HQ Beamer III 4M

This was my first foray into big power kites, I had mucked about with some big-ish deltas when I was younger which were big enough to give me a pull around aged 12 or so. I joined my university kiting club and went along to fly a couple of kites. I tried blade 4.9 and firebee 5.5 but decided they were both a bit nuts for someone of my experience!

In the end I opted for an HQ Beamer III 4.0m. I bought the kite from Kites and Things in Whitstable who I highly reccomend, very attentive to what I wanted and gave me a pretty good price too (albeit not as cheap as online but hey , we should all support local shops right?).

I took the kite out for the first time, all the materials seem to be of durable and of high quality and the handles are pretty comfy (although i invested in some half finger cycling gloves to make it a bit easier on the hands). The kite is easy to get up and running following the instructions supplied, although substituting the crappy dvd they give you with the kite with a dvd of how to set it up might be a good idea. On the first flight the winds were 12-15 mph which was plenty enough for the kite to have some real pull in it and left me ploughing the field with my face a couple of times when the power caught me off guard. Managed a few quite impressive speedy slides and a few jumps and with the use of the braking lines the kite can be made to turn pretty quickly too.

An hour later muddy, grass stained, sweaty and grinning like a loon I was too knackered to carry on. I woke up the next day a bit stiff but couldn't wait to go out again. I honestly think that this kite provides lots of punch for not much money and seems to be durable and well made.

By : Pete B