Kite Innovations Pro Foil

I was thinking about getting a small depowerable foil kite for landboarding on grass, but there aren't many small ones under 5 meters and they are expensive.

As usual, fellow posters on racekites.com had the answer - Kite Innovations is having a closeout sale on fixed harness kites from 5.5 meters to 1 meter in size. I went to Kite Innovation's web site and the more I looked at them the more I liked what I saw and the value they offered at such low prices. The reviews on racekites.com all looked positive, so I took the plunge and bought 5 kites for about the same price I would pay for a small depowerable kite.

I've been really happy with them so far and the only one I haven't flown yet is the 4.5m, but they all fly really well. I have to admit, I am really a bad reviewer because I've never flown a kite I didn't like, and these kites are no exception.

These kites seem to be made of a lighter weight fabric than my Ozone kites, but they still seem very tough to anything I have put them through. Also, the lighter weight gets them flying sooner in lower wind speeds.

All of these kites come with handles, and other than 2 line stunt kites, I have never flown on handles with 4 lines. The kites came without lines, so I ordered some 90 meter Ozone lines because I like the prestretching and braided lines. With 90 meters of line there should be some additional power leveraged from the smaller kite sizes. Each kite packs up in a small day style pack that is a good quality but not quite as high as the quality or with the number of features as my Ozone packs.

First I worked with the 1 meter kite to get experience with handles and I watched the new land kite video from powerkiteshop. This really helped me understand how these kites fly on handles. I've gotten to the point where I think I prefer flying with handles over a bar on the landboard. The kites turn much faster than my depower kites on bars, and you have the option to put the brakes on to depower the kite and to land, and also to do brake turns. I have so much more control with handles than with the bar.

These kites have been a good choice for landboarding as a beginner and I have mostly worked with the 2.5 and 3.5 kites since they have a nice controllable power level when riding the board on grass in the wind speeds in my area. I have used the 5.5 meter kite in one session and it gave me some nice long downwind rides and some starting rides on cross wind tracks before I lost the wind for the day.

So I would recommend these kites for their performance and great value at current prices, and there are still a few left until they are all sold out.

By : Dave_5280