Widow Maker, Mini review of the Widow Maker Options

[tpatter]

Folks,

I went to the Longbeach Windless Kite Festival this last weekend and my entire family had a great time! As icing on the cake, Theresa gave me a demo Window Maker to take back with me to Seattle for another flyer to try out. I have been waiting for a chance to fly this kite, so I took Monday off from work and headed to Kite Hill with my son to check it out.

The winds were VERY light, around 1-3 mph, so we were a little disappointed when we got to the field. There were 2 other flyers on the field and they had their Prism Ozones out. I was amazed how the kite took to the air in this light wind. I've never flown a standard that flew this well in such light wind.

The WM is a VERY FUN kite to fly and was eager and forgiving in doing tricks. We haven't been working on tricks for too long, but can do all the basics fairly reliably - axels, half-axels, 540s, flic flacs, cascades, flap jacks, multi-lazys, backspins, rollups, and a few rungs of a jacobs ladder. On the whole, tricks were all MUCH easier on this kite than the kites that we regularly fly. The WM has a smooth feel to it when flying - you never feel out of control or disconnected from the kite and you can readily provide input with nice feedback while combining tricks - it makes transitions easy to handle.

Some items of note:
- The kite flapjacks like a machine - easier than my other kites for sure. My son was really able to make it cook and did some of the best looking flapjacks I've ever seen.
- 540s - WOW, this kite flattens right out and floats around almost like an indoor kite. None of our other kites look quite this good doing a 540. They are also easy to do. The first one I tried was picture perfect and they just kept coming. This "flattening out" also helps with pancakes, fades, and smooth axels.
- Cascades - solid and stable, can easily make them rise or fall and the speed the kite best likes to do them looks great.
- Yoyos - the weight works VERY well. We were even able to do some doubles. The WM also eagerly jumps onto its back and waits for your next input; as a relatively new flyer, this is a feature that I really like in a sport kite. This also makes multi-lazys a snap - we got it to go around 3 times on a single pull once. Also makes JLs easier (we are still working on getting these presentable for all 3 rungs, but they were better on this kite already than any of our others).
- The kite is very well made - the sail seams are sewn so nicely (rolled), almost like clothing. Its refreshing to see such fine detail - no exposed edges to fray or come loose over time. It should last a very long time.

The only negative I noticed was that there was no leader line installed on the kite, but thats easy to fix by just adding a segment of line. Don't be fooled into thinking that the kite is not pitch friendly because it doesn't have one - it loves to rollup. I personally preferred flic/flacs on my regular kite - but thats probably just me getting used to a different timing, my son liked the way that the WM flic/flacs and fades just fine. He liked it so much in fact that I had a hard time prying the lines away from him in order to fly it myself.

In summary, I would say that we both had great results in flying this kite right from the beginning and felt that its an easy kite to quickly get "in tune" and trick with. For example, the video link at the end of this post was shot after only having flown the kite for less than 10 minutes. The WM combines the capabilities of precision and trick with a result that is more fun than any kite that I've recently flown. We both enjoyed the kite MUCH more than many that we have in the bag, and it will FOR SURE become one of our go-to kites once we save up for it!

I took a little video which you can see at the link below. Nothing fancy, the battery ran dead before we could record much, but its worth seeing the kite in flight. Its my eight year old son flying and he's been working on cascades, so thats mostly what you'll see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGdubvQdAtE


-Tom