Postby bragnouff » Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:44 am
So I joined the dark side after all of you raving about them, and got a 5m and an 8m. Had 2 sessions on the water and 2 days of snowkiting with them, and fairly happy so far. Super easy to fly, very instinctive and precise, feels very solid in the air. They fly in f# all wind, stay in the air without much effort.
Still need to practice my self landing. On an exposed beach, the kite easily gets blown a bit and may turn once or twice after being crashed, no big deal, but, with uncertainty about any twists or inversions, it can affect the next setup and launch.
Maybe also considering the 5 lines setup for snowkiting, cause it felt borderline scary trying to find a sheltered hole where to ditch my kite in 20kts+ powered conditions. Those things want to fly!
Overall, very well behaved, but I've had one mid air collapse in turbulent wind that was pretty scary. Kite crunched up, went down inside out, backward relaunched it and tips were still a bit tangled until it sorted out itself in the air after a few hard steers. Sketchy 30 seconds! Wind quality was in cause, for sure, but I'd say a LEI is typically much more predictable when it shits itself. This also applies when riding towards the kite, with some angled slopes, and barely any tension in the kite. Losing too much of it and it let me envision starts of collapses and urgent backing off of those situations before further troubles. With LEI's and to some extent with RAM airs, I know I have a couple of seconds of predictable slack that I just need to quickly compensate with the upcoming turn. On the hydrofoil though, I never got into that kind of situation and the drifting and general handling was faultless and very pleasant. Different dynamics than in the mountains I guess. And maybe I need to keep the kite a bit higher than what I'm used to.
Anyway, it's also surely a lack of experience with those kites to anticipate some reactions. Overall very pleased, looking forward to get to know them more. Winter's over, hopefully a smorgasboard of sessions ahead!