The whole Quebec scene mystifies me ? Mostly my fault for not speaking French.

I know that Conceptair has been around from the very begining. Pioneering in snowkite touring. Constantly developing new kites . GOOD KITES.

The last time I have seen a Conceptair kite it was the new " Smartkite " 2 years ago . The thing looked extremely smooth and I am still kicking myself for not taking a demo run. Seemed a real gust muncher and was reported to be pretty much a one kite, kite.

I see there is a Smartkite II now + an inflatable in the 2011 Conceptair lineup.

It seems CA has been happy just making and selling within the Quebec market for decades now. I just wonder why this little group that was so far ahead of things early never took off? I have to wonder why they never went more commercial ? They certianly seem to have always had a competetive pruduct !

How many of you have even heard of Conceptair ?
and yet the have always been there !

http://conceptair.com/en/1/Home.html

I'm from Quebec, so I heard about ConceptAir. From what I heard, it seems that the two guys that started tho company separated a few years ago, one of them started a distribution cie, (kitebroker.ca) and the other continued with CA, maybe they didn't had the same goal. I don't know anything more, but you're right, those are pretty good kites, I saw a couples vids where the CA was use in the French Alps, so maybe it's available there also...

Matt

I think the deal with Concept Air is that it is a very small company that is content to be a very small company. The sewing of the kites is done in Quebec, not China or Cambodia or Thailand. I have a 10.5m Smart kite that I like very much. Concept Air rebridled my Smart to the Smart 2 bridle configuration costing me only shipping... .

Here is the little vid that I posted earlier with the Concept Air smart kite...
http://www.vimeo.com/19142538

i distributed CA back in 2000. good product but not widely known. yes they everything in house so its Canadian built.

i also learned a bit of kitesurfing on one, fixed bridle EX's and a Directional

ive also ripped up some at ivanpah and roach too.

i think they finally found their market "snowkiting".

The manual for the smart kite is still available in french only, I think that the language barrier has been an issue for both Concept Air and the Paraskiflex folks. They have enough of a captive audience in Quebec that the marginal sales they would have outside of the province might not seem worth their while... .

Quote:

Originally posted by PrairieWind The manual for the smart kite is still available in french only, I think that the language barrier has been an issue for both Concept Air and the Paraskiflex folks. They have enough of a captive audience in Quebec that the marginal sales they would have outside of the province might not seem worth their while... .

The whole world misses out on so much by the whole " we have enough captive audience " thing in Quebec.
I had heard that the original 2 parted ways . I'm glad the little company that could, still does make a top quality product!

There are a few riders here that ride CA. Charles Meding is a team rider for them (unless that's changed) and the guy hauls the mail on those things for sure.

I don't know which model he was on last but it was small, pretty high AR and damn fast.

Last year he raced one at Kitestorm and was always in the top 4 finishing spots. The winds were light and his kite was much smaller and looked a lot higher AR than my Charger 19 and he was making me work for it.

Glad to see and outfit like that making it work. In the bike world there are tons of small out fits (Balfa Bikes, in Montreal for example) that give in to being bigger and soon get run into the ground by people that want to make money, not quality.

I find it hard to pass up a product that produced by people who actually USE the product.

A friend had some CA kites back in 1999, 2000. They were very powerful for thier size and comparable to Flexifoil Blades and Quadrifoil Competition X kites.
Wish I had one for old times sake.
-Scott

My first traction kite, and the one I learned to ski with, was a ConceptAir 3.5 m fixed bridle on handles. Think it was called the Free Air. Bought it almost new from someone who got yarded and had given up up on kiting. I flew it until it was soft, then gave it away. It was really well made, low/mid aspect, and had adjustable AOA set-up like on newer Blades and Broozas. Even put a depower bridle on it like the early Frenzies - it worked OK on handles like that, but not a bar. Nice kite to learn on.

krumly

One of my 1st foils was the CA Wave.
A fixed bridle closed cell. The previous owner had messed with the bridles. I tried to get them right but never really got the kite to fly well . When I gave the kite away I was convinced the bridle was stretched but now think it just needed a bit more work. I had hoped the kid I gave it to would rework it but he just took it and lost interest. My 1st of many disapointments giving away kites.