Leaderboard

Sorry for the slightly click baity title. It's better than A noob's review of Veraton I guess 😜. I asked riffclown to make this to replace my lost Rev 2, and while it is a 72" Hadzicki style wing, it's not a direct copy of the Rev 2 nor was it intended to be. I will be comparing Veraton to my Rev 2 however. Appearance: This is the perspective style design similar to riffclown's #21-24 and #74. It might not be for everyone, but I really like it a lot. It's appearance in the sky is mesmerizing. Onlookers watching the kite tend to go into this trance like state. Especially if I say something like "look deeply into the kite! or "Are you feeling sleepy? YOU ARE GETTING VERY SLEEPY!!"😉. Build Quality: I tend to buy factory made kites with the rational that you can often buy 2 factory made kites for the price of one boutique handmade kite. I have flown such kites and it's pretty obvious why people buy them. I would put Veraton into this later category. The stitching is high quality and there's many improvements over the original Rev 2. Reinforced leading edge, T-connectors for the top vertical spars, heavily reinforced bottom area of verticals spars, triple stitched trailing edge, are among the many improvements/features. Performance: This kite is quite fast when the wind picks up. It definitely will go to 11. Inputs seem more direct and precise compared to the Rev 2. Inverted side slides are very easy across the the whole window. Reverse flight is there, but I need to fine tune the brakes a little. The wind has been poor at Shoreline, so this so far is only based on 1 hour flown in light to moderate wind with occasional gusts. Tricks: This is an axel machine. Tug too hard and you get double axels. Need more time flying to access but I'm not really that great at tricks. My initial assessment on a limited amount of flight time is very favorable and I'm very pleased so far. I may add more information and videos when the wind picks up.

I still sleeve everything. I have yet to experience a situation where that made a difference I noticed. I do use some very small sleeving though. I pull the core from 100# bridle line which leaves a nice sleeve to use.

I think for my first line set I will stick with sleeving. That seems to be the most common.

Flip each handle once so the flying line supports the brake line about halfway out. Or just fly with one twist for the whole lineset. The intent is to let the flying lines support the weight and drag of the brake lines which generally are not as tight. Otherwise the wind can catch a brake line and apply inputs which you did not provide.

One point, Would recommend flying with a single twist on each side. otherwise wind resistance give you a ton of brake drag. A 1000ft spool of LPG or Skybond gives you a nice quad set of 250-ish. Will be a feat to get equalized the first time or two. It is both relaxing and addicting to fly on the long lines.

Both kite types work best when lines are equal length, but there's a major difference. Dual line kites can have a line stretch several inches and still fly great. Quad line handles you can adjust the length slightly with leader lines but pilots will often adjust knots when the lines have stretched even a half inch, some people prefer even less difference in the four lines, being as close to equal as possible. Splicing the line, or sewing the loop firmly in place which is sometimes done, are permanent actions that do not let you untie and re-tie as lines naturally stretch with use. Those can work with duals but are rare with quads. Sleeves reduce the weakening that happens at knot points and also make it easier to untie without damaging the line braid.