Prism Illusion

This is the Illusion Classic (or sometimes known as the Illusion 98) which is, as the name implies, the older version of the Illusion. I purchased this second hand, along with the Benson Gemini and Benson Minigem and took me a while to get around to really flying it.

It's framed in Avia tapered spars and mine has a Skyshark spar for the spine (which was added by the previous owner) - so it has a light, strong and expensive frame! It's got an adjustable leach line - although I haven't found the need to do so yet. One of it's features is the adjustable stand offs - you can move the inner stand offs closer to or further away from the spine. This is to help adjust the kite's flight in different wind conditions (closer to the center spine for light wind, further out for higher winds).

So how is it in flight? Well at first I didn't 'click' with it - and it wasn't helped by breaking one of the lower spreaders, followed quickly by breaking it's replacement (which also made a hole in the sail)! Therefore it got left in the kite bag for a while until I felt I had improved with the dual line flying - or more to the point trick/freestyle flying. I was even thinking that is had been a mistake to purchase this one......

However after having it out a few times I have found it is very sweet to fly - precise and fairly slow moving (which is a help for me), but axels and goes into fades nicely (more or less the current limit or my trick flying ability). It's not as playful or as easy to recover from mistakes as the Geminis but has a lower wind range and is more, I don't know, graceful? accurate? Something like that.

Purchased: September 2005