Well, I finally got to fly the 8m Pansh Ace yesterday, and I'm sad to say I was a little disappointed. Before I continue, I just want to say that I completely realize the price point on this kite vs other brands is one of the main selling points. I do realize Pansh is trying to provide solid kites at affordable prices. I think this kite could be AWESOME if there was a slight bridle and leading edge re-design to prevent this kite from misbehaving in flight.

I must also preface this review by pointing out that the only other kites I have to compare this kite to are my Flexifoils, an HQ Crossfire, and my 2m Best kiteboard trainer. I haven't flown my Slingshot foils yet, so I'm not going to make any comparisons when it comes to in-flight behavior. As far as my personal experience, I've been flying various 2 and 4-line foils at LEAST once or twice a week since December, and I've been kiteboarding on water on the weekends every chance I get since February.


Pre-flight observations:

The quality of the canopy itself is great. The material Pansh uses is very interesting. It feels silky smooth & soft when compared to the crispness of my other foils, but it does feel rugged/tough somehow. I really liked the blue on white color scheme and the translucence of the material. The kite looks awesome when lit by the sun from behind because you could see the internal red cross bracing strip while the canopy's frame was lit by a deep blue. The bag everything came in was just a stuff sack with a drawstring.

The bridles looked and felt like loose, thick twine when compared to the stiffer, more sleek Flexi bridles. There wasn't much room for placing adjustment knots on the brakelines, either. My flexis and crossfire have really long brakelines with several knots for tuning the brakes. I had to adjust the leaders on my power lines to adjust the braking.

The handles are metal alloy tubes with stiff rubber-like grips and connection points for a strop line. They had good weight to them, and definitely felt durable. The flying lines themselves also weren't as stiff as my flexi and ozone lines, but this may be due to them not being pre-stretched. The lines are all white and are only color coded for top/power (green) and back/brake (red) at the sleeves. Personally, I'm used to seeing red for left, or blue/black for right, which I think is better because it reduces the chances for confusion seeing as how back/brake lines are thinner than top/power lines. I can't comment on line stretching or the way the handles felt in flight because my handles didn't come with kite killers, so I used my flexi lines/handles/killers instead. I hope Pansh will include kite killers in the future as they are a necessary safety device.



In-Flight Performance:

Here's the wind report from yesterday:

http://www.ikitesurf.com/windandwhere.iws?regionID=157&s...

I was out at Zilker Park from 6:30pm-8:10pm

When I first pulled the kite up, I realized the backlines were a little too tense (which slowed the kite down significantly), so I tied knots about 3 or 4 inches back on my top leader lines. This completely remedied the initial slowness and the kite was flying much better. I flew it to zenith and held it there for a second or two, then turned it 180 and and flew it straight down. The kite did fly slowly throught the window, but that's to be assumed with a kite of this size.

Turning
The turn rate on this kite was slow when I wasn't brake turning. I'd say it took at least 2-3 seconds to turn 180 degrees without brake-turning, and that was with one of my arms at my chest, and the other arm fully extended outward. Brake turning *significantly* improved the turn rate, and the kite would almost turn on its wingtip. I also purposely flew the kite straight downwards (slowly, trust me), and landed it on its leading edge, and was able to reverse launch it fairly easily.

Movement throught the window
As I said before, the kite did move slowly throught the window but that's only to be expected with an 8m kite. I flew it low across the window a few times, and from zenith to dead center as well. When a small gust would hit, the power felt like more of a progressive pull, than an instant pull -and this thing really pulls.


Edge of the window
Flying at/near the edge of the window is where I became disappointed. When I flew the kite to the edge of the window at 1:00/11:00 or lower and held it there, or turned suddenly from there, the kite would sometimes collapse and and the leading edge would flip down and inwards, sometimes more on one side. The air would now be blowing on the back of the canopy, thus forcing a bowtie. I'd start tugging and slacking the lines to try to get the kite out of the bowtie, but it wasn't an easy task considering the size of the kite. If the canopy wasn't collapsing, the wintips of the kite would flip inwards momentarily and sometimes became entangled in the bridles attached to and near them. I couldn't always slack/tug my way out of the wingtips being tangled, so I'd have to land/untangle/relaunch. I wouldn't be as disappointed in this kite if all of this wouldn't have happened so often. This is my only gripe with this kite, and I think it's something Pansh could easily fix. I've seen the wingtips fold in while flying my 4m Blade IV, but they didn't become entangled anywhere NEAR as frequently/easily as the Ace wingtips did.

Jumps
I flew the kite for at LEAST one hour straight. Towards the end, I tried a few small pendulum jumps, and the same collapsing/bowtie-ing issue happened again. Jump attempts almost always ended up with me having to land/sort/relaunch. It seemed that the sudden change or release in line tension would jar the canopy, and the leading would flip over downwards. On a brighter note, the one good jump I got in was nice and floaty with a long drawn out landing.


Leading Edge Design
It seemed that if there wasn't constant tension on the lines, the leading edge of the canopy lose its shape, fall first, and get pushed further out of shape by the wind. I think this is due to the design of the leading edge itself. Check out images of the Ace from Panshkites.com while paying particular attention to the leading edge:

http://www.panshkite.com/index.php?gOo=goodspic.dwt&good...

The air inlet at the center of the leading edge isn't very big, and the opening is facing more towards the flier, than the direction its going. I think if the upper inlet flap was moved further back (towards the backside of the canopy), it wouldn't close the inlet and push down on the top of the leading edge.

Have a look at the Blade IV's leading edge:

https://www.flexifoil.com/site_images/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?...

I think going with this style of leading edge would signficantly decrease the chances of the collapsing I was experiencing. I can see where Pansh is coming from with their design (less drag), but for me the collapsing was overshadowing any benefits it provides.

A not-so-fair comparison?
After flying the 8m Ace, I decided to fly my 7m Bullet for a comparison and I'm not sure I can really compare the two. I do realize that the Ace is a high aspect ratio kite and that the Bullet is a low aspect ratio kite, but the Bullet is the closest thing I have to compare the Ace to. My Slingshots aren't ready for flight yet, and they are 2 line foils anyway. I could go out and buy an 8.5m Blade IV, but then that wouldn't be fair either now, would it? (so tempting, though..) The Bullet just responds. Even for being a big ol fatty, it turned well and moved across the window with good speed. It turns on a dime when break turning, and doesn't deform as easily and stay deformed like the Ace did. If the Bullet loses its shape I can tug a bit and get it back to normal without it hitting the ground.



In closing, I'm not sure how to feel about the 8m Ace. I really wanted to have a good experience with this kite. I wanted this kite to convince me to buy more Pansh kites and recommend them to friends who want to get into powerkiting without breaking the bank or angering their wives/girlfriends. I mean, on one hand it's very affordable and feels quite durable, but on the other hand I feel I can't rely on its performance in flight.

I am definitely going to get another couple of sessions in with the Ace and have my buddies who kite with me give it a shot as well. I'll report back their opinions on this post.

P.S. I'd like to give special thanks to dlish89 for giving me a GREAT deal on this kite. The price was great, the transaction was easy, and the shipping was fast. A++++++++

Thanks for the great review burrito. Are you a writer ? That is exactly the things I wanted to here. If we don't hear these kinds of things how can one improve. I will be sure to pass this review onto pansh.
Just curious as to where you were flying ? I have found the ace to be a beach kite. They love the smooth clean wind. When I fly them inland vs. the beach its a totally different kite in my experience. I hope to be able to try the mod screwy has been working on and see if it doesn't help the aces inland flying characteristics. thanks again for the review.

I was flying at Zilker Park in Austin,TX:

http://tinyurl.com/3q3ry4

I was flying near the left-most soccer field with winds out of the North/Northeast. I'd estimate the biggest gust I felt was about 3 or 4 miles an hour over the base windspeed. I'll be getting my windmeter soon and if I write another review or update this one, I'll be sure to include the average windspeed/max gust info for the kite's session. I'll also try and get some video, or pics at the very least.

I'll be going to the beach to kiteboard a lot more often now that the weather's getting warmer. The beaches I usually hit are at South Padre Island, Galveston, and Corpus Christi. I'll be sure to take the Ace with me for some testing out there.

I'm not a writer, but I do write a lot at work sometimes (I'm a software QA engineer).

Yeah BB dlish is right pansh kites do not like turbs of any kind. clean winds are needed,don't get me wrong ,pansh kites need a little tweaking still.I also use my own linesets(prefer flexis).I wish kite mfg. would sell "kite only" option,it would be cheaper and how many line sets do you need anyway ?