Kite review: Evolution Leading Edge Company 376 High Street COFFS Harbour Jetty NSW 2450 AUSTRALIA Phone +61 66 52 11 99 Fax +61 66 51 67 60 DESCRIPTION The Evolution is a 4/5 size delta, dual line stunt kite. Sail is deeply scalloped, a lot of billow, without winglets, with a leech line. It uses Beman Strong 14 carbon frame, 32 g/m2 (.5oz/sqft) Icarex. Recomended wind speed is 3 to 7 bft. Window is about 170 degrees wide. Price ratio is around high-level kite price. SUMMARY This kite is fun oriented, sail has a lot of colors, deep red, purple, fluo yellow black and white. There are some very innovative design choices, espacially regarding its carbon frame and standoffs system. The aspect ratio is lower as usual, shape speaks for itself, this is a tricky kite. Program is: trick kite for heavy wind. When your favorite kite is pulling too much, and you can not achive axels or turtles because of too much wind, it is time to fly the Evolution. It is a sparkling kite, very responsive, very accurate, it performs exactly what you want to do with little hands moves, in heavy winds. Frame details Frame is made with Beman Strong 14 pultruded carbon, it is very stiff, not so light, but the kite is not made to fly under 3 bft. There is something looking like very conservative, and something brand new with this frame design. Nose is like a Peter Powell kite, ie the two leading edges join together with a mittle-hard plastic tube, and the spine do not join them, so ther is a "hole" on the nose: ^ / \ ----- / | \ / | \ But the most amazing is: there is no top speader, but two, coming from the normal joiners on L.E. to the center tee: / | \ /\ | /\ / \ | / \ / __ \|/ __ \ / | \ Huh, I tried to be clear. This amazing frame is ***very*** stiff, and rock solid. I've seen the kite first time at Le Touquet and Dieppe last year, and Bob Dawson (kite manufacturer) and others were doing every trick very easely, without forward jumps ;-). For those who were there, it was **windy** You can disassemble the kite easely, as for full-size deltas. Sail details Sail is made from light Icarex and l.e. are made from heavy dacron. The sail is mainly .. colored, and very scalloped. L.e. are not curved and the sail has a lot of billow. Tail is not so fat and the t.e. is no angle nor facet. Shape is like a smaller MEFM, with a nose angle around 85 degree, (very litle aspect ratio). Second very innovative point is the standoff system. This is a kind of three lines bow, between those three points: center tee, bottom speader/le join, top "speader"/le join. In the middle of this "star", a plastic tube. On the sail, another one, between them, the standoff. This lets the bottom speader without distorsion, and with a bungee piece on one of the lines, tensionning is auto-adaptive. So the billow changes with the wind, and the kite can have the same forward speed, even if the wind is not regular. Leech line make it totally silent, even with strong wind. The thread is auto-adaptive: it is attached to a bungee, and you can tune the tension as usual, just a bit less tension and it would become noisy. This is the way I can control kite precisely. Bridles details Bridle system is simple. Top bridle come from top spreader connector to swivels and to bottom spreader connector, you can tune this. Another bridle comes from tee to swivels. In fact, not really, there is a crossing system, like on the Tracer, but there is only about 12 cm (5") between the points. You can adjust the tuning, but it is ok when it comes out of the bag. TRACKING CHARACTERISTICS Evolution is light in hands, in the whole window. Tracking stays light on high wind, and regular in the whole window. Forward speed is good. Pressure is constant from edge to edge, top to bottom. This kite will never fall down, unveted. TURNING CHARACTERISTICS Unlike some kites, it turns inside itself, I have never seen something like this. It performs very good push-pull turns with some (easely controlable) oversteer, extremely sharply. Spins are made on itself, you do not loose an inch between turns, so you can spin very close to the ground to stall it. You can hardly pull a line, it will achieve 5 turns before you say "Huh", and if you hardly pull it after, the kite is stalled in mid-air...but take care, it is really fast. STUNTS Remember, all is done with unusual high wind. It is easy to stall this kite, and side slides are easy too. Every stricky start can be performed, l.e., nose, turtle or face launches and so on. The low aspect ration helps a lot. Every tip stand, tip dragged can be precisely controlled. Many axel are easy to perform. Slow axel, kick axel, double axel, anywhere in the window. Groundwork is easy, and as you know the frame is rock solid and almost inexpensive, you can let you try some manoevers you don want to think about with an another kite. You can start from a side of the window, and make it roll to the other side, and come back in a few seconds. You can do this side to side achieving axels from tip stand also, with smooth axels or kick ones. It is easy to 3/4 axel from a one tip stand, and land to the other one, ready to do the reverse. Turtles are easy, in fact, it is a plaesure, nothing is unachievable. CONCLUSION If sometimes heavy wind makes you frustrated because you are affraid by the risk of broken spar, try it, it will never go out of the bag, only for flying. Do not buy it for team, for precison, even if it can do a tulip, and so on, but improve your hability do perform tricks with wind. Just fly it with short lines, between 8 to 16 meters (25 to 50 feets), and you will have a geat experience. My 0.002 cts ... ;-) --------------------------- Bruno Brottier 37 rue Chaptal 92300 LEVALLOIS PERRET - FRANCE E-mail: Bruno.Brottier@icare.fdn.org -- [NeXTmail] ---------------------------