After the initial hype the trail seems to have gone a little cold on this one. We're a fickle bunch, ain't we ?
I was going to pen some sort of review about two weeks ago but a cancelled trip to work meant I had more time with the kite. I'm glad I did as that review would have been substantially different to this one.
Let's deal with the build first: the usual quality we've (or at least I've) come to expect from Kite Related Design - all properly put together with areas such as the wingtips, LE cutouts, centre-T all dealt with in the same manner as their Fury range - but with some new seemingly bulletproof material at the nose and the sail standoff reinforcement. Sparred mostly in SkyShark P200 but with Aerostuff Blue S LSs. All quite conventional, no corners cut, all very nice. It's a light wind kite; not a UL and the max. wind is limited to how fast you want your kite to move. I certainly stopped flying well before the kite/frame started complaining.
As for design, this is one flat kite. The (four) standoffs are a bare minimum of 7cm shorter than would be considered "conventional" by today's standards. Combine this with a wide-ish nose angle and the standoffs being quite distant from the spine you've got something that is considerably different to the majority of today's offerings and seems to harken back to designs from over a decade ago. But with tail weight and multiple yoyo stoppers.
To be honest I'm no fan of the stoppers; they work well but are just four tie wraps on each LE and look tatty in comparison to the rest of the kite. I just wish they could have come up with a more elegant solution.
So let's fly this sucker !
I have to say that my first few flights were distinctly "uh-oh". I had a horrible feeling that it as to be Stefan Furter's Challenge all over again - a kite he can fly like a God but no-one else can. The Element is very conversant in Old School - flat slackline rotations are the order of the day and plenty of them but I couldn't get it to gel at all. It was back to trick flying rather than freestyle; no flow, no cohesion. Flic Flacs were not coming together either. I couldn't nail the basics and I certainly couldn't string them together.
Frankly I didn't much care for it.
But the extra time finally made it come together. For one thing, ditch the long lines. 20m is plenty and 10m is more than usable at a pinch. And for another you are going to have to get your eye in for this kite's profile and learn what it looks like when it's ready to be flipped or spun. And it does look different. Once I started down that path.... oh very much yes
In addition to those unconventionally-flat-by-today's-standards rotations this bugger rolls up like nothing else I've flown. Other kites describe a mathematically interesting orbit about a point in space, this thing folds up on itself. It takes no room and, if needed, precious little time. And it'll go either way - forwards or backwards - with pretty much equal ease. As the kite uses such a small amount of space to trick you end up working it right down to the deck. I swear I removed some dandelion heads with Yoyos.
After a little musing I think what we have here is a kite that Harry Turtledove might have come up with. It's a "What If ?" kite - what if after the Stranger and Box of Tricks the design fashion hadn't been for the deep kite but everything else had occurred ? You've got the back in the day Axels and oh-that's-why-they-are-called-that Flat Spins but you can Yoyo this all over the place and, once you grow accustomed to it, you can mix and match.
I'll be honest, I don't think anyone is going to pick this kite up and within 15 minutes pull off a strong repertoire of their own moves. There's a learning process to make your way through. It is a bit different but I think it's worth getting to know. I don't think this is remotely a kite for everyone and I'm not prepared to call it My New Favourite kite yet but it offers something other when so many of today's kites are variations on a very narrow theme.
Mike.