matzh wrote:Enyone got some experience with the GIN eskimo(13m) foil kite in light winds?
3) Never heard of the GIN
Ever heard of F-one Diablo? The kite is actually designed by GIN. Inventors of many things in paragliding world I think. Or did you edt mean that never heard comment about Eskimo?
About Eskimo, 13m sounds a bit smallish for light wind (I consider light wind sub 8 knots) kite. From web page it looks to be open cell foil kite which are not as good in light winds than closed cells because open cells usually are not as good in keeping their form for optimal flight. So I've witnessed that 5m Frenzy did not get airborne where two of us were perfectly flying closed cells.
So if Eskimo is a cheap bargain why not get it or atleast try to demo it. But for better expected low wind performance you should look for closed cell foil kites (IMO).
kitejumping wrote:Just take your existing setup up there. LEIs are easier to kiteloop compared to a high ar foil, and you will be doing lots of kiteloops if you want to climb a lot of vert.
What if you want to freeride down without a kite and then climb up again? Then how about packing kite down on tight spot on top of mountain with high winds? For example Peak3 when released to safety will naturally stop flying and "compress" leading edge and you can stand still and reel the kite in.
I guess if you wanted to take a different route down through trees, but in general parking the kite at the edge of the window and learning to ride down flying it without even having to look at your kite is way easier than trying to pack it up in deep powder and then unpack it again at the bottom every time. Park and ride is easier with a LEI vs a foil unless you have lots of experience riding foils. I exclusively fly foils but have been for years so I do it without thinking, tried teaching someone the other day and I realized how much more complicated they can be to fly vs an LEI. The lightwind ability and performance of a newer foil (especially the ones with stiffeners on the leading edge) is unmatched by anything in the LEI world. Working a big kite (sonic 18m) on hardpack yesterday I went over 20mph after the wind died when there wasn't even enough wind for the lightwind specific LEI kites to launch, the only other kite in the air was an ozone ultralight. The dacron / bladder on the leading edge and lack of efficiency on LEI's mean that the low end will never match a newer race foil due to the weight of the kite. If you wanted to get a new kite anyway, the peak 3 would be an excellent choice for snow kiting.
to complete this old post, some comparison for light wind jumps and rotations with both big LEI and big foilkites ; both have their pro and cons and allow for nice rotations in around 8-9 knots with some significant kite area.
On hard surface or with hf foil kite starts to be useful earlier, you can jump decently in lower wind. You also go upwind to much higher angle.
With twin tip if there is not enough wind foil kite will not get speed up and can actually be worse or at least more difficult than big LEI kite which has more grunt, more pull immediately. But if foil kite is huge, 18-23m it will pull harder than any LEI but it is also much slower and more difficult to use for small tricks like transition jumps, loops etc. 18m LEI loops much faster than 15m high aspect foil kite