HQ Symphony 2.2M

Had a week down in Morgan Porth near Newquay recently. Most of the week was good sun but last two days were overcast and blustery. Took a stroll along the beach with my boy, Harry (9 years old), and there were a couple of guys flying foil shaped kites and getting dragged down the beach and lifted a couple of metres into the air. Another guy turned up with a 1.4m kite. Had a go and thought this is something I could get into so started researching. I visited KitesUp in Basingstoke and had a chat to them mostly about stunt kites but had a look at some of the power kites they had. Last time I flew a kite was 30 years ago. Me and my Dad built a box kite. How things have changed!

Me being me, I shared the revelation of my new found interest with some colleagues at work. I was in my final couple of weeks with this employer and what should I get as a leaving present?.....an HQ Symphony 2.2. This was on Friday afternoon, so my boy was up at 0700 the next morning pleading to go down the park and have a go. The nice bag the kite comes in says 'ready to fly' so I grabbed a bacon sarnie the misses cooked and headed off with Harry and the bag, not having opened it even though there was apparently a nice DVD inside with full instructions.

Wind down the park was moving the tips of the trees in the distance around a bit so I would say it was a nice breeze. Nothing more. I was a little apprehensive. My other hobby is flying 2m model planes so I've got respect for the wind already. I had read up on the 'power window' and 'zenith' and all the new terminology that goes with power kiting, so proceeded to unpack. Simple is not the word. I laid out the kite itself. Harry sat on it while I laid out the lines and hooked them up to the kite and handles. Piece of cake. Getting a bit more breezy now so I picked up the handles and walked to the side so I did not launch directly in the power window. Harry held the leading edge and the kite inflated, released and the kite took about 4 seconds to climb to nearly over my head (zenith?). After a couple of minutes just keeping the kite in position I pulled across the wind and whooah. POWER ! ! ! Well more power than a box kite anyway. Not enough to pull me off my feet but enough to have to bend the knees and lean back to compensate. Awesome.

So I played for 10 minutes, getting a good workout ;>) crossing the wind and turning sharply on either side. I could imagine with some good wind I would get pulled along but probably not get lifted into the air. So the wind was fairly constant at this point. In my judgement it was OK to let Harry have a go, and stand behind him just in case he needed rapidly anchoring to the ground. Shouldn't have worried. He put his hands through the handles as instructed. I walked out to the kite and launched and within 3 minutes he was carving across the sky at speed, 2 metres off the deck causing the kite to make a cool buzzing sound. Shouldnt be this easy for a kid. After 10 minutes of getting pulled around his was arms were dropping off and the straps were beginning to chaff his wrists so we packed up and headed for home.

So in summary. Excellent intro kite. Definitley something I will keep in the car for windy days for me, and less windy days for the kids. I'm going to get some padded straps for the 2.2 and am heading out this afternoon to look at a 3.3m to 4m. Sincere thanks to my ex-colleagues. Awesome present. I'll miss you all but will keep in touch.

By : ditchit