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I Pursue the reports of the tests I can read on french forums, to share them with you ;

One french kite teacher (Naturokite) is using some Pulsion for its lessons in TT (9m, 12m, 15m); he reports that after 7 years of teaching with foil kites, he finds the Pulsion as the most user-friendly kite (he teaches with all kite brands) ;
Now he received the new Pulsion 18m and says that with its 70kg and a TT board of 140 cm he will ride fast at 8/10nd . He is a very skilled surfer and intermediate Hfoiler , however he also reported that for years he had lost the pleasure to ride with a TT , but recovered the pleasure with the Pulsion which driving is close to an inflatable.

Here is the original post about the pulsion 18m (in French): http://www.lesfoilz.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3439

Hi, foilers.

Today was my fifth session with the Pulsion 18m. I've never ever HFoiled in so little wind.
I shortened front line in the mixer to increase camber, with the intension it will increase lift and speed of the looping kite.

On my long and narrow lake was blowing 1-8kts with 1-3 knots luls lasting 2-6min.

My 90 kg body sprung above water mostly just after 1 kite back loop. Enormous power!
During luls I was looping the kite to keep it flying, but few times that was not enough and the kite ended in the drink.

Luckilly,I found very easy relunch procedure for Pulsion in marginal winds.

In to little wind the kite slowly moves directly downwind from overhead.
What you need, is to carefully place kite on the water on its trailing edge and then move the bar away from you and pull the depower.
To increase drag place your board across, and put your bar on the board. Keep vertical position of your body in the water to resist kite pull.

The kite was usually sitting on trailing edge for 2-6 min, with breeze to little to start, but just enough to keep small overpressure inside, as the inflate openings were looking directly into the wind.
This way no water enters the kite and even after 6 min it can jump stright into the air at the shortest gust.
When the gust big enough (4-6 knots) came, relunch was automatical (kite starts to the sky by itself). Just remember to relese depower lines back to power position.

Benoit Tremblay warns to use Pulsion 18m with jet ski assistance for safety, but in my opinion that is the safest kite for light wind session.
All my previous kites would end up in the drink forcing my swim to the shore.

Pulsion falled down maybe 8 times.
5 times I managed to sat it on the trailing edge = easy relunch, twice it hits with leading edge and backline relunch was pretty easy.

Most difficult looked, when kite went to much overhead and started to go down in spiral movement. I was sure it will end up in a candy shape with little chance to recover.
Luckily, the descend was so slow, that kite drifted enogh to retension my lines in the last moment to regain the proper shape. Kite landed on leading edge and backstart was easy.

Quite often I manged to execute flying gybes with the downloop. Core thing is to release bar when kite goes down, to let him accelerate. Then the power is enough to gain speed even, if you touch down.

Finally, I came back to my start point and landed dry!!!!! kite on the grass. One month ago I would say it is impossible.

Now I can foil locally almost twice as frequent. No need for 200 km ride. Pulsion 18m is worth its money.

Big Thanks goes to Benoit Tremblay for this masterpiece.

Tadeusz

Today I had next HF session with my 18 Pulsion.
Was blowing 8-15 knots, so I made front line in the mixer as long, as possible, to decrease camber (I used 1'st knot out of four, and put the power lines on 2'nd knot - this way increasing depower of my 55cm wide race bar by additional 6cm).

At the beginning I put a speed front wing to prevent my uncontrollable lift from the water. But it was not a good idea, as the 18 Pulsion is really slow, and speed foil need some velocity to lift off. Speed foil also did not help with jumps.
After a while I change into a freeride wing and that was much better.
18m Pulsion is quick enough to make a starting (back)loop, but for jumps it is just not enough.
I found good timing with the approaching gust can make wonders and lift me into a decent hight.

Happened once, that I lost line tension after the jump.
Kite started slow spiral down and its drift recovered line tension just 3 m above water.
Enough to save the kite from the drink.
Marvelous, how easy it is. The stiffness of the canopy helps a lot in recovery.

I was amazed, how Pulsion 18 cope with gusts without any flutter.
My race bar allow me to depower often instantly and even 15 knots were manageable, if I used unnatural for other kites tendency to go to zenith, increasing my upwind angle simultaneously.
It may look unbelievable, but for me Pulsion 18m has a range from 4 to 15 knots, and is the kite I can trust that it will deliver me to my starting point without swimming.

Tadeusz

Just a rapid comments for next people buying the 15m : I found out that the rear line connections are a bit short. Apparently beeing not the only rider having experienced this, if you use a standard bar , you need to add pigtails on the rear connection of about 10-20-30 cm. Easy to feel if you are experienced foilkite user, but can be a trap for a first user of foilkite, better to have this in mind at the first test.

using the full trim is also a solution to avoid touching the rear line for marginal winds (it is the case for most foils but more significant on the Pulsion 15m.

ps : it is not the case for the 12m (my prefered one) which is plug and play on a standard bar

The same goes with Pulsion 18m. Rear lines are short by some 12cm.

WOW that's 4 3/4 inches shorter......and everyone knows that over time back lines shrink !!!
If anything the Quebeker should send longer !!
Gramp...looks like you got shortchanged !

Hello Pullstring, pleased to read you and your typical good heated tone : -)

In fact here is my technical feeling : it could be surprising for a bar that would have a limited trim, and because this kite flights in fewer winds than what we are used to. And in very light wind with a foilkite , it is efficient to trim a bit (or a lot ...) to save some winds knots at the zenith to avoid backstall. Here on the "large" Pulsions it is exagerated probably because the AR is lower than race foils (hence reducing the AoA variation for a given bar stroke).

So IMO the best solution is to have a long trim like race trims (mine is custom made) ; then for very low end like 2-3 knots on the ground , you can compensate this by the trim only and possibly release a bit of the trim during the ride specially downwind. Personally I have no such long pigtail and mainly use the trim which allows me to keep a better reactivity and power when riding back untrimed.

But for a novice who discovers the foilkite, he can be distrurbed if not analysed correctly (so full trim and bar sheet out) ; for a first foilkite test it could be surprising to trim and tension its arms to see the kite go to the zenith in marginal winds.

Hence my clarification to avoid early deceptions.

But trimming a lot is to me the best solution because for example the 18m was judged as well balanced as it is originally by a skilled (and professionnal) TT/surf rider (of standard weight) so in "Standard" light winds (no HF).

Maybe Benoit could leave the choice to the rider by the adding some knots on the rear connection...

You would think that if someone buys complete ...the 15 or 18...with their bar attached to kite...it would fly perfect straight out of the bag !
That way....no shenanigans !