HQ Beamer II 3.6M

OK decided that I should finally contribute! I bought my gear in May last year so am writing this from the point of view of somebody who has used it a bit.

A bit about me first. I got into kiting when I was very young with the obligatory single line kites, moving through delta stunt kites in my teens. I flirted with the idea of kite surfing but after visiting some kite stores was shocked at the prices of starter kit and not living near the sea made it hard to justify. That was until I discovered Kite landboarding!

Any I did my research, and went to speak to my local kiteshop Tradewind in Reading. My modest budget of £300 was fairly tight but for that I got a 3.6 Beamer, helmet and MBS Core 8 board. this review is about the kite though so I will concentrate on that.

I do remember vividly seeing the kite for the first time when the guy opened it out for me in the shop. Errrr GULP! It's huge! Well it was to me bearing in mind I had only seen delta wings close up before this.

Fast forward to later that evening and it's time for first flight and proper investigation of what I had bought. I've heard so much bad stuff about the bag, but I carried it around Reading for 3 hours after I bought the kite (dragging the board too!) and it was comfortable and did not fall apart. It has loads of storage and I think it looks cool.

The bag also contained a groundstake in holder, that can be attached to your belt. I find this extremely useful as a boarder, and the stake is strong and very quick to deploy. Again I have heard so much bad rep about the handles, but i have never had a problem. Admittedly I have not flown with anything other than HQ handles, but I find that the wind is either so light that you don't notice the quality of the handles, or blowing a gale and you have other things on your mind. the kite also come with good documentation, although mine did not have the DVD.

Anyway, I setup the kite as per instructions, attached lines, donned kite killers, gave the kite a tug and up it went. There was not much wind but i could fly it, and I could tell that it was going to pull a lot when the wind filled in. So good first impression, a lot of pull..Awesome!

I flew the kite just about every time I could over the coming months, living only 5 minutes walk from Upton Court in Slough, meant that I could get out flying on every nice evening.

The kite is powerful! I know it's a beginner kite but it has enough grunt to heft me around and I weigh over 15 stone. I have had air once or twice but only ever a foot or so and never intentionally. great for scudding though! It is fast through the air, faster than I was expecting and responds well to brake input at the edges of the wind window. It is quite easy to overfly it if you have slack brakes in high wind but I fly with quite a lot of brake anyway so I don't personally have a problem.

As stated I use the kite for traction on my landboard. It works very well once you get the hang of it. it can get you going fairly fast, much faster than running speed and definitely fast enough to scare me! I found that the kite does not like lumpy winds much, and not the most stable in the sky.

I said before that it is a beginners kite, but any kite with this much Oomph must be treated with respect. I've had my fair share of face plants, and the kite killers work very well! I even broke my hand on one, so that illustrates how much respect you must show this kite.

Main Good points:

Good pullResonable build quality, and robust (this kite has been crashed, me being a beginner, but there is not a mark on it)Good package, all you need to get flying, except helmet and padsExcellant value for money. In terms of fun per pound this has easily been my best purchase, ever!

Main Bad points:

Can be twitchy in lumpy wind

I can't think of too many more major points. There are things to be improved, but this is not a top-of-the-range kite (even for HQ) but for the money represents amazing value for money. I would even say that if you rated a kite on the amount of fun it gave you against finacial outlay, then this would beat many kites from high end manufacturs hands down. Of course you can spend a lot more on a beginners kite, but can you justify the significant extra outlay when this does the job? I couldn't which is why I am buying another HQ kite this year, which says it all really.

By : panthro