Saturday 15 October 2016

Fisch-Fighter!

Being Flying Fish, we have a bit of a soft spot for fish-shaped kites, so when I stumbled across a Fisch-Fighter, made by Rhombus, I couldn't resist it and its cheerful smile ...


It's a small kite, 1.07m wing span. Ripstop sail, thin fibreglass spine and cross-spreader. Plus a funny little ball on its nose! More on that nose later, but how did it fly? First of all, it can be flown as a fighter, on a single line, or on two lines. I opted to flying it as a dual-liner.


To be honest, given how thin the spars were, I expected the kite to be very twitchy and skittish. But lo and behold, my expectations were well exceeded! Of course, it doesn't compare to a full-size sports delta in any way, shape or form, but as long as it had wind pressure on the sail, it was certainly steerable and far less twitchy than I thought it would be.


Back to the little ball on its nose. It could of course simply be there to cushion the effects of a lawn-dart. But I've never seen something like that on any kite, and I reckon there might just be a bit more to it .... When looking for more information on this Fisch-Fighter, I stumbled across a mention of this kite also being sold as part of a set, which includes a ring through which the ball on the nose must be flown ... Thoroughly puzzled, I emailed Rhombus, but never got a reply. I'll keep looking for details on this larger set, and how the nose should go through the ring. If you beat me to it. let me know, ok?