tomtom wrote:
It has turning speed and feel of leis. In fact it is much closer to LEI than foil
No, not anywhere near. I was lately on 8m Peak4 and it is not a fast turning kite, but it is not slow either. I'd guess it is somewhere like 12m LEI for its turning speed. 4m Peak4 is slow compared to 4m LEI, this was immediately obvious. But for kites that small turning speed is usually fast enough.
Problem with Peak4 is how it behaves depowered, unfortunately it still vibrates quite a lot. Even though you might get used to it it is not a very pleasant feel, you feel it in your hands. You are tempted to pull bar in to get it more steady, but then kite pulls too hard. This resulted for me constant seeking of the tolerable bar position (it was highish wind for 8m Peak). However looping is much improved from earlier versions because of the smooth wing tips, Peak4 generates some useful power by active flying.
That is true turning feel is closer to LEI's than foil kites have, this is because single skin kite has low inertia and to some degree similar aerodynamic characteristics to LEI (actually LEIs are single skin kites). This means single skin kite reacts quite fast and also accelerates well, but very soon high drag kicks in and restricts speed, this is easily observed when Peak is flied through the WW. Foil kite starts slower but it accelerates for much longer time and reaches top speed (and pull) relatively late during power stroke. LEI's are something between and different types of LEI's behave quite differently.
Drifting properties for single skin kites are excellent because they just wont fly far enough in the WW that collapsing would occur. I don't know if it is even possible to front stall single skin foil kite.