near by (but nothing to worry about. Also the bar means it is likely to crash if the kite just skims the ground. The only major breakage I have had in 6 months is a broken line but that was after flying it into my friends kite and hearing a nasty sawing sound, when I went to re-launch my kite I saw the line was broken. All in all I recommend it to any beginner to intermediate I hope this advise has helped and are sorry if any of my comparisons to soft foil kites have been inaccurate as this is my first and at the moment only power/traction kite, but no for long By : gammajonny