I had a chance last week to to try WindWing's new Batwing last week on Marco Island, FL.

The WindWing team was in Florida last week. My local spot is the Gorge so it was funny to travel 2000 miles to find only other Gorge locals and no Florida locals on the scene. I guess that 60 deg 9m wind scared them all away!?!?

Here are my impressions. I must admit that I was pretty tired after riding 5 hours straight on a 15M '07 Waroo and switching later to 9M '06 Waroo. Given this I will give you my impression in comparison to a 9M '06 Waroo.

Construction/looks- The 9m kite looks well made and that fancy kevlar clear stuff looks cool. I bet you might even get some respect from the local windsurf crowd since material is from my understanding the same used on those formula one windsurf quivers. I must admit that in the air the clear sections on the trailing edge made a nice visual in the air.

Riding- I managed to tweak my knee earlier in the day so I did not attempt any meaningful jumps. The wind was clean and perfect for my 9m Waroo. The 9m Batwing was able to go upwind better in the same wind. As many know the Waroo will often flap a little in the wind and lurch in gusts. The Batwing in comparison was very solid and I could tell had a bit better grunt during transitions and downloops. Turning speed was a bit slower than the Waroo and it turned a more differently (Can't quite describe it well).

I can't comment on the low end or how it handles funky wind or heavy gusts. I will tell you that in comparison to my Waroo, the ride was more stable, "refined" and efficient (upwindability).

The Windwing crew were real friendly and I wish them best on their new creation.

cheers,

robin

Sounds like an interesting demo... would have liked to have learned more about the kite. As for the locals, we know where to go on different wind directions and Marco Island isnt the spot on NW winds. To bad the WW team didnt come up to Naples where all of the Florida locals were riding. Solid day of riding with amazing winds. Glad you had a good sesh on Marco...

Yeah we actually drove by Napels and missed the site and ended up at Tiger Tail. Great secluded spot though, ocean on one side and flat water only 10 yards on the other side.

Robin, your gray/pink kite in the background...thanks for the review. We tried to get back up there the next day but ended up at Ft. Pierce. Had a great rest of the weekâ€â€

Here's a snowkite session on the Batwing 12 taken at the Kitestorm in Vermont. Wind is in the 10 - 15 mph range. Easy to set up. Extremely stable, lots of grunt, turns well,and very good relaunch. Will post more with 2nd session vid which was in much lighter air.

http://www.kiteforum.tv/index.php?optio ... 18&Itemid=

I saw it fly by, looked like it wanted to fly backwards more than forwards. The Rampage two looked much better. Not to mention the flapping bat matiral????

The video was taken on Saturday of Kitestorm and was it's very first flight as I had received it from China literally the night before. If you watch the video there is no backwards flying. There were times it was intentionally backwards flown to try and get some still shots in that awesome sunset.

If you saw it fly on Sunday, the rider was on it for the first time. He did stall it out a couple times in the turns but take into account it was a 12, how light the wind was and the only other kites that I recall seeing out were big foils and a 16 and 14. Nobody was doing anything special. Even though the rider was on it for the first time, I'd say his performance was pretty impressive as he posted a GPS speed of 20 mph. Once he kept it moving by downlooping it, his performance seemed pretty close to the huge Flysurfers that were out.

Here are a few shots and video's from our Florida trip.
http://www.windwing.com/dnn/SPECIALEVEN ... fault.aspx
Windwing is heading to the Snow kite Masters in Utah and will be posting more when we return.
Jonathon
Windwing shop manager/ R&D

Cool!...Can't wait to fly one.

Nice videos from Florida. I'm envious that you guys were riding on unfrozen water. Great jumps on the 9. After seeing the clip, I wish I had waited to get the 15. What were the settings on the 15 in that wind? Looking forward to seeing footage from UT.