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Tethis 4.4 (Advance Kites)

Well-built performance for the buggy

The Swiss company, Advance, has been well known as a Parapont specialist for a few years and is now launching a new range of traction kites under the name Advance Kites. Their in-house designer, Robert Graham has already had experience with kite design as he was responsible for the Quadrifoil Competition series. The experience he gained helped with the development of the new Advance series. The range consists of four models ranging in size from 1.6 to a massive 7 metres.

CONSTRUCTION
The Tethis is a relatively low aspect foil with a straight leading edge and a lightly curved trailing edge shape. The polyester sail was very well finished and featured Mylar reinforcements on the leading and trailing edges. The air intakes are only open on every other cell and are placed well down the leading edge resulting in a very high-pressure sail.

FLIGHT TEST
Although the kite will fly in as little as 6mph of wind, the Tethis starts to really pull from about 12 to 15mph. We found that the kite responds best with pre-dominantly two line control with the brake lines used to correct the trajectory.

Once the kite gets up to speed we found that the "turbo" kicked in and power increased rapidly. In light winds the kite needed to be moved around constantly but it is responsive and manages this easily. When gybing in the buggy, care was needed to prevent the kite deflating. When this happened, the kite would fold up and was difficult to recover.

With a little more wind and kite speed, tacking was a lot easier and the kite would change direction and get going again without any dead time. The kite's upwind performance was among the best of its type. In stronger wind, the Tethis was easier to control and didn't lose pressure but moved about a little in the window. It was able to ride gusts without the same violent reaction of the Quadrifoil C2 and was also less likely to deflate and fold up at the edge.

Going downwind or three quarters downwind, the kite did need to be maneuvered around to prevent it from deflating, but the speeds attainable were impressive.

CONCLUSION
The design of the Tethis allows it to attain very high speeds (almost three times wind speed), but it must be remembered that it is a competition kite that demands vigilance on the part of the pilot.

It is a kite that revels when powered up and can deliver high speeds and immense pull.