home
welcome
kite reviews
kiting terminology
coping with wind
Beaufort wind scale
kiting dangers
UK kite stores
US kite stores
UK Festivals
kite fest photos
design & plans

Buggying
how to buggy
buggy: first lesson
buggy tricks guide
buggy photos
tandem buggying
kite buggy e-list

Power Kiting
kite jumping
kite surfing
kite skiing

Flexifoils
stacking Flexis
Flexi launching
spar maintenance

Misc
kiting links
KiteAstrophy
kite fest photos
the kite bag
sky surfer
sanibel 18
holder 14
aquaria
guitars
about me

Trick Speed XO (Sieger's Vligers)

DESIGN/CONSTRUCTION
The Trick Speed has a fairly flat sail when assembled. with more depth outboard near the wing-tip pocket held with the aid of a curved GRP tensioner. The tail is full with little cut away. Construction quality and finish are good, but the reinforcements seem a bit over the top. On the sail, the trailing edge is held very tight with breaks in the profile at each standoff reinforcement. The air flow therefore seems a little bizarre. On the back of the trailing edge there is spiral stitching due to the straight cut of the cloth. All the hardware comes from HQ and the frame in Prince carbon Kevlar is excellent for this type of kite.

FLIGHT QUALITY
The Trick Speed XO was not very stable in straight line flight. Its turns were not very sharp and it didn't spin all that tightly. It has trouble recovering from a turn and had quite a bit of oversteer. All this may sound fairly bad but in freestyle, the Trick Speed showed surprising potential...

FREESTYLE
First the stop. Without moving forward too much the Trick Speed was glued to the sky and only needed a little balancing to keep it stable and still. When restarting the kite, it tended to drop its nose slightly. Standard, rolling and double axels posed no problem. The kite would recover well from a messed up trick. The more experienced pilot got it to cascade but had to take care in keeping it under control. The beginner would need to take a little more time on this figure; the same for the pancake. But the yo-yo is very easy. With the coin toss, care had to be taken to stop the kite pulling out of the maneuver too quickly. On the flat spin and 540 it spins very quickly. heightening the grace of the figure.

VERDICT
The Trick Speed XO is a pure freestyler. It is easy to trick and will do almost anything asked of it, but care was needed to maintain it at all times. It has a full program of moves which offers potential even to an experienced pilot. Excellent price to quality ratio.