Prism Illusion
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
Details
Width : - cm Height : - cm Depth : - Weight : - g
Spars : Wrapped Carbon Fibre Sail : Ripstop Nylon
Wind Range : 5-20mph
Cost : Second hand - the nearest equivalent is around £150
Good Things
- Accurate/ precise flight.
- Fairly slow.
- Adjustable stand offs, leach line, and bridle.
- Very high build quality.
Bad Things
- Spars expensive to replace and difficult to come by (special order if you want the official spars).
- Prone to tip wraps (lower leading edge spars protrude quite a way from the sail).
- Not a radical kite - possibly not suitable for the latest tricks?
Final Thoughts
This Illusion has seen some life - I had to so some minor repairs when I first got the kite, and the sail has that 'well used' (i.e. soft) feel - but it still looks and flies well.
I'm finally beginning to like the Illusion Classic - it might be old school to some people - mainly because it is of the old school! I doubt that it's going to find doing the whole range of 21st Century slack line tricks easy, but it wasn't designed for them. Precision flying punctuated with tricks seems to be it's strength. So where does it fit with all the other similar dual lines kites I own? Well it's more trickable than the Flexifoil Fury, and more precise than the Benson Gemini or the HQ Obsession - and certainly is/was a higher class kite that both the Fury and Obsession.