Postby Kristan » Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:16 pm
Today I had opportunity to test my 12m Soul again. I was curious how it would behave after equalizing the mixer. And I'd say it did the trick.
Wind was around 10 knots with slight turbulence. This time kite was much more stable, predictable and controllable. I had a really nice session with it. Constant wingtip flaps were gone, unless there were some lulls, way less collapses, mostly by my mistakes, but it still inverts a lot. I figured that it inverts when it loses some of the internal air pressure, because it mostly happened when I landed the kite or crashed and didn't relaunch it right away. In turbulence this kite works well in micro bursts, but doesn't handle micro lulls. It loses all the power for a couple of seconds, going slack, and sometimes that's enough to fall on your butt, cuz kite doesn't hold you anymore. A bit annoying, but I can live with that. Parking this kite is pain. No matter how much snow did I put on its wingtip, it still was prone to get blown off with any short gust or wind redirection. The only way to be sure was to throw a harness on it and a snowboard on top. When I tried to fold the bar and the kite and I didn't throw all my stuff on it, it moved for like 15 meters from initial parking spot, constantly tangling in bridles. Guess that's a price to pay for light fabric and lightwind performance.