Kitesurf Mag criticises Flysurfer Psycho

[Pump me up]

The UK magazine gives a damning review of the Psycho, the kite trumpeted by the ram brigade at the start of 2003 as the ram air which will "dominate competitions in 2003."

Excerpts:

"This only works when the kite has good power." (Re pulling on the steering lines to bring the trailing edge down to power up the kite).

Flying the Psycho in light winds "is not a simple process and requires skill to keep the kite from asymmetrically collapsing in an upturn and it's a characteristic that remains until fully powered up. It is especially noticeable in gusty winds turning quickly and opening up with power into the back of the window."

"The Psycho's shape is relatively flat so doesn't much vertical lift when on the sides of the power window and that makes it difficult to climp up the side of the window in lighter winds. It requires line tension to get it to climb and you have to push the bar away from you to get it to hurl itself up the window when it has slowed down."

"On the other hand in strong winds what was an easy re-launch can take you on a real Nantucket sleighride and leave you a long way from your board."

"With the line handling involved you may find gloves useful."

So, in summary:
1: Despite claims by ram lovers, the kite does not work properly in light winds.
2: The Pyscho has a tendency to asymmetrically collapse.
3: The psycho has a tendency to collapse and then suddenly open in the middle of the window.
4: It takes a lot of effort to get it to climb up the side of the window and pushing the bar away
5: Downwind relaunches in high wind can lead to rapid, dangerous drags downwind, away from your board
6: To be on the safe side, you should wear gloves

The Psycho is hard to steer and has a tendency to collapse. It is incredibly dangerous in its tendency to open in the middle of the window and its tendency to hurl you downwind during relaunch. To stop line burn or amputation risks, wear gloves.

Ignore the lies. Ignore the ram air propaganda. Ram airs like the Psycho are aerodynamically inferior to inflatables and can be very dangerous.

[Toby]

this is so boring


PMU, you should put this in your signature:

[wakeboy]

[Mr Jo Macdonald]

Don't launch any kite from the middle of the window in strong wind, if you try this with a foil or LEI in anything over 10 knots it can be very nasty. There are many ways to launch a foil from the side of the window, you can sand the downwind tip and launch it like an LEI or pull the leash then walk it round, so you're changing the position of yourself and the kite in the window even though the kite is just sitting on its trailing edge. Then when the kite is almost at the edge launch with very little pull, turning the kite to the edge and keeping it low. Launch with the kite pointing towards the water and go have fun.

You can launch the kite like this all the time, much safer than launching straight downwind which should only be done if the wind is really light.

http://www.flysurfer-italia.com/videos/ ... walone.wmv

You can relaunch foils from the edge of the window too by moving them from the middle of the window to the edge just like you do with a LEI to steer the kite when it's down by pulling one brake leader.
Here's a vid of how to do it:
http://www.flysurfer-italia.com/videos/upsidetoww.wmv

More good foil launching, relaunching and landing vids here
http://www.flysurfer-italia.com/deco_atterra.htm

I agree that wearing gloves is a good idea when flying powerful traction kites

Have fun and stay safe
Jo

[WILCO]

[oli]

Hey hey hey Jo !
You took the bait !

BTW, I had no kitemares with my psycho.
I don't care answering all of these points, as Toby said, it's sooooo boring.

But there is an important point though.
This kite is no more dangerous than other power kites.
I don't care about all the aerodynamic/kite loops/competition stuff, but
presenting this kite a potential killing machine is defamatory, as security
has always been a main FS concern.


Oups, I took the bait.


O.

[KiteSmurfer]

I think PMU is going to have to change his tackle set up, fewer people are taking his standard lures, maybe something bigger and brighter with some extra hooks?????

[Slider]

Can't resist.

PMU I guess the kitesurf mag gave it a poor rating is they are all polesurfers at heart and know nothing about real kite flying. So they find it difficult and technical. For this read different.

I actually fly LEIs for my own reasons. I wonder if you ever fly anything but an armchair.

[Mr Jo Macdonald]

Well I actually agree with some of the things PMU says, not many comp wins on rams this year yet, no official hangtime records just pics and 13 sec claims, there are some VERY powerful foils out there, you should know exactly what you're doing with them and they probably aren't for everyone.
A lot of what PMU says is actually promoting foils I think, you know the (this foil is soo bad ass.." stylee and so on) sounds like a flysurfer ad, which might not be the idea.
Anyway, everyone has a right to their own opinion, personally I think all traction kites (including foils) can be "very dangerous", if you want the maximum performance you'll be using a high performance kite so with a potential to produce huge amounts of power probably in a lot of wind but that's what a lot of us are looking for isn't it, otherwise we wouldn't be flying Psychos, Rhino IIs, X3s, and so on, every kite has it's pros and cons, PMU states both about foils and probably considers the same in LEIs too, can't see anything wrong with that.

[Cortex]

Not to take the bait, however I've also read the test in Kitesurf. Mag. UK and PMU seems to have misread the thing a bit. (Ohhh, I'm sooo surprised. ).

Anyway, the conclusion is that they like the Psycho 12.5 quite a lot. They say that it is a different experience than the LEI-bunch of kites but that it is really fun to ride and that it jumps really well. Also they comment on the feeling of truely gliding instead of falling after reaching the top-height of a jump.

So basically PMU has extracted some comments from an otherwise positve review of the Psycho 12.5.

Oh well, read it for yourself and make your own opinion.

Maybe you can give a typewriter to an infinite number of monkeys and one of them sooner or later will write all of Shakespear's work. If you however only give one monkey a computer you probably end up with something like the original post.