First PL experience, on a venom2 10

so, Canuck lent me his venom2 10 for a few good runs today. Thanks again Canuck!

What a great experience. It was fairly gusty, and strong. I don't know the exact winds but the weather report was saying 30kph gusting to 50kph. Not sure it got that strong, but maybe jumping into the 40s.

After showing me the setup, Canuck showed me the autozenith. I knew PL's did autozenith, but wasn't sure how it would perform in the winds we had. But, it did. Of course, it moved around a bit, but just re-ajusted itself when it went too far. That put a smile on my face, and that's even before flying it.

The winds were actually perfect to see how it perform. I could still dump the power no problem, but there was enough power that I could get some speed and have fun. I couldn't believe it, but found myself even sining the kite every once in a while. I wasn't expecting that at all. Obviously the venom2 10 can take some *serious* winds!

The gusts were definitely strong enough that I was expecting to feel some good pull in them, but....the kite did a great job of sluffing them off. I did have to move the bar on a few of them, but far less than I was expecting. And, I got caught off guard a few times by letting the bar out too much and then losing my power in the kite. It's nice to know the kite can dump the power in a hurry though. That's re-assuring, especially for a high wind machine.

Couldn't quite get the redirect working for small jumps, but wasn't ready to pull the trigger with much more power before the redirect on my first try at a PL. Would have liked to feel the lift and float though.

The bar pressure was different than my current kite, which is very light. But, it was fine - I knew it was there but it wasn't really thinking about it when flying.

So, all in all, not sure how it jumps, but for riding, it was a very comfortable and re-assuring ride for the winds we had today.

i did notice arcs have a TON of bar pressure. not a bad thing, good bicep workout.

Nice! I still have yet to fly my 13m Hyper Venom. I'm hoping to get it out this week sometime, though. So the bar pressure is heavy? Like fixed bridal heavy?

Oh, okay, well heavy is good. I like having enough feedback to know where the kite is in the sky. As long as it's not so heavy that I get worn out in 10 mins :P

Heavy= FAST TURNING in my experience

Fast turning = Loads of fun

Fast turning is good the kite is already modded to do just that :D

Nice another convert just be careful of the auto-enith - leaving the kite there, then walking back upwind with the depower line on your chest and over your shoulder can rub skin off nipples. I know from experience :o

Going from Crossbow to Synergy, I thought the bar pressure was massive ... but then, I was trying to muscle the Synergy around like the 'bow by sheeting in hard and yanking on the bar ... with the arcs, it's MHO that you're much better off sheeting in till you feel a little pressure, initiating a turn and let the kite turn as it will then sheet in only when it's headed in the new direction under power. It's for this reason that I love the stopper ball on the Nav bar ...

... of course, I might be wrong :D seems I am a lot lately

Hey now! He does too have nipples! They're just very hard to find.