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Lidl Quad
Leaving my local Lidl supermarket a couple of weeks back the "coming next week" poster caught my eye. There appeared to be a kite on it, and not just any kite, but a quad line one. And all for £6.99! Well, I couldn't wait to return the following Monday to purchase it and have a look to see what I could get for my money.
Well you do get a surprising amount - the kite, twin line sets of about 25m on winders, large aluminum quad handles, a bag and some instructions. It's pretty obvious that everything is rather cheap and not especially well constructed, but it's more or less OK. And I have to say that it does fly - although quite a lot of wind is needed for it to be happy.
In flight (which bear in mind is in hilly Sheffield) it eventually performed reasonably well. Solo launching is hard (the instructions do in fact make a point of having a second person to help launch) but possible. I had more problems with the end caps falling off the handles and the spars coming out. At first it wouldn't fly backwards but bringing in the bottom lines to the second knot on the handle's leader line sorted that out.
My impression is of a quite slow, but rather twitchy kite - precision is not something this is going to be good at (but for £6.99 did you really expect otherwise?).
Purchased: July 2008
Details
Details
Width : 150cm Height : 76 cm Depth : n/a Weight : 250 g
Spars : 6mm solid fiberglass Sail : Ripstop Nylon
Wind Range : 3 - 6 beaufort
Cost : New: £6.99 (in 2008)
Good Things
Good Things
- Cheap!
- Complete package (lines, handles, bag).
- Does actually fly!
- Is capable of most of the basic quad line flying things - dive-stop, spins, etc.
- Did I mention cheap?
Bad Things
Bad Things
- The cheapness does show in the build quality....
- Rather small.
- Solid fibreglass spars do make for a heavy (and springy) kite.
- Handles rather large and uncomfortable and have a tendency for bits to drop off.
- Lines very poor quality - long, heavy and stretchy.
- Tendency for the bridles to wrap around the bottom wing tips. Especially noticeable when solo launching it.
- Instruction sheet not exactly helpful in how to set the kite up (it does however have some good advice on tying larks head knots and basic quad line flying).
- Limited wind range (needs a fair amount to get it flying).
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
I bought this just "to see" what it would be like - i.e. is it actually possible to produce a complete quad line kite for under £7? The answer is a "yes" and "no" - yes you do get a kite and yes it does actually fly. However I found it difficult to fly (although in smooth beach winds it would perhaps have been a little easier). So if I (no master,but with 7 years quad flying experience) found it a little bit of a challenge then I do wonder how a beginner (to either kites in general or quad kites in particular) would find it? If this is you please let me know how you get on.
It's unfair to compare this with kites costing twenty times as much - they are in very different leagues, but it does make me wonder who this kite is aimed at. A complete kite novice? Someone with a dual line kite and wants to try Quad line kites? Don't know - it doesn't seem to fit well into either category.
I do think that with some tweaking (such as replacing the fiberglass spars with carbon, replacing the bridle with something a little bit 'nicer', and flying on shorter and lighter lines with standard Revolution handles would result in a much happier experience - but of course you would end up spending far more than the kite was worth in the first place (unless you happen to already have these bits lying around.... ). In the interests of research I intend to do just this, so keep an eye out for my adventures in upgrading the Lidl Quad!
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Links
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