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Obsession II (HQ)

Obsession II, the return of the successful freestyle charmer

Christoph Fokken has just redesigned the same Obsession that he created about two yearn ago. An interesting and courageous step on the part a designer, in taking it upon himself to review his original, which was already pretty good.

DESIGN CONSTRUCTION
If the general shape does not differ from the first set-up, the principal modifications are in the spine, which is shorter (visible when the kite is landed on its wing tips, the bottom of the spine is 30cm from the ground). The wing tips are curved from the lower spreader connectors, enabling the addition of more depth at the level of the internal stand-off and the curve of the trailing edge of the wing tip to be refined. The trick line starts from the wing tips and attaches to the stand-offs and then passes through the bottom.

It has a turbo bridle. The seams are in three point zig-zag, glued and sewn, and only the trailing
edge - that contains a leech line - is turned over.

Construction quality is good, with a good level of finishing. All fittings are from Tradewinds

FLIGHT TEST
Whatever the wind speed the Obsession is lively and quick, whether it be in trajectory or in the execution of figures.

Although the primary function of the Obsession is radical freestyle, it is stable enough in its tracking and can carry out very good straight lines, exits from corners or loops with very slight oversteering.
All the different variations of the axel are provided with ease and accessibility using the factory settings in a wind between Beaufort 7 and 10mph. An axel that is carried out well towards the rear, showing the back well and the kite turns well around the wing. Half-axel, cascade, double axel, 540 flat spin, all the variations of the axel are carried out with speed and vivacity. The axel rotation is quick, which makes going into a fade and flow into a flic-flac fairly delicate. You need to work to find the best moment to pull on the lines to set the fade in motion and for more ease it is recommended that first of all you do a flat spin, and pull well to make it fade and flow into a flic-flac afterwards It's not easy to retain control for long once the flic-flac is in motion as it always has a tendency to take up flight again very quickly.

Putting it on its back is easy:
you advance both hands and it immediately goes onto its back. It reacts very well to this manoeuvre, for example to slow it down before going into a figure and it is good to familiarise yourself with the different preparatory phases For example in a stop if you don't move both hands forward a little it will not be very clean.

The principal difficulty with the Obsession is to regulate the amount of gesture you make.Too much and up, it's on its back, but on the other hand this also allows you to link moves and discover new variants.

All ground manoeuvres are a real treat.The axel take-off is carried out with great ease, turning well on itself and repositioning itself well on the two tips on exiting. The same for the coin toss where
you pass from one wing to the other.

Although the wing tips are in 4mm carbon rod, they don't rebound for anything. In the coin toss for example, to the contrary they dampen reception.

The lines get hung up on the wing tips on occasion, but they can be easily untangled simply by giving a sharp tug on both lines. An experienced pilot will certainly find precision in flow of limited tricks, due to the Obsession's lively and crazy character. But in opening the incidence it can be slowed and calmed down which will allow tricks to flow better.

Between 10 and 15mph you should not hesitate the lower the incidence setting from 5 to 1cm. In 20mph, we came down again by 2cm, prove that you shouldn't hesitate in varying the settings

CONCLUSION
Freestyle beginners will be in rapture with the nutty and playful character of the Obsession, as with its hesitant actions it will always do something and manage to recover. Less stiff and radical, more supple and playful, it offers itself to a wider audience than its predecessor.