New Tech Kites

rboerth · Last edited by rboerth on Tue Sep 19, 2006 5:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

The Desire UL is a full-size ultralight (UL) kite that, despite its feather light materials, can put up with a beating. It has a remarkable wind range for an ultralight. When you perfect your technique, you will find it capable of flying in just a whisper of a wind--and even less if you are willing to move around. And if the wind picks up, you'll find the kite more than capable of handling things until you feel comfortable pulling out a standard kite.

The kite has a light, flexible frame, that gives it a number of advantages (and a few disadvantages). On the plus side, the kite will put up with a beating and keep springing back for more, and the flexible frame allows the kite to bend instead of snap when the wind picks up. This is one UL kite that you can fly with abandon without feeling like you are going to destroy it. The frame also provides a notable curve to the leading edge which helps the Desire's light wind handling capabilities and makes for some very polished and dramatic looking flat spin tricks--more on that below. The responsiveness of the kite to even slight winds also gives you a larger window in which to fly. On the down side, the flexion in the frame can make the kite feel mushy when you try to give it snappy inputs for some tricks.

The kite tracks reasonably well and responds smartly when executing turns. The kite is sensitive to inputs, which makes it a challenge to fly perfectly straight lines since the Desire will respond to even very slight changes in line tension.

If you are someone who likes cuttting figures and doing contol moves like stalls, slides, downwind glides (a must for light wind flying), and landings, the Desire UL will delight you. A quick turn will leave the kite pasted to the sky, and side slides come naturally. The kite will challenge you to keeep the nose pointing directly upward in the stall and slide, but it is also a kite that responds well to correction. This is also a good kite for perfecting the 360 (a move where you get the kite to fly a complete circle around you).

One tweak that helps to hold the stall and slide more steady is the addition of extra weight to the tips of the lower leading edges. This allows a little extra gravity to work in your favor in order to hold the kite more stable in the nose up direction. I use nuts from the hardware store, sliding them over the lower leading edge before hooking up the sail tension lines. The sail tension lines then hold the nuts from sliding off. Start with just a little weight and work your way slowiy up. Too much weight, and your kite will fly eratically and turns will be become hard to manage. With just a few grams of weight, however, you will find some significant gains in the stall and slide departments without noticing any change in its low wind performance.

The tip weights also help the kite in executing flat spin tricks, giving it a little extra inertia to complete its rotations. 540s and Slot Machines are brilliant with this kite: You can get the Desire to do these flat spins slow and steady without a noticeable loss of altitude--you will definitely get the sense that the kite is defying gravity with these tricks. Pinwheels (a.k.a. Helicopters) are also quite nice and elegant with this kite.

Axels and half-axels are more difficult. To pull them off cleanly requires an exaggerated and very deliberate set-up as the kite tends to catch the wind when you pull a wing to initiate the spin, thus slowing and hampering the rotation of the kite. This characteristic also makes the cascade nearly impossible (at least for me at this stage).

The Desire is rock steady in the fade (where the kite flies on its back, nose toward the flier). Indeed, ifI wanted to teach someone how to control the fade--getting the kite to rise and fall in this position and how to correct wobbles--it's hard to imagine a better kite for the purpose that the Desire. The challenge is getting the kite into the fade: You have to experiment carefully with the degree to which you let the kite flare (belly down, nose away) as well as with the type of pull you need to pull the nose back towards you. When you do execute the inputs correctly however, you will be rewarded with a fade that the kite will hold and sustain.

More advanced combination tricks like flic flacs and Jacob's Ladders are beyond this kite's capabilities, and, like many ultralights, you can get the Desire into a turtle (on its back, tail towards you), but will have a hard time extricating it from this posture. It bears saying that no ultralight will trick as well as a comparable standard simply because, to get the kite to fly in low wind, you have to give up the extra mass necessary to pull off many tricks.

In sum, the Desire UL is a no-brainer for a beginner looking for a forgiving, responsive, and robust ultralight. At the same time it's a kite that will reward the more advanced flier with its capabilities. It's the kind of kite that you can keep coming back to, and it will continue to reward you and show you more.

Schook · Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject:

GREAT REVIEW!!

I purchased a Desire UL a few months ago out of pure frustration of being shut down due to low winds and have enjoyed it very much. It will fly in the very lightest of winds and with shorter lines just by walking backwards. I agree with everything you said about this kite. For me it took some time to get used to the flexible frame (compared to my Techno and French Connection) so it is helping me loose my heavy handedness. I have not tried putting weights on the wing tips, but sounds like fun. My kite came with 80# by 80ft lines, but found that I enjoy it more with 50# by 50ft lines in light winds.

This is one of my favorite kites to fly right now, only topped by the FC when the wind picks up.

Great Kite. Great Price. Great job Dodd!

Jim
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NT Kites In the Bag:
Cherry Bomb, Techno, Big Bang Pro, Desire UL, French Connection

TGunn · Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:27 pm Post subject:

Nice review! Thanks for writing it!

Our Team TKO flys the Desire UL most of the time, in winds up to 12 mph.

Since we don't do many slack line tricks in our team routines, I found a tuning trick that helps the kite track straighter, and perform with less oversteer. I released most of the tension in the leading edges, which straightened the leading edges out most of the way. Doing this makes the kite track much straighter, and took more stress off of the cambered/curved leading edges.

I also fly 2 or 3 of them by myself, and these kites have saved me when having to perform demos in almost zero wind. One demo I did last year at a festival in Malaysia, for the Sultan of Johor, the wind started out at 1-2 mph, then 1/4 way thru my routine, the wind picked up to 12-15 mph and the kites still performed beautifully, and without any damage to the kites, other than the metal center "T" bending slightly forward. I loosened the set screw on the center "T" afterwards, and spun the metal "T" ferrule around 180°, so that the kite would naturally straighten the metal ferrule back out. Works everytime!
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Troy Gunn - TKO Sport Kite Team - USA
http://tko.sportkite.team.tripod.com/home.htm

New Tech Kites
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ericska · Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:04 am Post subject:

Yeah, I agree what rboerth said. This kite is a no-brainer for all beginners in light wind. I found more of them (they never fly dual line kite in their life) tried just a few minutes and having few nose plant, after that they could loop and dive anywhere in the sky! Even the 6 years old kid could fly it too!
I've imported 7 of this kite! Now every weekend there will be full of Desire UL flying in the field. Some of them just don't want to put the kite down even the wind pick up. Because they said it was more fun when it speed up! Ouch! One of them broke it at the spine and lower leading edge. I myself broke one of the lower spreader and the centre T aluminium ferrule bended... never, never again in the stronger wind. But I fixed the kites, I have few dozen of 4mm Avia rods! Very Happy

Wow! What a Desire UL day... Very Happy

Soon I will order some Techno or FC for them to fly in stronger wind... And soon we will learn team flying...

Eric
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My kites in webshots.com