HQ Obsession
Having seen other fliers 'flicking' their kites around the sky in a very impressive way I decided that I wanted to learn dual line trick flying as well. The HQ Obsession appeared to be a good (and not too expensive) all round trick kite to start with. It is capable of 'straight' (or 'precision') flying, but is really the most happy doing the more advanced tricks - axels, fades, etc. Not that I can do them all of course - I find the trick flying rather difficult to do but as the idea was to learn it's OK!
The Obsession has a pleasing shape and design - on the ground it looks a bit boring - white, with grey panels around the spine with just the wing tips having any colour, but I find in the sky the Obsession is nice to look at & performs well. It's fairly well constructed in Ventex (HQ's version of Icarex fabric) and pultruded 6mm carbon spars (with 4mm carbon for the wing tips).
Purchased: May 2002
Width : 190 cm Height : 102 cm Depth : 26 cm Weight : 252 g
Spars : 6mm Carbon Sail : Ventex
Wind Range : Medium
Cost : £84.95 kite + lines + handles. However now superceeded by the Obession 2.
Excellent trick stunt kite - plenty to learn and to keep doing. Not something you are likely to grow out of in a hurry - but you can end up replacing spars most flying sessions if you try to be too radical, too soon.
I still quite like this kite - each time I think I might sell it on I give it a 'last' fly and find I get on better with it than I did before. To me it has a very different feel from the other dual line kites I own. I may prefer the 'feel' of the Trident or Gemini but when I come back to the Obsession I find that I can do one or two things that I can't do with the others. And so it remains in my kite bag! I still find that it's way to easy to breaks spars - I have suffered more breakages on this kite than any other I think (KiteJan 11/10/07)