I look like a kook. Cool.

It looks like a kite. I am AMAZED! It flies. I goes up in the air and flies.

I hope I can kitesurf with it.

Note: the leading edge on the ground. I susspect during full on crashes this gap would allow air to pass under it reducing the risk of a canopy blow out. The 'shoulders' would also buckle taking some of the crash energy.

Test:2

Wind 25-30+ mph, very gusty. Dropped during the day.

Had a gread days kitesurfing. Used a 140 wakeboard. I was well powered up for at least two hours. The kite flew great, it took me an hour to get the hang of it, I am used to my Arc in these conditions so the bar pressure needed seemed odd. This kite likes a lot of bar pressure. Without it (flying off the front lines) the tips wobble lots, you can feel it through the bar. But pulling on the bar stops them, the outside tip still wobble a little through turns.

My mates were out on FlexiFoil Storm 8m, Aero II 8m, and later as the wind died, came out on X2 12m, Mach II 12m and AirBlast 12m. I kept on going with my kite and stayed kiting/jumping/upwind ok. I dunno how big my jumps were compared with theirs, but I was going up wind as well as them (I use a 140cm wake board, no skegs) and was jumping high enough to scare myself ;-) did some forward 360's, grabs, toe side.

I seemed well powered up all day, going up wind almost as well as the 12m's as well as the 8m's. I was on a 140 wake board, most were on wakes or mutants. One guy on a North twin tip. Going upwind was easy when powered, underpowered was harder, especially as this kite does not like being sined. This made it frustrating during the lulls, I could sine the fuck out of my Arc and generate some speed, but the Batwing is slower. But it does de-power - yay! Comming from the Arc which has no concept of depower it's great to be able to control speed through the gusts.

Looks: My mates were trying to guess the make of kite and decided it was a Gaastra, so that's what it looks like from the beach. I think the concave LE must give it an optical illusion making the canopy look flatter than it is. The photo's on the previous page show the 'arc' shape to be normal.

Bite: the biting point, move the bar up and down untill you feel the kite bite. This is the best position for speed and upwind.

Jumps: Took a while to dial them in properly. The Arc likes to be depowered and swung across the window. It generates the lift from its speed. The Batwing likes to be sent back depowered then as you turn the kite and jump, pull on the bar and it pops you into the air. Landings were hard and flat. But this is probably my technique.

Toe side: Pull on the bar for more power and ride it. Loads easier than the Arc.

Underpowered: Just power up the kite and keep going.

Over powered: This kite is great, during gusts, push the bar out a little and edge like crazy. Or swing it back, jump and honk down with you front hand for a massive jump, tail grab combo (in my dreams ;-)

Luff: It never luffed once, it simply floats back into the window, I stuffed about 4 jumps and pendulumed under the kite (30 meter lines + 2-3 meter jumps) the lines went slack, the kite drifted back and bam caught the wind again.

Water relaunch: Normal. It even went under a wave and poped up ok.

Auto Zenith: This was what the whole design was about, I wanted it to float naturally to the top of the window like the Arc's do. FAILED completly. Bah. My AirBlast 11.8 seems to be forever 'falling' to one side of the window, the Batwing does slide down the edge eventually but not as bad. But because you need a lot of bar pressure it is hard to tell if this is because you have hold of the bar and are subconciously flying the kite. Or it maybe because the AirBlast is 8 meters larger. *shrug*

Materials: I looked over the kite to see if the tarp was ok, it was already showing signs of stress, there were little stretch flaws in the LE tube.

Luck: As you may have guessed, I'm not the worlds luckiest guy. Today one of my front lines slipped through the re-ride system, and, can you guess which line the kite-leish had been attached to and was now only attached to my harness? Can you guess? Anyway, the kite flew ok on three lines, enough to get to the beach. Took a cold, shiverr-rrr-rry hour to get it sorted and back in the air.

Todays conclusion: A good kite, looked like it was performing as well as the FlexiFoil Storm 8m's. Harder to control, more sensitive because of the tip wobble. But just as good upwind, and (although it's hard to measure) the jumps seemed comparable. The speed was great, I was keeping up with everyone, overtaking some on the mutants. The kite is slower to turn than the Arc (the batwing is 8.5m and the Arc is 6.3), sinning the kite doesn't seem to generate any more power than parking it (dissapointingly.)

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