Got one of our typical light Summer thermal days with wind blowing steady
sideshore 10 to 12 on a huge sandy beach in Racine, Wisconsin; perfect day to
test the Y vs. V8 clip and no clip on G2-22. First tried Big Blue without any
clips and 40m lines. One word can summarize the G2-22 without clips in light
wind; a toad. Kite jelly fishes when you turns moving slowly through the air.
The controls feel spongy as the kite without a solid force of air coming in the
vents loses its rigidity and Big Blue becomes a big baby.

Put on a Y-clip about 20m from the kite and found the G2-22 regained some umph.
Had some nice downwinders, but the kite stalled at the bottom of waves. Could
only keep going by waving it horizontally across the sky and reversing board
direction often. With the Y clip Big Blue's performance definitely improved.
In setting up the Big Boy am finding that I need to increase the tension on the
back lines from the setting without clips. Thanks to whoever suggested taking
off the back pigtails and larks heading them to the top lines. This worked
very well for me.

With the wind falling off rigged the G2-22 with the V8 carabineer clip with the
same line setup as with the Y-clip larks heading the back pigtails to the front
kite connections for more abck line tension. Found the performance of Big Blue
HUGELY IMPROVED with the V8 over the Y clip. Turning speed not much
different, but the speed through the window increased substantially with a
corresponding increase in power. With the improved speed the kite performs much
like my old F-16 carrying its higher speed speed through the bottom of turns
without stalling. The V8 turns transformed Big Blue from a mushy toady kite to
a big fast one with the speed of the best tubes in light air.

Rigging the V8 doesn't come without its setup and flying issues. Coming in I
grabbed my board in the surf and lost track of the bar direction. Pulled left
and the kite went right as the bar had twisted; fortunately in light enough
wind that I could spin the bar and make the correction without dumping the kite.
Also setup and take down takes more time with the V8 as you have to pull the
lines through the V8 rings rather than just clipping them with a norm biner or
sister clip. Although the V8 biner works very well, I'm thinking of fastening
two normal biners together to form a figure 8. This well allow for using the
biner clips rather than pulling the lines through the rings for setup and
takedown.

Overall, I'd say the performance of the G2-22 not dramatically better than the
G1-18. G2 has some nice new features like the deflation zipper and extra
interior strapping. Both kites definitely of the "park and ride" variety. They
both go upwind well and give floaty safe jumps. Found both sensitive to rear
line setup pressure and need a good amount for good performance. Both kites
turn like big kites which I would rate as rather slow. However, the clips
transform both kites when underpowered into speedsters through the window
without stalling at the bottom. Without the clips big tubes definitely
outperform the G's (both 1 and 2) in light air. With the clips, and
particularly the V8 if you can deal with the hassles, the big G's become great
fliers to rival any big tube.

Tim






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]