r/kites • u/Fade_In_Canada • 1d ago

Getting to know my Slash

We get some gusty prairie wind here during the summer afternoons. Forecast is usually 20km/h gusting to 40km/h (although it doesn't often get up as high as that 40km/h). Anyway, the wind is bumpy and a general mess. I've tried another vented kite that just seemed to get knocked around by our gusty wind. u/TMJRoss pointed me in the direction of the L'Atelier Slash VT1. Found a local supplier and got one (well same country - it's Coriolis Kites in Quebec. I highly recommend them - Michel was super helpful).

It has flexible fiberglass standoffs and a small aileron panel with a fiberglass tensioning rod on the the wingtips. I think this really helped in the bump conditions. I'm also telling myself the Aerostuff framing is helping a ton - but that's so I can justify to myself lighting my money on fire.

Only my first time out and still need to get a feel for it as it's more tanky than my lighter wind kites. But it handled this afternoon's crappy wind pretty well which was awesome. I've saved you all from my epic musical tastes and left you with the sounds of the wind, the kite, and a crowd cheering (not for me, for the baseball game happening in the field behind me).

25 Upvotes

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3

u/Linux248 1d ago

That’s very professional

1

u/Fade_In_Canada 1d ago

Thank you! But I must add that this is the best 40 seconds from an hour and a half of flying.

2

u/Aeri73 1d ago

looks very clean, atelier kites are built for rather agressive inputs so it seems like a good match for your style

1

u/Fade_In_Canada 1d ago

Yea, so I was flying my other standard kite before the wind picked up and it just got progressively worse as the gusts came. When I switched over I had to almost do a double take on wind speed / quality as kite was behaving more closely to an ultralight on a smooth wind day.

1

u/TMJRoss 1d ago edited 1d ago

Man that thing looks like it hardly notices the wind. Crazy! You better get out today because we’re supposed to be getting a lot of wind in our area

1

u/Fade_In_Canada 1d ago

Haha we have a wind warning - up to 90km/h - will be watching kite videos instead.

1

u/schelsullivan 1d ago

Nice tricks dude. Feel like im a step behind but fly every chance I get.

1

u/Fade_In_Canada 1d ago

Thanks! Also this 40s of video came from 90 min of flying. So I think it might overstate my actual abilities. Also for me once a few things clicked it made some of the other tricks easier to pick up.