FS Psycho Reviews? Here are some answers

[MissionMan]

I am currently bringing some FS's into SA and I posted the following question to Frank Schuett, the Director of International Sales for Flysurfer. I think this answers some of the questions relating to when reviews will be released, and some relating to pro riders only on LEI's which have been asked here as of late.

My question:

Hi Frank

Out of interest sake, when are Flysurfer finally going to get some kites out to the magazines and international pro's for reviews.

There are no official reviews, and i know a lot of people who are waiting to see the review on this kite with baited breath.

Regards,

Athol

FRANKS RESPONSE:

Dear Athol,

It is in the making...

FlySurfer has received top grades in magazine tests (Stance, kiteboard mag, kiteboarding, kitesurf mag, etc) for 2001 MastAir and 2002 WARRIOR.

PSYCHO will, of course, be tested by all magazines after it's official release.

Our importer's web site's and dealer recommendations have strongest impact. Reader reviews of private riders in the forums are important, too, and FlySurfer usually gets top grades.

Competitions / Pro Riders : With the PSYCHO FS presents it's first dedicated competition kite which allows for more vertical lift and longer hang times than any high performance kite on the market.

While ram air kites have had a reputation of being powerful and fast, previous models did indeed not satisfy top riders in regard to lift and hangtime. So we had no chance to win any top rider to fly our kites so far despite much interest from popular riders such as Peter Trow, Manu Bertin, Ted Bautista and Chuck Patterson.

All of these are long-time friends of mine from the early days of kiteboarding (I started tests with Manu and Dominique Legagnoux over 6 years ago in Cabarete) and acknowledged the many advantages of FlySurfer kites and the steadily increasing sales worldwide. At the same time they argued that magazine coverage, except for test reviews and advertisement, will depend on a high performance kite which "shaves top rider's asses".

...so here is the PSYCHO.

I am currently discussing sponsoring with 3 worldclass riders. I am confident that the hype around the PSYCHO and simply it's superior performance will change things in this last remaining sector of the industry before the end of the year.

Cheers,
F.

FLYSURFER : AHEAD OF IT'S TIME !




Looks like we could see a couple of the pro's competing on Psycho's in the near future. Should be interesting to see.

Hope that helped guys

regards,

Athol

[RickI]

Hello Athol,

Thanks for passing along the information from Flysurfer. I saw my first one yesterday, a Warrior. Foils have certainly come a long way from the early ram air foils that I am familiar with. Looking forward to hearing more about the Psycho.

Rick Iossi

[mmunzer]

The psycho is really cool. I got to test a 9.5 out at FoilFest. Was super impressed with the height and hangtime.

I've never flown an X2 and I don't have much time on my Mach1 so I can't compare too well. But definately I got the biggest jumps and the longest hangtime I have ever gotten with the Psycho.

The conditions were 1.5m waves really close together and around 10m/s side on shore. Usually in these conditions it is hard to get the timing right to get high jumps. Waves always throw my edge timing off. But my first run on the Psycho, after 15 minutes of getting used to it, I tried a jump and went much higher than I have ever gone before and just hung up there. A friend who was sailing just under me said I was 7-8m high. He has a lot of experience with filming kitesurfing, so I would say his measurement was is accurate.

Maybe 7-8m is not a high jump compared to pros, but I surf about 1 day a week if lucky, I had taken a break of one month due to a sprained ankle, the conditions were rough, and it was a new kite I had never used before. So I think the psycho will definately turn some heads. Especially once some pro riders start to use it in competitions.

Foilfest was an interesting event in part because the local inflatable riders came by to check the event out. At one point there were more inflatables on the water than foils (storm, skoop, arx, blacktip, airblast). But there wasn't a single inflatable rider jumping higher than the foils. More than one inflatable rider noticed that foils were jumping higher with bigger hangtime.

They also noticed that the foil riders could drop their kites in the water with the 1.5m crashing surf and relaunch without any problem. The only inflatable I saw go down had to be swum in.

So in conclusion, I don't like hype, but this kite deserves it...

Best regards,

Marc
GoExtreme.dk
(Danish Flysurfer Dealer)

[Guest]

Oh shit! Will we all have to switch to Psycho or Psycho-like kites next year? I just bought some 2003 tube kites. Will we look like non-performers now?

[mmunzer]

Yeah something like that...

Best regards,

Marc
GoExtreme.dk

[Pedro Marcos]

One of the foils bad characterist is that on gusty winds when the kite stalls they came backwards on the window and then reshape just in the power zone, and this is a BIG problem. Is this corrected?

[Guest]

On 2002-10-01 19:02, Pedro Marcos wrote:
One of the foils bad characterist is that on gusty winds when the kite stalls they came backwards on the window and then reshape just in the power zone, and this is a BIG problem. Is this corrected?

No. Try a modern foil. R!

[mmunzer]

Hi Pedro,

Stalling is not a feature special to foils. It is a feature of all kites which have a large depowering range. The fact that you cannot stall some kites is just an indication that they don't use the full range of depower travel. Stalling is a feature of any wing. If you tilt a wing enough it will stall. If the kite doesn't stall at some point, it just means you aren't able to tilt it enough.

The warrior, maniac and vector do not stall. All are new foils. The psycho can stall if you power it up enough, the X2 can stall, the airblast can stall, the mach1 can stall... All are high performance kites which demand a good rider.

Best regards,

Marc
GoExtreme.dk

[mmunzer]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mmunzer on 2002-10-02 15:43 ]</font>

[mmunzer]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mmunzer on 2002-10-02 15:42 ]</font>