New F-one Halo. Any more info about this kite?

[tkaraszewski]

Link: https://www.f-one.world/product/halo/

Anyone tried it? How does it compare to the Soul or Hyperlink?

[TomW]

I like the website and explanation, plus very clear and easy to understand the bridle setup and complexity in the user manual.
Nice that the hyperlink is getting some competition and there are alternatives!

[Adventure Logs]

Interesting, always good to have more competition. I personally think that having ozone in the foil industry lit a fire under Flysurfers ass which resulted in some awesome performance foils. I kinda always thought that FS played it too safe before that.

For the Halo, would really love to try it. It’s hard for me to grasp though that for a foil kite that Fone claims is 100% foil, why not make anything smaller than a 8m? The trend seems like bigger foil wings with smaller kites, why not at least a 6m if not smaller like the Nova doesn’t make sense to me. I hope the next gen kite from FS, we will see something smaller than a 6m.

[windmaker]

Had a one hour ride with the 8m on a hydrofoil and flew the 12m on the beach. First impression it is very fast turning (faster than a Soul) and aspect ratio is higher than Hyperlink, I guess AR around 6 (for the 12m) but it varies from size to size. Mixer is super simple .Will come back with more info after further rides.

[windmaker]

Interesting, always good to have more competition. I personally think that having ozone in the foil industry lit a fire under Flysurfers ass which resulted in some awesome performance foils. I kinda always thought that FS played it too safe before that.

For the Halo, would really love to try it. It’s hard for me to grasp though that for a foil kite that Fone claims is 100% foil, why not make anything smaller than a 8m? The trend seems like bigger foil wings with smaller kites, why not at least a 6m if not smaller like the Nova doesn’t make sense to me. I hope the next gen kite from FS, we will see something smaller than a 6m.

F-One markets the Halo as an all surface kite (snow/land/water) not just foil but you are right I would have preferred also a 6m rather than a 19m as I see no sense in such large kites for freeriding.

My opinion, F-One will follow the same strategy as with the Breeze. First year 11/13/15m and if it is a success the next year 3/4/5/7/9/11/13/15/17m

[kitexpert]

33-37-41-43 cells and quite high AR, so this kite in that sense is the first one to challenge Soul. Canopy looks good and balanced, everything seems to be well designed there.

Bridle is a bit weird though. It wastes line and causes excessive drag and also makes configuration or it quite complex. 6 levels for 43 cells (brakes), what the f... has designer thought. No need whatsoever for that kind of hassle Of course it doesn't ruin the kite but it is a bit silly. Because sizes have different cell counts bridle designs differ also, some are better than other but nothing very significant there.

I don't know who is the designer of these kites but I guess it is someone from the Gin. I remember years ago some Gin snowkites, they had unbelievable messy speed systems and huge amount of bridle lines. I did redesigns which cut about 50% of line and I don't even remember how many pulleys , then kites made some sense... They never were at the FS level but decent kites anyway.

So at first sight Halo is number 2 of mid AR foil kite category, only testing can tell if it can take that place or even challenge Soul.

[Regis-de-giens]

So at first sight Halo is number 2 of mid AR foil kite category, only testing can tell if it can take that place or even challenge Soul.

It is really strange to dare list such an overall ordered list with so few information , not having tested all competitors on your side ... and are you talking about wind range, or stability, or boost, or hangtime, or drift, or plug&Play, or low end ? Come-on, one kite is not above other for all riders ; it would be more useful for readers to segregate your opinion on pro and cons of each ones. And this definitelly cannot be done by looking just at the cells number and briddle architecture, even if you have a long-lasting interest in deep analyses the briddle system. What about the weight, the arch, the camber, the wing local AoA, reflex profile, ect ?

On my side something surprises me on the Halo: in the user manual, F-one propose to align A,B and C together, not looking at Z line. Unless i miss something disruptive in the Halo design, it is non sense to me since if the loooooong Z briddle shrinks, you could check a correct ABC alignment while the camber gets deformed by Z and maybe unstable ... weird...

[windmaker]

Designer is Robert Graham who also designed the Diablo and the rest of the F-One kites. Aspect ratio are respectively 5.5 /5.9/6.3/6.6 and 6.7 so higher than a Soul, turns much better though so there are probably other differences in design.

Completely agree with Regis, how can someone makes such comments based on a few photos. Have you designed the perfect kite or is it based on personal theories?

[foilholio]

Kitexperts comments do have some relevancy. Something about the bridles though is considering so many kites have seemingly unoptimized bridles there must be some reasons. One could be limited design time per kite, another would be extra manufacturing cost for more levels and a third would be the bridles capability to adapt the arc change, which for a kite like the Psycho 4 having a very simple bridle allows this.

What Kitexpert does miss is not everything is about aerodynamic efficiency, i.e. higher cell count etc. Some styles lean more toward a lighter kite over efficiency. For example Surfing where drift is the most important. For example you see strutless kites fill this, with some poor aerodynamic attributes that reduce say reduce upwind but drastically improve drift.

I can only say designers struggle with these aspects of the sport because of limited exposure to them. There is these little niches to the sport that very few have even experienced what is capable. For example in hydrofoil we now have monofoiling. With regard to surfing and drifting, I do not see the general kite population doing it much if at all, pros in videos it is extremely rare and limited and their so call "wave" kites even ones name "drifter" do not seem particularly good at it. Which would I think be the reason for not seeing it. Me I have being drifting kites at what is not possible on inflatables for so long now it is just a normal part of the experience. The contradiction of needing to turn a kite vs not needing to turn one is lost on wave kiters because until recently inflatables have had such poor drift that no rider would even think to try it. The normal is to constantly engage the kite using it to ride even off the wave!, which can be fun but the surf feel is largely lost. Infact this is the main way in which what is considered the "best" wave pros ride waves, and is infact quite easy to do with a reasonably fast kite. Drifting a kite with completely slack lines, i.e. no line tension is actually more difficult, and trying to catch waves with a slower kite is also harder the slower it is. Drift is quite funny with inflatables as the concept is often considered where some line tension remains. Most anything can be made to "drift" like that with line tension.

As to the Halo. The kite looks nice and the design steered toward those that would preference lighter weight, as see above. Flying it by those that could make use of it's design would certainly be needed to fully gauge it's benefits like... any kite.

[kitexpert]

I gave my estimation based on how kite is designed and what are the specifications. Like always I base my valuing to the most important aspects in (mid-AR) kite design which are performance and good enough usability. Good performance means high L/D ratio, good usability means that kite is stable enough.

Everything else is secondary. If kite lacks performance it can't be helped: it will not boost high and it will not go very well upwind. Kite weight, low end, high end, turning speed, relaunch etc. etc. can be get used to or get some other way around, but not performance.

Of course this my personal reference, if someone prefers some weird properties over performance it is ok. But it seems in general people like kites which boost high, go fast upwing, turn relatively fast and have good enough stability.

No one should think there is over 40 cells in Halo or Soul for nothing, no they are there to make wing cleaner and less draggy. This makes (or should make) these kite of higher performance than other mid AR kites.(Actually these two are of higher AR, so some kind of cross-over is happening there).

If and when (like I believe knowing F-one quality and known designer) Halo will fulfill these expectations we will see. I doubt if it is of same performance as Soul but if it is I don't have anything against it. Knowing how much more advanced design Soul is compared to other mid AR kites it is a tough challenge.

I could design more ambitious kites than these but for sure Soul and perhaps now this Halo set the bar at quite high level. Soul is still a kite I don't have much to comment on how it is designed, Halo is obviously not (even though on detail level). Hyperlink is also quite complete kite but it doesn't have very high specifications, it is a mid range design. Other mid AR foil kites are more or less average work, but for sure usable kites anyhow. Mid AR design is not a difficult one, it is a good compromise by its nature.

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