North Orbit 2023

[NorwayIsCold]

New Orbits are out and I was wondering how they compare to other years? Looking for feedback from people who actually flown one. Interested in 12 and 9 m sizes

[TheJoe]

I have 9m. Flew it the other day for about 30 minutes but the wind was a little light for a real review of it. It felt the same honestly but again it was not the high end of the kite where they want to be. I kept it on the stock setting for the steering lines which was the 2nd from the back.

[Blackened]

From the Courage is Calling thread:

Orbit:
1. Different wingtip profile and smoothed two-stage arc. You won't notice unless they're side by side.
2. Stiffer, tougher and lighter leading edge material
3. Two additional bar pressure settings. This hopefully stops the annoying wingtip folding in super overpowered conditions.


I rode the 9/10m sizes. Overall the kite is a little more responsive, but the turning speed has increased a lot. It's basically a half size smaller (10m turns like a 9.5 but still has the lift of a 10m). I found the 9m a little too quick for my liking now, but I only tried it on the "old" hard setting rather than either of the two new ones.

[meccaloha]

"3. Two additional bar pressure settings. This hopefully stops the annoying wingtip folding in super overpowered conditions.''

I had this with my 8m in 2021 and 8m & 10m 2022 folding wingtips in overpowered conditions and they replaced it two times for me! I hope this problem is solved for this year. In the meanwhile I had to bought other kites becauce replacements where not available at that time.

[galzohar]

Just to understand, in super overpowered conditions (where bar pressure is already usually high), we should set it to even higher bar pressure to avoid the problem?
Also, in the video it doesn't look like that overpowered, how much was the wind?

[meccaloha]

Hey Galozar,
This was about 30kts on 8m not super over powered I’m about 88kg the heavier the rider the more the wingtips collapsed.

[luca]

That looks really strange, as I know more heavier rider than you using the Orbit in 35+ knots

[TheJoe]

Hey Galozar,
This was about 30kts on 8m not super over powered I’m about 88kg the heavier the rider the more the wingtips collapsed.

Im about your weight and at 30kts on my 9 I never have this issue. At 40kts I do have it. I have tried the higher bar pressure setting and thought that had helped. However when I was in Maui in July It was doing this again and it was gusting in the 40's all most every day.

[galzohar]

On one hand I can't wait to try the 9m Orbit in the winter to see how far I can take it. With 84kg I rode my 8m FX comfortably up to 35 knot gusts, and survive with it up to about 40 knot gusts (above which I can't really go upwind, at least not in stormy conditions with big messy waves).

On the other hand that video has me a bit worried. How did they deal with this in King of the Air and the likes?

[Faxie]

Higher barpressure helps with the folding bacause it reduces the lever distance between front and backline, and the shorter the beam the less buckling, all other things equal. It's a problem that more kites had. Shouldn't be a problem with stiffer LE material anymore.