Gigi: so what you are saying is that you have not flown the kite, but you have made your own and you think it might be similar except you have not really seen the trip?
Starsky:
Ok good lets get back on track. Sceptic is good. Just to be sure. I am not saying it is nothing if a kite flaps...what I am saying is that compared to another well known brand kite I had, which had 6 battens and 5 struts and took half my car to be packed down I would rather have *some* flapping, and have a lighter weight kite. Again it might be that the something to a lot of what the people above is saying, what I tend to disagree with are blanket statements about kites they have not neither ridden nor seen.
I actually have a BRM 8 and the first session on it was very good...maybe I was confirming my belief in the concept..but I liked it. I do need more time on it.
In terms of the Ride..I dare you to actually fly it.
It is a super fun kite, very easy to handle, and it has a great windrange. Now if that is the coolaid working on me or not I don't know..there might be something to it..probably more related to coffee (I am really just tying what pops into my head)...my buddy resisted the kite for a long time, now he only flies that kite.
One of the spots I ride is a notoriously gusty place the way the ride handles the gusts compared to other shapes is very interesting to me. The LE will bend and it will bleed power by making the projected area smaller. I think of that as a feature. I can see some wrinkles on the canopy when flying it very depowered, but all kites will do that. I have flown mine for a full season and there is no sign of wear on the TE.
Now the kite do need to be pumped up. LE should be tight as with any other kite. I have not noticed any more tendency to invert than any other kite. It is totally possible, but the kite doen't want to do it if you know what I mean.
This is my take on the development of the strutless kites: what is amazing to me, is how much weight matters to a kite. How much lighter the lower strut kites are. They are faster turning, you have more control via your board. The weight makes it easier to force forward using your board...the shapes can therefore be made to sit deeper, yet they will not pull you through the wave when going off the top.
This is not some kind of song for never seeing a strut ever again..I am going to buy the Draft for sure, but I can definitely see uses for the strutless simple designs too. I do not know how it will turn out, but I do think this is something the whole industry will have to explore.
The funny thing to me is when posters like Aumm makes statements about me proving the jumping of the kite..I'm not sure how to respond since I have made no claim on its jumping ability..I know nothing about that...but then it turns out they have not really tried the kite either. There are certain features of that design that really appeals to me. One of them is the ability to have a slightly bigger kite drift in medium wind. We'll see how that pans out tho...
a.