There's been some critical acclaim for this series, and some outstanding video marketting to help boost things along. Coupled with the ready availability through your freindly neighbourhood kite trader and there's really no excuse for not getting one. 'Well now' I thought, 'that there STD hit the spot - I will (get one)'
Out of the bag, the absolute quality of craftsmanship is immediately apparent.
It's quite simply divine.
I mean right up there. All (most) of the fancy design aspects you would expect from a modern 'top-end' competition kite are there (including decent yo-yo stops
) and the whole thing is put together with the same apparent care and attention as say... a Benson, JoE or BMK. It would be pretty easy to whittle on for a while about how good this thing looks, but 'nuff said me-thinks.
The sticks are an amalgam of Avia Skinny SUL (That's Strong UL, not Super UL) and 5mm structil, and the sail material is by all accounts, some new fangled light weight (Verbinder?) stuff that only comes in white. Whatever it is, 'Gossamer' springs to mind.
OK, so this is an SUL Competition kite - what would I expect it to be able to do? and can it do it?
I'm a big fan of low / no wind flying generally - much more soothing and chilled than duelling against a gale. Any kind of drive is nice as a bonus and the soft, floaty stuff should really come built in - and in this case, it does.
The 'Ghost' holds a line in the merest suggestion of a breeze, cuts a really sharp corner and holds a curve without having to fight it. Then smooth, controlled inputs give up gorgeous flat spins and axels; Velvety Taz's and Slots; And, because it's a Cosmic - and hence turtle freindly - there's some really satisfying slow lazy rotations. Elegant.
That should be about it, it's an SUL, soft, floaty tricks - precise, accurate flight and that's job done. Hang on though, I'm always slightly nervous pushing the limits with Avia sticks (what with them being a bitch to get hold of), but let's just try a bit more...
I'll cut this short just a bit but with some smooth, solid controls, nothing agressive - just authoritive, this gives up pretty much everything the STD version does. Different, but equally as impressive freestyle, and still definately a 'go to' TP kite. Love it.
There's a snippet of video here which really needs expanding on, but you'll get the gist.
Bryan
