Peter Lynn Pepper 3.5M

The kids are growing up and at an age where I appear to be not important any more and the wife has been nagging me to get a hobby.

So I popped into the kite shop at Hinckley and 1 and a half hours later walked out with the Pepper and a verbal lesson on the do’s and don’ts of power kiting chucked in for good measure.

Being honest I know this is a starter kite on the budget end of the scale but I think the stuff bag lets it down, a ripcord bag with a felt tip tick to tell you how big it is seems wrong. I would rather have paid another ten to twenty quid on top for a rucksack.

For this reason I was unsure as to whether or not I had made the right choice. Mind you a stuff bag lying amongst all those flexi’s and ozone rucksacks I felt a bit of a cheapskate. Well! The guy in the shop assured me it was the perfect kite to foray into the world of powerkiting. Although I insisted on the 3.5 not the 2.5 as he suggested, as my last foray was about 30 years ago with a Peter Powell stunt kite.

On unpacking the kite at home I found that the lines on this kite are of very good quality,being colour coded and were perfectly matched. The handles are ok but I would prefer something a little thicker. On examining the kite it all appeared ok with no errant stitching.

On the field I set up the kite with some trepidation of excitement and some anxiety, I had listened too well to the salesmen I fear.

It swelled up as it should and a gentle tug on the lines got it airborne slowly to about six feet then wham straight up to the zenith taking me twelve inches of the ground and my wife who was watching collapsed on the floor in hysterics.

After exchanging profanities with my wife it basically came down to this, I could carry on standing there with my arms straight above my head because it’s the only way to relax from the pull, or I could do something with the kite. After regaining my senses and getting some blood back into my muscles I began gingerly to see what the kite would do. It does everything you expect of it, work this kite in the power zone and it will pull you around, but one problem I have found is that it can be a pig at the edges of the wind window and has a tendency to turn itself inside out. This has also happened to me in the wind window but may be because I’m flying in dirty air –the field is surrounded by trees.

After flying it for around two months now, I’m glad I bought this kite, its taught me to respect the wind and take things one step at a time .In gentle winds my nine year old can fly it. In strong winds it WILL try and bite you. As a beginners kite I can highly recommend this kite, however if you are slight in stature or like I used to be- unfit. Maybe the 2.5m would be better until you are used to the pull.

Author : rummy