I bought one of these early on in my kiting career... it has taken me this long to overcome the trauma and be able to talk about the experience!
The ones for sale now are in even worse colours than the Dayglo green that mine came in.
I bought this from ebay.. £100 for a 5m foil withe lines, handles, bar, instructional video and a bag to carry it all in... "wow" I thought.... "What a bargain!"
Well.... it was cheap..... that does not ALWAYS mean it's a bargain.... at least it doesn't where this lemon is concerned!
The post man delivered the parcel, I ripped it open and all looked good.... VERY green, but good.
The bar is an aluminum tube with some hideous pink and orange foam grips which slide about.... i was decidedly unsure about this, rightly as it happens... it bent horribly under use.... AVOID this bar!
The lines it comes with are short.....15metre short.....and they stretch....unevenly!
The handles don't bend......which is good!
They are uncomfortable and have the nasty grips mentioned before....which is bad!
The video is OK.... half of it is sales guff form Go fly a kite but the other half does give you a basic grounding in kite flying.
On to the kite.....
The ripstop seems good quality.... the kite is shaped like a mk Blade..... "this bodes well" I thought....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
WRONG!
It might have done IF it didn't seem to have about 70% of the required bridling to actually hold its shape in flight.
Even before launching it I decided to use my decent quality Flexifoil handles and bar system..........I hooked it all up....On handles to start, easier to control anywhere in the window with an unknown kite and an inexperienced flier.
My first attempt was in low wind..... probably best I thought 5m can produce lots of power (I had flown a 4.9 blade previously) I tugged the handles and stepped back a few paces.... the kite stayed firmly attached to the floor. I tried again.... ran backwards yanking away and...up she comes!!
NOT a quick rise to the zenith...it got there though.... I assumed that it would bed in and fly better in time.
I tried this in LOTS of different wind strengths, inland and beach....bar and handles.... same result it flew like a pile of wet washing!
EXCEPT when I launched it in 20-25mph winds..... at which point it was shaking about tugging hard then deflating into the middle of the window.... then reinflating before dragging me down the beach..... repeat until grip gone and kite killers deployed!
Someone said.... "try power rings"
I tried power rings..... in every length imaginable!
STILL flew like it had a herd of moles living in it!
I kept trying, kept on making small improvements, messing with the bridling... the power rings..... line lengths.... ad infinitum!
NOTHING was going to help it seems..... I kept the big green pile of poo for quite a while..... EVENTUALLY I got it flying.... not well...But it stayed in the air!!
It still looked like two kites badly stuck together though.... not enough bridling across the centre so it looked odd as it turned, trying to pull itself apart!
I gave up in the end.... putting it back on ebay and losing a bunch of cash..... and HOURS of stress and horror!
It taught me LOTS about how and why kites fly..... and in this American pile of green nylon why they don't!
If someone should offer you one for free.... take it, you could use it to cover rips in damaged kites and the lines could be useful for training plants such as Clematis.
So, would I have another?
ONLY if all my other kites were to suddenly explode along with all the other kites in the world apart from these hideous air bags.
I think I will nip out to the garage and give kites that fly and land when you want them to a hug!
By : adamski
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