Pansh Ace 5.0M

This is my first kite review and I would emphasise that I have only ben flying for a few months and so is in no way an 'expert' opinion, it is however representative of my experience with this kite so far.

The Pansh Ace 5.0m in Black & White arrived within 1 week of ordering. Kite comes in a stuff sack which appears to be the same material as the kite, it was also tied up with length of similar material, this made for a good test sample. I tried to rip it in several directions which I managed to do but with considerable effort.

Kite - This is made of lightweight ripstop material, stitching all looks good with taped leading and trailing edges, there is internal cross bracing and small velcro dirt outs at either end. Once untangled (not badly) the bridles look OK ,bridle line quality not up to that of the Beamer but seems adequate. There is only a single attahment point for the brake lines so no room for adjustment at this end.

Handles - These feel quite heavy and are roughly finished, there is burring around all holes in the alloy, although the leaders pass through plastic grommets on the leading side, leaders are cheap but feel resonably strong, would definately benefit from some soft sleeving. Handles are covered in a firm rubber type material so do not feel particularly padded, although I usually wear gloves so don't mind this.

Lines - Braided and quite thick looking at first. I pegged one end and stretched them out, they required quite a lot of untwisting off the winder. Once straight they looked quite good for length but had around 8-10 inches of stretch in them, imagine flying your kite on bungee lines! First flight felt a bit wooly with these, checked lines again after and there was 6" difference in main lines and 4" in brakes. So ajusted them and pegged them out stretched for several hours, after this they looked a little thinner and felt much better.

First flight was late on the day of arrival, very low wind maybe 3-5mph gusting to 7-8 at a stretch. It launched fine first tim, tips took a bit of work to inflate but got there. turning was a little sluggish and the kite tended to tuck a wing tip on turning this was more pronounced on one side. Landed the kite, adjusted the brake lines and tried again, managed to fly for about an hour with various adjustments. I must admit I wasn't blinded by the performance on this flight but I put this down to very low wind and very spongy feeling lines.

Saturday brought the second flight over at Lickey Hill with a little better wind, around 10mph. As I had been stretching the lines all morning it took a little while to set them up again. another local was just packing his Blade IV 6.5 away and asked for a go, I was happy to oblige, he managed a couple of small jumps and said the brakes felt little short, so we adjusted them and he had another go, this produced a couple of 6 foot plus jumps, his comment was "that's got some lift" he was pretty surprised when I told him the price!

So I had an hour with it before the rain came, I could definitely feel a lot of power in this kite, it gave some OK scuds of about 6-10ft uphill. I tried a few jumps without much success, but this is more likely to be because I have no idea how to! The lines still felt a bit stretchy and I didn't feel in direct connection with the kite like I do with my Beamer. But the turning was much better and with brakes it will literally spin on it's axis although it does lose power in low wind, this is easily compensated for though. The brakes work well although do seem to come on quickly with only a little movement of the handles, landing the kite could get a litte messy with the kite tending to crumple up rather than fly backwards, it also had a tendancy to dip to the right and turn over, again this may be down to line adjustment though, with a little practice I was starting to get used to the delicate feel of the brakes.

Overall this kite sems very well made and represents excellent value for money, I feel that any problems I encountered so far were chiefly down to the lines. This kite would benefit from replacment lines and possibly handles, this of course comes as no surprise as it seems to be a common theme with Pansh. The lines could become serviceable but will need a fair bit of attention and will probably need adjusting and re-adjusting over several sessions before I would feel confident with them.

I look forward to further sesions with this kit when I will be able to update the review with more details of how it flies! This is definitely NOT a beginners kite, some experience with power kites is very much needed.

By : keithrturner