U-Turn Helium with SPS3 system

This is just my initial thoughts on the Helium seeing as I got the U-Turn SPS depower setup from Bill this very morning.

The Helium 6.8 is typical U-Turn in most ways. Excellent build quality as with the Oxigens. It's made from 44gsm ripstop so not as light or water resistant as the Oxi Pros but then again you pay the premium for the very top end materials. On handles and on an Ozone 65cm line bar I'd found the Helium to be soooo very stable and virtually luff proof. No shocks, no nasty suprises just lots and lots of power. It turned quite slowly but then again it is a low aspect 6.8m kite. No real lift to speak of so just a big powerful traction engine really.

Given this I felt that on the fixed bridle it was decent but no more than that so off I went to check out the depower options. Basically there seemed to be 3 choices. The Pegas WingWarp (tried it and didn't like it much), the UDS system that apprently works well and then the U-Turn SPS system which many people have been waiting for. My understanding was that the SPS works in a similar way to the UDS but with lighter components (which must be of benefit on any kite!). I decided to wait for the SPS to be released this year and finally got my hands on one of the pre-production setups with the full production starting 'soon'.

I am told there are two versions of the SPS system, a 3 pulley and a 4 pulley system. The 3 pulley is for lower aspect ratio kites such as the Helium whilst the 4 is more suited to higher aspects found on kites such as the Oxigen and Butane. I have the 3 pulley system and Bill said it may be ok my Oxigen Pro 5m but given the size of my depower bar (65cm) it may be a bit lively and hard to keep from stalling.

Setup couldn't have been easier to be honest. Bill sent the SPS bridles already setup to suit the Helium so all I had to do was attach everything as per the simple instructions he e-mailed to me. All my dealings with Bill have been excellent so I can't praise the guy enough.

Onto the first flight then...

It was a grey, slightly damp day with a breeze between 8-13mph so I thought it'd be ideal to give the Helium a go. Previously I had the Pegas WingWarp system on this kite but had found that I didn't really like the way it worked. Using WingWarp it lacked feel and I didn't really notice much depower range. Basically the kite wasn't much fun to fly.

With the SPS on I found just the opposite. I don't have experiance of any other depower kites so cannot draw comparisons but I am really happy with what I have now. The kite flew very cleanly up from the deck with oodles of pull but delived in a very nice smooth way. In total contrast to the WingWarp I straight away could see what a difference the SPS makes to the big Helium. It's turn rate was vastly improved and the ability to give subtle inputs for immediate repsonse was lovely. I could also straight away feel the kites potential for a nice bit of jumping and lo away we went! Everything happened at a nice pace too. In no way was it aggressive but neither was it lethargic, the ideal word is smooth, actually very smooth!

Speed through the window was fine adn on the board I found I was able to get the kite in the areas I wanted without bother.

Overall (as you may have guessed) I am really pleased with the setup and can't wait to get my skills up to speed with the depower. As I have mentioned I can't draw comparisons with any other depowerable foils, one thing I should make clear though is that in no way felt like an add-on. U-Turn have said for ages that their kites are designed for depower to be added if desired and I now have the proof.

Happy happy happy.

By : dough_boy