2019 Slingshot Turbine

[kiterocky]

All Turbines are history to be hanged in kite museums in the section "The worst of kiteboarding".
They pull like trucks downwind and one needs to fight like mad to stay upwind. When you kiteloop or dark slide a turbine of any size you might loose 50-100m of upwind and then you fight like crazy half an hour to win the lost.
Turbines in the smaller sizes 9-13 are some unimaginable crap. They have some additional hangtime yes, but they are hardy controllable and if you want them to be controllable you need to hang with the both hands on the from of your bar.
Slingshot deceived customers with sizes. Their Turbines are really 1.5-2m bigger of the declared. It is done as intention with the purpose to show their kites pull better, jump higher, penetrate in genitals deeper...
They are still stone age 1D cloth. All respected brands have gone to better kite trends and long lasting fabric is the fundamental. Who wants to pay 2k for a kite lasting 1 season? Only an idiot. Or a customer thinking that he is not idiot because his Slingshot kite is still alive because he rides it once a weekend half a year season, no more than 15-20 rides a year. My customer who rides at El Medano each second day all year long showed me his unridable Slingshot kites after 10 months of use. His both RPMs were a complete trash. Now he rides the other brand with 3D cloth even more consistently and insists the fabric is like new.
I could make huge pile of comparisons proving that Slingshot is deception #1 in kiteboarding. Or may be #2 after Cabrinha. It makes no difference.

Amen..

[SolarSet]

I could make huge pile of comparisons proving that Slingshot is deception #1 in kiteboarding. Or may be #2 after Cabrinha. It makes no difference.

What deception can you list on Cabrihna? I'm riding switchblades and soon Contra, other than crappy TT boards they have I can't complain about their gear

[jespin4845]

Cabrinha’s canopy sucks, bags out after a couple of months, they don’t use the usual expensive cloths cause they want to cut corners on costs. Their lines stretch out to hell.

I ride some slingshot kites and their single rip stop doesn’t bag out and their lines never stretch.

[Greenturtle]

It is well known that RPMs wear out at trailing edge, and probably still would with 4x cloth just because of the design of the kite and its insane flap when sitting on beach.
I actually respect slingshot for using the lightest weight canopy material with stiched seams placed to contain damage, and not following the marketing trend of making kites heavier with more ripstop lines that will not contain a tear as well as a seam anyway...
As far as Turbine, Yes it pulls like a freight train with no brake lever. It’s supposed to do that.
That said, I personally would like the kite more if it were designed to fly more forward with reactive steering, but its not.
Thats why I choose Flite
I choose Turbine at 19m size because its easily the biggest and most beastly pulling lei kite available, which is needed to pull two adults at once in light wind.

Only a matter of time before the companies using xxx ripstop come out with a “new” lighter performance cloth for 2025, “kite now drifts better, flies in less wind, turns faster” (probably good ol single ripstop teijin)
In my opinion stronger is not better unless it is equal or less in weight...that really would be an improvement.

[grigorib]

Their Turbines are really...bigger...
It is done as intention with the purpose to show their kites...penetrate in genitals deeper...

post pics, or it didn't happen

[lisaped]

grigorib, with your numerous reviews of T11 and 13 it is clear what is meant by allegory penetrating in genitals deeper and without pictures. All your reviews are complete BS intended to attract ignorant students to buy Turbines in smaller sizes. 9 and 11 are waste and are not produced any more. Slingshot understood what crap they made but they haven"t a single idea how to make it work normally as a modern kite and meeting the requirements of a modern kite. 13m is the same. But they decided to go on with its production just for a trend as all kite brands producing light wind kites start with 11 or even smaller, may be because they understand how to make such kites. Not Slingshot. They don't have normal design / testers crew which is able to make good products like it was in late 2000th. They fired all talented people. Now there is only one old office/computer designer designing 100% range of Slingshot and the range is huge. Can you imagine how an old man Tony Logosz can design 100 or even more products a year? Look at North/Duotone. Nearly each kite/board model has their own designer, young, bright and talented and their domination on the market proves they produce the best products. Slingshot concentrated on wake, sup, idro,..and other things not demanding extensive research and finance investment. They closed their home based boards factory in USA to transfer boards production to UAE. Their bravado Made in USA boards became a complete failure. What a hypocrite company that Slingshot is.

[alford]

Actually I heard rumors that Bill Hanson was now designing for SS. If this is true they are in good hands.

[SolarSet]

Cabrinha’s canopy sucks, bags out after a couple of months, they don’t use the usual expensive cloths cause they want to cut corners on costs. Their lines stretch out to hell.

I ride some slingshot kites and their single rip stop doesn’t bag out and their lines never stretch.

Never heard it before, most major company aren't using similar canopy material? Or you are saying that canopy shape design make it more prompt to bags out?
Never noticed "baging" my 2017 sb and had like 50 sessions on each 10 & 14m size. Material looks still crips. Line stretching you probably mean on kite? It's difficult to say but I did check my bar lines and all seem to be trimmed like from new

[jespin4845]

Cabrinha’s canopy sucks, bags out after a couple of months, they don’t use the usual expensive cloths cause they want to cut corners on costs. Their lines stretch out to hell.

I ride some slingshot kites and their single rip stop doesn’t bag out and their lines never stretch.

Never heard it before, most major company aren't using similar canopy material? Or you are saying that canopy shape design make it more prompt to bags out?
Never noticed "baging" my 2017 sb and had like 50 sessions on each 10 & 14m size. Material looks still crips. Line stretching you probably mean on kite? It's difficult to say but I did check my bar lines and all seem to be trimmed like from new

bar and lines stretch, or shrink...either way they get out of tune, which leads to back stalling and other shenanigans

by bagging out I mean it doesn't fly the same as brand new, you can always look at a cabrinha that is at least a season old, directly behind the leading edge, the canopy looks like a bag in the wind

granted UV damage, time use, aggressive kite riding, and dropping the kite leads to all this, in my experience though I was able to notice it on my 2016 cabrinha fastest, Told myself I would not buy another

resale is great though, and If I had got them at wholesale I would probably ride them for a season and sell but unfortunately I need a kite for at least two seasons

[grigorib]

grigorib, with your numerous reviews of T11 and 13 it is clear what is meant by allegory penetrating in genitals deeper and without pictures. All your reviews are complete BS intended to attract ignorant students to buy Turbines in smaller sizes. 9 and 11 are waste and are not produced any more. Slingshot understood what crap they made but they haven"t a single idea how to make it work normally as a modern kite and meeting the requirements of a modern kite. 13m is the same. But they decided to go on with its production just for a trend as all kite brands producing light wind kites start with 11 or even smaller, may be because they understand how to make such kites. Not Slingshot. They don't have normal design / testers crew which is able to make good products like it was in late 2000th. They fired all talented people. Now there is only one old office/computer designer designing 100% range of Slingshot and the range is huge. Can you imagine how an old man Tony Logosz can design 100 or even more products a year? Look at North/Duotone. Nearly each kite/board model has their own designer, young, bright and talented and their domination on the market proves they produce the best products. Slingshot concentrated on wake, sup, idro,..and other things not demanding extensive research and finance investment. They closed their home based boards factory in USA to transfer boards production to UAE. Their bravado Made in USA boards became a complete failure. What a hypocrite company that Slingshot is.

I don’t recall posting any review on 11m and 13m. I rode each couple of times and I would never suggest a small Turbine to anyone below intermediate level. Slingshot didn’t announce 11m as small LW kites either.
The Rallys I ride primarily, haven’t changed in last 4 years and I’m glad they didn’t. The 15m Turbine I rode was awesome for LW and 9m Turbine I have is great for boosting.

Speaking of north/duotone it doesn’t matter how young their designers are because all the incompatible 5-line setups are questionable. Not sure if their talented designers produced a decent hydrofoil setup and abandoning well established brand name is not a sign of strength. I hope they do alright

The talented Slingshot designers ol “late 2000s” didn’t leave future generations many good kites. Not sure how Fuel production can pay itself off and RPMs are not big anymore either.

But I also must note that your posts are pretty negative and I’m not sure you leave best impression to others by being so bluntly harsh on home brands, which consequently diminishes trust in what you say.