Flexifoil Blade III

The legendary Blade has changed !!

I have been using the Blades for the last 4 years, here is what I thought so far :

Blade 1
4.9 was the best, 3.3 too squirly, and too small, 7.8 too slow, tough to control.

Blade 2
4.9, 4.0 the best, 6.4 good but a little slow, 9.0 a challenge but ok to get out in light winds.

Blade 3
First the good news : The big sizes turn a lot faster than the 2nd generation, so the 8.5 and 10.5 are easy to control and have an incredible low end.

The kites also sit higher in the window in neutral, so they depower a lot more without overflying. That also results in a great top end of the wind range. Jumping is a lot easier with those kites.

Now here is the bummer because the kites got so much faster turning, and have a steeper angle of attack (to sit higher in the sky), they tend to stall in certain situations. When you turn the kite hard it looses a lot of speed and hesitates for a second or 2 before exellerating again.

I use the kites on the water, so when I jump I park the kite high behind me, then when I land I send i'd forward, but the small sizes (4.9 and smaller) feel very unpredictable especially in gusty conditions. Resulting in some rough landings and situations that remind me of my first year of kiting... Also sometimes the kite will just stall and loose all its pull when you go upwind and hit a lull, the only way to save it is to turn straight down, get it up to speed then turn back up high in the right arc so you don't get pulled like crazy.

So my final verdict is go for the big sizes (6.6 and up) if you want a high performance kite you will get a lot more than you can imagine.

For the small sizes you need to somehow speed up your brain, or have such controll or constant wind, flat water, so you can keep track of your kite.

As positive as it was to speed up the big sizes of the Blade 3, it was a real bummer to speed up the small sizes. When you are on the small sizes the conditions are usually more demanding, so you are looking for a smooth and predictable kite, not a twitchey on off speed deamon...