Ozone Frenzy 2006 10M

A Ozone Frenzy 06 10 review :

The Frenzy: Having mostly flown Peter Lynn Arcs I was very interested to see the New Frenzy, it's not the 06 just the Frenzy this year! Flying the Frenzy 05 last year was very tempting to get, what did the latest from Ozone have to offer?

Bag: The bag has some great new features this year:

· Board straps to hold kiteboard, snowboard or mountainboard.

· Straps and webbing on the side of the bag where you could put skis, poles, spare bars, etc.

· Top pocket on the lid of the bag for putting random stuff in.

· Pockets on the side of the waist strap where you could put key's, wallet, GPS or a snack.

· This year they also have the kite size on the bag so you know which bag you've got what kite.

· There's space for 2 kites in the bag so a spare kite for if the conditions change.

There's been a lot of thought put in to the bags this year and they've done a great job which gives you a great bag for your needs.

Quality/Manufacture:

As usual Ozone pay a great deal to the finer details and quality of the kite, working from the kite to the bar:

· The material is specially designed by Ozone for the application of kiting which results in a material that will create the shape of the foil and not stretch over time, it's UV protective and should shed water like its a ducks back.

· Stitching is all double stitched with again UV protective twine.

· The leading and trailing edges are both reinforced with Mylar which adds rigidity to the kite during flight increasing in the efficiency of the aerofoil. Also makes it more robust to abrasion.

· The connection points on the kite from the bridal are sewn deep into the kite to spread the load and keep the shape of your kite.

· Bridals are all stitched together rather than knotted which reduces the chances of the bridals getting caught up and minimises drag whilst flying.

· The pulleys used on the bridal are top quality with breaking strains of 1/2 a tonne which should be enough for the largest of kiters.

· Again lines are top quality all pre-stretched and stitched with cunning little tabs numbered from 1-4 for easy setup of the kite.

Safety/Control:

Safety on the Frenzy is good with a very simple but very effective system the same as last years system, pull the primary safety-red toggle and you're done, the kite de-powers and lands itself.

They have a new system on the chicken loop this year where to completely release from the kite, this is your secondary safety. Instead of pulling the red loop on your chicken loop towards you, you pull it away from you which makes a little more sense, there's also less effort required to pull the new safety which has passed the latest safety standard in France.

The Chicken loop doesn't have a "cow's tail"/"donkey's doo dah"/"kickette" attached to the chicken loop itself but comes with a "Kickette" which attaches onto your spreader bar. It works in the same way by putting your chicken loop on your hook and putting the "Kickette" through the hook to stop the chicken loop from coming off.

Once you've pulled the safety it's easy to reload by looping your break lines over the bar ends then reaching forward and re-attaching the centre line into the primary safety toggle, then just twist the bar so the loops on the end of the bar drop off and then you're flying again.

Launching and landing:

To launch you can release the breaks, take a step backwards and the kite takes off and you're flying.

To land you can either pull the break line handle or pull your safety and the kite lands safely on its trailing edge.

Flying:

Firstly, looking up at the kite you can see a difference between the 05 and this latest edition is that it's a higher aspect ratio than the 05, also the kite looks like every part of the kite is doing work.

The kite is more stable than I expected, it stayed at the Zenith (top of the wind window) for a good while and in clean winds I might expect it to stay there!

The flight across the window is smooth and the power stays on during the turn. When jumping the kite has great float which left me on occasions wondering when I was going to touch down.

Unhooked riding is good, the power is constant and predictable, you can ride it from when the kite is just getting going to powered up like this.

When doing larger jumps you get very direct and positive feedback from the kite which makes it intuitive to know where the kite is without even having to look up whilst airborne.

So to conclude: A great package and a great flight.

Author : lewis_91