Flexifoil Blade 2 2M - 9M

The Blade is Flexifoil's primary all-purpose traction kite. The original Blade was released in 1999, undergoing design tweaks to improve speed and stability in its latest incarnation as the Blade II. The kite comes complete with handles, a one-month free repair voucher, and a rather stylish black/blue rucksac. Thanks in no small part to Flexi's fantastic marketing efforts, the Blade is one of the most popular all- round traction kites today.

Range

2.0m, 3.0m, 4.0m, 4.9m, 6.4m, 7.8m, 9.0m.

Recreational Flying

The Blade is an absolute blast to fly. Cracking speed from the smaller foils (especially 4.0m and smaller) provide great flying entertainment before you start playing with more extreme traction activities when the wind picks up. That said - the pull is always there even in lower winds... nice! Great stability, easy to fly.

Jumping

It is at Jumping that the Blade really excels. High lift when parked overhead often inspires fear, but allows jumping with ease. Landings are soft, especially with the larger foils. The Blade has good resistance to luffing (the tendency for the kite to overfly the wind window and collapse), which goes some way towards (relatively!) safe jumps! We've also tried tethered flying with a 7.8 Blade in 20mph to much amusement; the kite stood up admirably to pulling three fat blokes across a field... a feat which another kite suffered a snapped bridle. The excellent build quality really inspires confidence when jumping.

Buggying

The Blade is a fine buggy engine, let down mainly by its high overhead lift hoofing the pilot out of the buggy! (Mmmm, buggy jumps...!) Good upwind performance, although many dedicated race kites are better in this respect. Therefore we do not reccommend the Blade as a dedicated buggy engine - but it's more than capable, and if you are looking at using one kite for a range of traction activities, the Blade gets my vote every time.

Verdict

The Blade is the best all-round kite we have yet flown. It performs admirably at all land-based traction activities, and while it may not be the best buggy engine, the excellent versatility makes this my firm favourite single all-round kite.

By : Richard Chipperfield