In a previous Blog Post here at AERIALIS Kites, you could read about the initial flight. Just five minutes or so in crappy winds on a very limited area. Nothing at all to base my first impressions on.
Now however, I’ve had some more time with it. First in its upper wind range a couple of days ago, and in its lower range yesterday. Space was still limited on both occasions so this Blog Post is based on impressions flying the A Quad on short lines, 10m or 33ft if your into those measures.
Let’s get this straight from the beginning. It takes next to nothing to make the sail of the A Quad to feel loaded. Even when flying in the lightest of winds you can feel the sail of the kite filling up and ‘grip’ the wind that’s available and converts it into lift. I’ve still much to learn about flying quad line kites in low/no-wind conditions, but during the hour on the beach yesterday I quantum leaped my low wind skills!
…and in the upper wind range I found that the kite didn’t pull as much as I would have thought. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no doubt the kite “is there”, but it won’t pull you out of your socks… Which is nice!
Another feature I found right away was the kite’s ability to glide. Both from the top of the wind window when doing catches but also in the flatspin department. On several occasions in its lower wind ranges, I also discovered that when I was a bit “brutal” with my input and thought I’d pulled the kite out of the sky, it fell flat on it’s belly, LE towards the wind and started to glide, thus giving the pilot enough time (and possibility) to take action to regain pressure in the sail.
Talking about catches. The kite flies VERY high up in the wind window. It almost overflew me a couple of times. This makes for great setups for catches. Throws are pretty darn easy to nail too. Hey, this kite GLIDES!
Axels….? Sure! Set it up and pop the line and with its pretty intricate active bridle it does nice axels. Perhaps not the flattest ones, but I’m not quite sure that is because of the kite or pilot limitations ;-). Something I need to work on, and I’m really looking forward to that!
The bridle…. Active indeed! …and loads of adjusting possibilities. I have chosen not to touch anything but keep things in factory (?) positions to get to know it like that before adjusting anything. So far I haven’t been tempted to do any kind of adjusting, because the A Quad flies great just like it’s set. You don’t change a winning team, do you?
So… Is there a conclusion? Nah… Not yet. I have far to little time with this kite and on short lines only. I won’t conclude with anything before I have logged several more hours in different conditions and on longer lines as well. But so far … I love it!
Finally a video shot in low wind conditions yesterday. Sorry you can’t see my face, but I wear a very big grin! 😁
