Wow, when I flew the 10.8 R1, I did an out and back and stopped to get a strop because of the side load. This was in winds between 3.5 and 4.5, not quite enough to roll with the 8.3 R1. That is encouraging that side load is reduced in the R2.

So I got about 4 hours in on the new R2 5.5

What can I say about it...

Nice improvement over the R1
Still handles very well
Faster than the R1
Goes upwind nicely

I got to the park and looked at the whitecaps on the water and wondered if I should put up a 5... I did and I was nicely surprised at the reduced lift with the kite at the zenith. For about the first hour the wind was about 15mph, nicely powered without feeling like there was an obe coming up. The one thing I did notice was that the kite was a little slow to go straight up. Is this bad? No. Probably reduces the chance of obeing on a turn. Now this kite is not slow going across the window. Is it a race kite? No. It will not keep up with full on race kites but it's stability could come out ahead as this kite is very hard to have it snap shut in gusty wind.

Ron