I weight 110kg/240lbs, have been kiting 4 years, 3 1/2 of those years on LEI's. I tried Peter Lynn Guerillas the end of last year, and have been kiting on Guerillas ever since. This is a "copy and paste" of a review I posted on the Yahoo Arcusers Group:
Just came back from a fun 2 hour session on my Bomba 17. Winds were 15 - 25mph, kinda gusty, lots of holes, fair amount of chop. I took out my big floaty board.
In a word: GREAT! This momma wants to turn.
Launching - pretty easy, I use the front-back pigtails, so I walk the lines to the bar. I may try the velco trick next time. Prefilling is easy/faster than my G's and the kite seems to hold the air better.
Turning speed - much faster than the G15, not quite as fast as my G10.
Upwind - same as others reported, I had no problem getting upwind if that is what I wanted to do. I realized that flying the G18/G15 all the time I've become accustomed to constantly pointing downwind abit to counter act the upwind pull of the G's. If I do that with the B17 I end up where I started. But if I edge and try to go upwind, I can get up there fine.
Bar pressure - more than the G18/G15 on the front pigtails. Not uncomfortable, but a bit more pressure.
Auto zenith - this kite has a pronounced tendency to go to the zenith, not so much to be a problem, but having only flown G's and LEI's it was different. Never flew S-Arcs, so I can't compare. I quickly adapted to it.
Flying - the kite sits a bit deeper, and looked to me to fall back into the zone a bit faster than the G18/G15, the resulting surges weren't bad, but I got the feeling that there was a ton of potential power in this kite that I was just starting to tap into.
I'm guessing that Lach's estimate that this kite has about the same power as a LEI 16 is about right, a bit more bottom end than my G15, maybe not as much as the G18 and, I'd guess, about as much top end as my G15 (haven't pushed the kite that far yet).
What is amazing to me, is that this kite looks small. It's thick alright, but it really doesn't look much bigger than my G15. I'll have to lay them out to see for sure.
Relaunch - yup, I managed to dump the kite in the water (during a jybe) and got a chance to relaunch. I've really only relaunched a G once before, so I'm sure my technique isn't very good. The kite was dead downwind of me and in a taco position, so I jerked the bottom lines, then the top lines (couldn't remember what the Instructional Video said to do...), and then, Voila!, the kite opened and off I went! Although I need to work on my technique, once the kite opened, it felt very controlled (unlike LEI's and Flysurfers). I had no problem body dragging upwind to my board.
By : Paul
