The atom 08 is primarily designed for kitesurfing with a few landboarders using it also, however it also a tremendous buggy kite. I have been lucky enough to get my hands on a 9m, and with some of the nuclear winter winds we have had over the last few months I am rather glad I have a had this in my boot.
On one particular day the wind was not as smooth as it could have been, and the previous few weekends I’d been flying my 4m Blade IV nailing double kite loops and as I had this I fancied a change. On first arrival at the beach it was blowing in the upper 20’s to low 30’s with a few gusts coming through a little bit stronger.
The kite is pretty self explanatory, unwind the lines, pump the kite up & attach the lines to the kite. One thing that has quite often put people off flying LEI’s on land is the launching, well the fact that you often need someone to assist you. While this is the safest way to launch it is possible to solo launch with ease. Once the kite was happily in the air & very nicely powered I got strapped into my buggy.
The first surprise upon heading out onto the beach was how well the Atom 08 was flying in the conditions. Evan though you could quite clearly feel the gusts coming through it was handling these extremely well & barely noticeable.
Being of such a small size I took it easy to start with, not knowing what the kite was all about in these conditions its sometimes best to ere on the side of caution. Within 5-10 minutes of flying the atom 08, it felt as if I had been flying it for an eternity, it was extremely easy to fly and get dialled into and was within in minutes putting it through its paces.
The tide had left 2 hard packed sand patches split by a clay riverbed ideally for jumping. With the atom you can obtain as much speed as you like, swing the kite back and pull the bar in and up you go. Its surprising that for a kite of its size how much hang it generates and the float is second to none allowing you to clear vast amounts of distance in one jump! While you maybe somewhat more downwind than when you took off, it is not a problem, just push the bar out to depower the Atom & kane it upwind.
On days that would be ‘take it easy’ days are now turned into full on ‘freestyle sessions’ with very little limits as to what cannot be achieved. The Atom 08’s quick turning when fully powered or depowered gives you a lot more control over the kite, but also makes some manoeuvres that little bit more interesting. One of these being rotations, you have to make quite small movements or you might land a little but more hot than expected. The one major bonus to this is how well the Atom 08 kiteloops. The kite loops extremely well, with a very smooth constant motion through the wind window and allows you to get a full loop of the kite to land extremely hot and into your next trick.
Through the afternoon the wind dropped to low 20’s but I was too lazy to get another kite out, the Atom 08 9m had lost a lot of its power that it had had, that was to be expected but still kept plenty of performance. It was possible to get some more freestyling in as the kite was not as quick and twitchy.
Pictures By Phin Franklin - Cheers Mate!
Big Thanks to Flexifoil for building such a good high wind kite!
More information on the Atom 08 goto the Flexifoil Product page - Click here
