Peter Lynn Reactor 3.8M

Overview

The Reactor is a new kite from Peter Lynn that is badged as an intermediate kite for buggying and which takes over from their previous Rebel kite. The flat aspect ratio is 3.8 and the marketing points to high speed and stability being the primary goals for the design. The kite is midrange between the two ends of the spectrum in both quality and cost .

Package Contents

Rucksack, kite, ground stake, handles, 20m lines, instruction book and sticker, but no kite killers. Quality of the items is not as good as Ozone or Flexifoil but better than HQ or Pansch, as would be expected at this price. The rucksack is actually very nice, both being the right size for the 3.8m kite and nothing to snag when parapacking. I prefer it to Ozone and Flexifoil actually. The handles are not as good quality, remind me of HQ handles and are up to the job but are "hard" and not very luxurious. One area which seems to be improved is the lines. Now the lines are coloured which always helps and they seem to be of better quality than on a Pepper I flew last year. Loops are sown in and not knotted. The kite itself is of fair quality, as per cheaper kites the front is mainly white but it does have black wingtips which are quite striking.

As you can see next to my 3m Blade3 it is of similar aspect, being a bit more chunky and the wingtips have a much different profile. As the Blade 3 is reknowned for wingtip fold hopefully this different cross section will give the stability claimed. The Blade has open cells almost to the end, the Reactor has not , has no vent bracing and has some internal cross bracing in the middle couple of cells.

Ok, as they used to say on Top Gear " Thats whats under the bonnet, lets see how she performs.."

Setup

I actually set up in the garden and parapacked away the night before. The size of the rucksack is ideal for this and because of this the next day it came out no problem and took less than 2 minutes to be sitting there "at heel" ready to go. I left the brakes on the standard knots before adding any knots of my own for tweaks and the kite sat there not bouncing or flopping so were in the ballpark.

Flying

Wind conditions 10-18mph+ from NE to E gusty. Dry field and no rain.

Intiial flights are always normally the worst a kite will fly as the kite often needs time to shake out and the settings always certainly need tweaking for amount of brake or trim, however having given those proviso's it proved in this case that the kite was pretty fine straight from the off. Launch was fairly easy with just a couple of tugs to properly inflate with, no float or tipping on start, and then straight up to the zenith. The kite is pretty fast and will overfly if not reigned in, which is something you want with a kite that is claimed to be good for buggying. Because of the speed the kite generates it is also surprisingly lifty (note Iam talking relatively here and also in regards to this being associated to buggying). Lift is more than a Samurai/Oxigen and less than a Blade for instance. Where the kite beats the Blde hollow though is in it's very smooth and linear acceleration in gusty conditions. Certainly more creamy and less heart in the mouth. Turning struck me as neither quick nor slow, I would have to take out a 4m Oxigen back to back to give more thoughts on the matter.

Taking the kite to the very edge of the window on both left and right produced the first surprise, examplorary stabitiy even in the inland gusty conditions. I could easily touch a wingtip down on the edge and then rise the kite up again, once twice .. as much as I wanted. Probably what allows this is the good pull you still get at this very extreme position that means you do not luff and which bodes well for the buggy. Amazing.

Now for the downside. My particular kite on this first flight would luff at the drop of a hat and not near edge of the Window or zenith. The kite was moving in turns as well so that is even more surprising. This only happend 3 times in 2 hours so it is not a showstopper and may have been caused by the rapid changes in wind direction that were occuring, but I could not put my finger on why it happened so I will have to investigate further.

Buggy

Intermediate kite meets beginner buggy pilot. Conditions meant I was also overpowered but in the British tradtion of stiff upper lip I had a go and went jolly fast indeed. Here the ability of the kite to generate good pull at the edge of the wind window meant I did not slow down and my turns were fast as well as my repeated exits from the seat. I'm still pulling worms from my nostrils. And that was without discovering whether a dedicated buggy kite should have this much lift ..I leave that for a better pilot than me.

Summary

I liked it so much I bought the company. Obviously a lie but I have bought the 2.9 version in Flexifoil style rasta colour scheme, so I must have been fairly impressed. Bang per buck wise I think this is a good midrange kite which will probably get overlooked as people either go for the popular choices of Samurai or Rage, or the hidden delights choice of the U-turn Oxigen; which is a shame.

I found the Pepper I flew lovely to fly but a bit boring, the Reactor is definitely a Pepper with attitude and would make a good second kite for a person starting on a Pepper who wishes to move up.

By : zakelwe