Flysurfer Soul

[cwood]

well there you said pretty much; to put it simply Pulse 2 is very thick kite and the new ones, Souls etc. are not (among other things) due to increased performance, hence the new ones can go quite far in to the wind window which becomes problematic in very gusty winds ie. kite shooting to the edge of the wind window and if there's a lull immediately after, all kinds of things can happen.
May I ask what's your focus of riding if the winds are bouncing upndown so much as you described? You cannot jump confidently in those winds as within the gust you can go really high and if the lull comes you could fall really hard on ice/snow??? So if the backnforth riding is what you are after, why did you choose the Soul in the first place?

We do not always have such harsh conditions. The average wind around here is around 12 knots, which is perfect for 12m Soul and actually not that gusty. I mean Soul is still misbehaving even in such smoother conditions. But as soon as wind picks up to 14 knots and higher, there stuff goes bonkers. But such winds are rather rare here. So I still had a couple of pleasant sessions with smooth jumps and stuff. But yeah, only a couple out of six.

Besides, my goal was not only to use it on the snow, we have a nice shallow lake with smooth winds, also I'm going for the sea vacations during the summer. I don't know if the kite would still misbehave in such conditions, but I'm a bit scared going to the water with it. I don't want to drag it out filled with water, sand and algae because of another collapse and bowties.

I think something is wrong with your kite. Had mine some weeks ago and this is how it behaves in a crappy snow spot. (base wind 4-6ms gusts 8-10ms)
Usually, I take the snowmobile higher up in the mountain where the wind is cleaner but had to go back to work that day (why is it always sunny and windy on the last free day ? )

Anyway as you can see the kite behaves absolutely normally. You might send your kite to flysurfer so they can check it out. Or do post a video of the behavior here (I think people can tell you directly if something is wrong with it)
Production errors can happen and I guess kites are not immune.

[youtube][/youtube]

What a great video example! If that terrain doesn't produce dirty wind, I don't know what would!! I did not see a single deform, tip fold, leading edge collapse or odd behavior....In my experience and shown here, they act like they have the rigid support of tubes....almost 100% of the time. People comment "man those kites look so solid". This is what you should expect in all but the most silly conditions.

[joriws]

Another example video..



you can directly jump to 5:25 if you don't want to skip gust intro. But look at gust on LEI on 5:35.

[Adventure Logs]

Did you get it off the back of a lorry from a guy who 'geef you good price.....'?

If not then send it back to Flysurfer!

Sort of. As I've mentioned before, we do not have direct dealer of Flysurfer. Only reseller of Estonian dealer.

I’m willing to bet that if you contacted FLysurfer HQ directly in Germany they would be more than happy to help you with a warranty claim. It may cost a little to have it shipped there but a hell of a lot cheaper than a dud kite.

[andylc]

I am currently starting to have a rethink as to whether the 8m Soul is going to work for me as a medium / high wind kite - for my skinny frame the power is kind of scary at higher winds, particularly if you screw things up a bit - it has so much power in the loop or if you happen to throw it the wrong way a bit in a rotation and I'm thinking I might go back to 2 smaller LEIs instead.

So.....if anyone is after one let me know, might be open to offers. Complete with V4 Ozone Foil Race Bar and 19m lines - this is the newer version of the bar with the amazing new click-in loop QR. I personally much prefer the Ozone bar system, the race trim does have a longer depower but I find this actually helps as you can get very precise levels of depower, and the force required to power / depower is reduced. I've trimmed away the extra depower rope that comes with the race bar as this isn't needed for normal riding.

Flown 3 times so kite and bar / lines as basically as new.

[grigorib]

Another example video..



you can directly jump to 5:25 if you don't want to skip gust intro. But look at gust on LEI on 5:35.

Prices at 8:13 are kind of very interesting. I don't envy a dealer who sells a 12m LEI for 2200CAD as people would rightfully consider it a ripoff.
A brand new 11m Turbine which is amazing HA LEI was on sale for $470 and $900 should get you a brand new pretty awesome LEI anytime.
Maybe it would be a last year colors but identical quality and geometry.

[Kristan]

An interesting commentary I've found at the video comparing Soul vs Hyperlink:

"A note about the Soul 12m (which I love riding) Was delivered to me and was either not tuned or rigged poorly from the factory. I tested against another Soul 12m and the difference was very noticeable. My new kite kept having the wingtips fold in and would completely collapse at times. Dragged me across the beach (injury). The other one was as stable as a stratus cloud. I returned the kite to my local shop and they would not replace. Said FS would doing nothing until it was sent to them in Germany (i'm in Australia) . The kite shop owner flew the kite and agreed that there was a problem, he contacted FS and they said the would send me a "barely used 12m" to replace mine, or I would have to wait many weeks for them to receive mine, repair and return. Heads up for those looking to get this kite. Saying that when this kite works as advertised I can go from twin tip to foil to twin tip as the wind changes from 10kts to 18kts to 10 knots. Cheers"

So apparently buying a Soul is like playing a roulette, you never know what you'll get. Besides author of the video have mentioned that he had to tune his Soul as well. So did I have, equalizing the mixer, since it was off out of the bag.

If wind forecast remains, this saturday we will have 12-14 knots. I'll try to make another run for it and do a couple of stability experiments, filming them on my GoPro. Then I will decide, to blame it on the gusty winds, send the kite to Flysurfer, or to our local foil kites master to measure and tune it, which would cost the same as sending it to Germany, but way quicker.

[cwood]

An interesting commentary I've found at the video comparing Soul vs Hyperlink:

"A note about the Soul 12m (which I love riding) Was delivered to me and was either not tuned or rigged poorly from the factory. I tested against another Soul 12m and the difference was very noticeable. My new kite kept having the wingtips fold in and would completely collapse at times. Dragged me across the beach (injury). The other one was as stable as a stratus cloud. I returned the kite to my local shop and they would not replace. Said FS would doing nothing until it was sent to them in Germany (i'm in Australia) . The kite shop owner flew the kite and agreed that there was a problem, he contacted FS and they said the would send me a "barely used 12m" to replace mine, or I would have to wait many weeks for them to receive mine, repair and return. Heads up for those looking to get this kite. Saying that when this kite works as advertised I can go from twin tip to foil to twin tip as the wind changes from 10kts to 18kts to 10 knots. Cheers"

So apparently buying a Soul is like playing a roulette, you never know what you'll get. Besides author of the video have mentioned that he had to tune his Soul as well. So did I have, equalizing the mixer, since it was off out of the bag.

If wind forecast remains, this saturday we will have 12-14 knots. I'll try to make another run for it and do a couple of stability experiments, filming them on my GoPro. Then I will decide, to blame it on the gusty winds, send the kite to Flysurfer, or to our local foil kites master to measure and tune it, which would cost the same as sending it to Germany, but way quicker.

Interesting indeed...and a reasonable approach for you as it will also satisfy us voyeurs who want to see the behavior captured!

FWIW, we now have about 15-20 souls in our group (across all sizes) and all have flown them out of the bag from the factory and love them. Some have said that 4-5 sessions are needed to settle the bridles to optimum but I have not noticed any difference.

Where we have seen foil bad behavior to the point of putting them on the shelf has been very high usage R1V2's (many hundreds of hours) that just eventually give up flying correctly despite new bridles and tuning. Everything wears out eventually.

[noahsw]

I am currently starting to have a rethink as to whether the 8m Soul is going to work for me as a medium / high wind kite - for my skinny frame the power is kind of scary at higher winds, particularly if you screw things up a bit - it has so much power in the loop or if you happen to throw it the wrong way a bit in a rotation and I'm thinking I might go back to 2 smaller LEIs instead.

So.....if anyone is after one let me know, might be open to offers. Complete with V4 Ozone Foil Race Bar and 19m lines - this is the newer version of the bar with the amazing new click-in loop QR. I personally much prefer the Ozone bar system, the race trim does have a longer depower but I find this actually helps as you can get very precise levels of depower, and the force required to power / depower is reduced. I've trimmed away the extra depower rope that comes with the race bar as this isn't needed for normal riding.

Flown 3 times so kite and bar / lines as basically as new.

19m lines is quite long. Have you tried going down to 14-15? I did that a couple weeks ago and find I can hold down the Souls is bigger winds.

[Kristan]

It seems like stability issues might be my own fault after all. I have decided to perform a mixer test, just to find out that I have missed the break down point, B and C lines were quite outstretched for about 10mm. But I'm still not quite sure if that would fix everything. This weekend will show, if forecast won't change.

[Flag53]

Hi Kristan,

Did you do the long mixer test or the short mixer test ?

I only ask as I was having a few wing tip folds on my 12m Soul.
I did the short mixer test and nothing changed.

Once I did the long mixer test , the kite had absolutely no tip folds and behaved impeccably