KiteJan

Another strange Quad line kite! This was spotted for sale on the Flexifoil forums at a reasonable cost - and as it was somewhat different (i.e. strange) I wanted to give it a go. The Freevol LX is (or so I'm led to believe) a French design from around 1999 and is no longer in production.

The 4 sails, or blades, rotate independently - pull back on the top of a handle the top blade is pulled towards you, the bottom blade away from you - it's very obvious watching it! All done from a very complicated bridle arrangement. Flight direction is simply (yeah right!) controlled by the angle of each of the blades.

Purchased: August 2004

Details

Good Things

• Very very nice design.
• Extremely controllable - flies in any direction equally well.
• Fast!
• Appears to be very precise.
• Spins are very fast and on the spot.

Bad Things

• Can be confusing working out which way is 'up' (especially after one of it's fast spins!)
• Not too happy with gusty winds.
• A somewhat limited wind range, it certainly needs a fair breeze to get it air born, but too much and it is uncontrollable.
• The dive-stop manoeuvre doesn't seem to work as well as with other quad line kites.
• Putting it away on a windy field makes the Synergy Deca look easy (all that bridle line).

Final Thoughts

A very nice kite - more controllable than the Papillon, especially in sideways flight, but does struggle with gusty winds. If a gust gets behind a blade knocks it forward then there is a tendency for the whole kite to fall face down. It doesn't do Revolution style things - the spin is to the Freevol as the dive-stop is to the Revolution.

This is one of those kites that it just pure enjoyment to fly - it's great to fly at festival - or simply when you want to fly something slightly different.