News and Updates:

My early pick as kite of the year, if for no other reason than it seems that no other US manufacturer/distributor is doing any thing in this area this year. The Soul is a somewhat ambitious attempt by Flying Wings to leap in to the "high end" kite market. Known in recent years for the more economy minded flier, Flying Wings has set a minimum advertised price of $250 for the Soul. A price that seems high to some for an Asian built kite. For the record the Soul is being made in Taiwan not China as earlier reported.

The concept is to make this kite in small limited batches under the watchful eye of the designer, Bell Chiu, and compete with the designer and boutique kites using quality components and emphasizing quality of build ... and to deliver the performance the modern slack line, trick flier is looking for.

The bag the kite is packed in speaks this quality commitment. Using the popular diamond pattern material so many are using today Flying Wings goes one better by sewing this material on to a thin, but apparently waterproof material. The bag is black and outlined in a color corresponding to the kites color. In my case the bag has gold trim to match the gold/yellow kite inside. Interesting shape to the bag ... kind of sword-like.

The logo on the top of the bag includes the Chinese symbol for, well, of course ... soul.

The kite is big, just an inch shy of a full eight feet. It fits nicely, at 2.4 meters, between the popular Silver Fox 2.3 and 2.5. Don't confuse it as an upscale Silver Fox though ... the Soul is certainly its own kite. In my hands it is more trick oriented than the Silver Foxes.

The quality of the build is top notch. As I've said elsewhere, better than kite costing a lot more. Sail is Icarex PC 31 and they used APA leading edge fittings. Beyond the use of quality materials the inclusion of several thoughtful features is what I appreciate most on this kite.

First thing i noticed when assembling the kite was that they didn't use those over sized C-clips that most everyone uses. Instead they opted for thin strips of vinyl making them much less prone to catching on and fraying the leading edge cut outs when breaking the kite down
.

Particularly well done is the no snag nose treatment, minimal amount of material used to get the job done! Very nice.

Also nicely done are the stand off fittings. A small tab is sewn on to the kite that the stand off connector is
attached to giving the trailing edge a completely smooth finish. Kite comes with two sets of outer stand offs . One the same length as the inners, the other shorter for a more "floaty trick experience" as Flying Wing puts it. If you want to do that rising turtle that you saw in the videos of the Soul, those would be your choice.

Twin yo-yo stoppers are very noticeable on the leading edge. I was skeptical, but in the brief time I've had on the kite I have yet to fail to catch them, even with my ham handed flying skills.

Kite comes with 5 grams of weight (I measured it at 6 grams, but FW is calling it 5) mounted on a 6mm spine insert. Can't imagine you'd need more, but if you did it would be easy to add.

One of the nice features that i found a bit odd at first (along with those twin yo-yo stoppers) was a small section of plastic tubing on the bridle. It is right where the bridle rubs on the lower spreaders when on its back. Obviously meant to resist bridle wear, I do have to admit it looked unusual, but I have not noticed it during flight.

There are many other interesting features ... reinforcement at the upper spreader on the spine on both the front and back of the sail, covered leading edge fittings and others. But here is the last unusual feature of the kite (at least to me) and one that had to be pointed out. Take a look at the picture of the lower spreaders ...

click on the image so you can really see it. Notice anything odd??? The stamp for the Dynamic DT18's are both facing up. Normally one would be up and the other down. They actually made the spreaders left and right. Of course it makes absolutely no difference in how the kite flies, but it shows (at least to me) what lengths they went to to set this kite apart from others.

I have put a few photo's up on my Flikr account (including some used here). If you've missed them here's the LINK. Kite is available for pre-order (we're expecting our first batch early February) and you can order yours HERE.

Oh wait ... how does it fly? I liked it a lot. If you are looking for radical freestyle at a whole lot less than those Euro-Kites, this might be what you are looking for. I hope to have a short video of me hacking the kite around in the next day or so and I'll post it here.