hey,

for you LEI guys, need some kite input

any thoughts on liquid force's products? there is a 10m envy for sale that's got me thinking. Sounds really forgiving...maybe, too forgiving and too boring??

I'm looking into getting into basic unhooked stuff (so it does need to be a bit boring and not too lively), and I don't need a kite that jumps to the moon, but don't want a lame jumper either.
It's hard to get a good grasp of this kite from the reviews.

thoughts?

Almost got an Envy myself, a while back ... all I needed was a smaller kite though ...

Buddy here has Havoc 14 and 10m and the Mistress of Disaster has a 9m Envy, I think. Look like good quality and seem to do the job ok - Soh bashes his kite a lot doing unhooked stuff and it's rock solid. MoD tries to do unhooked tricks and although she's not as good as she thinks she is, I doubt the kite is holding her back.

Another good point - Max Flow.

Otherwise ... dunno :D

my two cents:

I've found that LF kites are one of the most durable LEIs you can buy. I have put my 2008 Havoc through HELL and back and ive only had a few minor pin holes in the bladder and a torn sail from slamming it into a pile of rocks. I fixed the sail with duct tape and its still going strong after months.

The envy is a light weight sail, if i had the doe i would scoop one of these bad boys up in a heart beat.

thanks for the input. sweet, durable is good, especially if I am wanting to learn some unhooked stuff. I'm sure it will see it's fair share of crashes, whatever I end up getting.

I picked up some more stuff as I was trying to get up to speed to make a decision, sounds like its moderate turning, not poor. I think I automatically translated 'not the fastest turning kite' into 'a slow turning kite' as I read a review somewhere. And, jumping sounds average for it's aspect ratio, so that's good. Waiting on some pics, we'll see what comes.

decided to give it a shot, and picked up a used 10m and it arrived today...sweet!

I'll try and update this when I get a good few sessions on it.

Oh ... there's a website selling LF NRG's $1,000 of ... too late now :D

cool kd, let us know how it flys please!!

haha, ....holding out eh? even if there were... i'll stick to the envy for now.

ya, probably a short write up, consisting of something along the lines of "...I like the kite, it's good". haha
nah, it'll be more in depth, but will still be pretty basic.

so, got it out for the first short session...(don't have much water experience compared to snowkiting, so take this with a grain of salt)

Even with only a bit of time on the water, can comment about a few things...it's a smooth machine. Every review has mentioned that the kite is smooth. I was thinking, come on, how smooth can it be? but ya, everything was smooth...water starts, sining the kite to get more power, jumps, and even gusts that overpowered. I noticed a bit on the water start that I didn't get yanked too hard for the type of kite movement I did. Didn't jump much, but it did surprise me...I went up higher than anticipated from the type of pull it gave on the harness. at the apex, I was thinking, 'what just happened??' I am used to judging jump height by a more aggressive pull on the harness I guess. And, it was a light session but had a few powerful gusts. For the types of winds that we get around here, I would have felt it a more 'impact' through the harness with my other kites, but I didn't notice the pull so much as simply increasing in speed and having to edge like crazy.

Also, [edit]....it's power development in the turns is a bit different than what I am used to..got to give more time on it to see what's up. [edit]

and being a low aspect delta, doesn't go upwind well on the lighter end. Some of it is my technique, but I know enough that it is partially the kite as well.

all in all, having fun on it. Glad I picked it up. More to come when I get some more time on it.