Photo credit: Kitegarage.de

For a kite that has already been out for a number of years and already been covered by some of the best out there why would I need to add more to what’s already out there ?

Quite simple, I have one, I like it and I want to share it, and there are still some that need to know even more about this kite.

First off the Cosmic, for us State side folks, is not cheap.  Easily going over 4 Benjamins and then the wait for it to come is a very daunting endeavor for those who don’t have the resources to give it a spin before they choose to buy it.

For the $450-ish investment the owner will receive a very, and I mean very well made kite.  Everything is well thought out and consistent, and at the same time keeps the tinkerer happy from totally messing up a great package.  One of the things I have found, though may be totally benign, is the addition of dacron tape on the leading edge where the yo-yo stops are located.  The nose is very well trimmed and there is a lot of attention put in the nose pinch that allows for no snags.  Another interesting and effective bit is Kitehouse’s use of flat fishing weights.  They are very low profile and slide into a pocket at the end of the spine.  No need for any fancy slidy contraption to attach weights, and no having to slide barrels through a velcro tunnel.  Removal is simple with a pull of the attached tampon string out of the gap.

I do have beefs with it though.  If you are not paying attention, the weights can be easily slide into the wrong pocket where it will fall out and then be lost forever.  I personally am a fan of the Blue Moon weight kit because the incremental values and simplicity, and because I don’t have to utilize my upper spreader to shove the weight all the way in to the spine pocket and don’t get much pleasure over pulling the attached tampon string, but…

…Ironically the supplied weight(s) cover most of your needs, so there really isn’t need for weight swapping excessively in attempts to change some flight characteristics, and if you really have to you can easily add a BMK kit to supplement.

The yo yo stops for the first version consist of split coolant hose.  Why they went this direction I really don’t know, but they work, and the more recent incarnations use the R-Sky stops, so who really cares here.  It’s still a well made kite and I’m really not going into the bulk of it for I am very happy with mine.  Windrange is very good on this kite. 3-16 is about right, with the bridle adjust ability remaining effective and allowing for a good day.

The bridle is a standard turbo with a good amount (lots of knots™) of adjustment.  If fooled with enough you can get some redundancy, but there is an aspect of where the bridle really shines.  Though perhaps an obvious statement, for some, the adjustment allows the flier to tune the kite to their input style and conditions, but not lose flight characteristics with tricks.  Everything from pull to input strength is there, and the beautiful cohesion between a tinker here and noticeable result there is neither drastic, nor a time vampire in regards to endless knot sliding, nor are there any huge trade offs.  In my opinion it is very personable and gives the flier a great deal of satisfaction.

First flight was a dream. Since the Cosmic has already been out for a while I already had preconceived notions and they were all realized immediately.  Yes there is a flare to fade dead spot, and yes you can get around it, and no it’s not by changing the bridle.  Axel based spins are the kite’s forte.  Very late 540’s, extremely quick mid window slot machines and give away taz machines were the theme on the first flight.

The Cosmic also has very nice backspins that can get flat and can be reversed with almost no effort.  Lazy susan spins are not as pretty and take more attention in the mutli realm, but you get very good cyniques out of the gate.  Be aware that along with the dead spot, the Cosmic loves to get on its back and stay there.  For me this is the largest detriment to the kite.  Insanes are uneven and take some tweaking and can be missed leading to a very frightening Klingon Death Spin™ and “Oh god it’s only a 6mm LE!” moment.

Back on praises it has a very quick and clean rollup with wobble free wrapped flight and a very accessible yo fade which will catch you off guard while the first flier is mucking about the dead spot.  The nose forward stuff like the crazy copter is easy in less than 10mph, and remains accessible, and most importantly worth it, up to 12mph.  The comet is very clean without any rolliness unless told to.  Jacobs ladders are easily accessible after a few minutes.

Precision flying is interesting with this kite.  There is good feedback and with some adjustment to the lower outhaul can allow one to tune their kite with their arm movements.  Though at first it feels snappy and nimble I have found that it’s not as “point and squirt” as the benchmark.  It has a spring in its step, but sometimes there’s an “I don’t wanna” response when asked to lock into the line.  The Cosmic also does not benefit much from leech line loosening.  In fact with the leech line undone I swear the sail was screaming during comets in higher wind.  It really just felt loose like instead of deflating the tires for traction I more like loosened up the lugnuts.  In time I was cutting figures to my hearts content.

All in all the trade-offs are far outweighed, and the Cosmic will provide a very refreshing experience.  I intentionally kept specific references to a minimum, but the Cosmic is truly a change of pace that will not disappoint and has been the answer for those who want something different on the comp and freestyle disciplines.

-Britt

It is essentially a scaled down (I wonder if it’s x0.909 a la SkyMax), heavily framed Cosmic TC Ghost with a few bits of colour. It shares the same funky sail material and even has the same lightweight LE tunnel material which, given that it sports Aerostuff Gold S lower spreaders, seems an odd match up. A super light sail and build combined with a hard-as-nails frame – curious.

Now these LE cutouts look a bit suspect to me on an SUL like the Ghost. On a standard weight kite intended to be hammered about madly… they look misguided.  And while it’s an exceptionally trivial point, for a kite commanding a £260 price tag I don’t expect to see any building faults like a misapplied stick on reinforcement beneath a yoyo stopper.

Considerably less trivial is the sail tension. The sail is drum tight everywhere but at the inner standoffs the sail practically screams. I really don’t like the look of these in terms of longevity. I’ve taken a close look and, frankly, the sail looks stretched already with the inboard straight seams looking distorted even when the kite is disassembled. It’s been a long time since I’ve worried about putting a kite together and taking it apart (probably the Prism Illusion was the last) but this concerns me.

I was thinking about this whilst at work. I concluded that Kitehouse were too good to make such a schoolboy error that We would have flayed, for example, Prism for making.

They put the standoffs in the wrong way around on the right side of the kite . There’s only 1cm difference and I’m a bit sick at myself for not noticing it (shows what a delicate feel on the lines I have) but I once I swapped them around the tension is better. I still reckon that the sail has suffered because of this though but I’m not sure if it’s really up to it anyway.

Frankly… disappointing doesn’t quite cover it for a £260 kite.

Now as far as I’m concerned the money this kite cost was spent several years ago and on other kites so I take a moderately relaxed view on this at the moment. If I had had to reach into my own pocket and pull out new funds then I’d be far less sanguine.

But let’s give it a a whirl anyway….

Bryan has described it as “quite simply brilliant” and if you’re in the mood, he’s spot on. That mood might be more easily entered if you’ve recently necked a Red Bull or three. This is one fast kite. You can provoke (or demand) multiple rotations in any plane with a single input. The only kite that exceeds it in pull forward yoyos is the parallel universe Element.

That said if you do wish to move it to another place in the sky from where it is you’re better off Backspinning it over there anyway. As delivered it had heroic oversteer, bordering on the design fault. I’ve ended up with the bridle set as wide as it can go and it’ll still spin within its own wingspan. This is a trick kite; so trick it and stop faffing about with “figures”.

As some other people have noted it might well have been better fitted with Rollbars as it yoyos insanely well. The stoppers do work fine but the extra security that ‘bars would have offered might have been welcome.

That said I enjoy the kite so much that I am going to try to keep it airworthy as long as I can. A difficult kite not to enjoy the experience of but ownership might come with a heartache or two.

Well I’ve been putting the hours in on this kite. Much like my experience with the Element I found Tab A and located Slot B but had a bugger of a time getting them together on a regular basis. But when I did very nice indeed.

You don’t so much pop and yank the lines as simply ping them back at the appropriate moment and then get out of the way. Very small and quick movements. When the wind gods smiled (or more likely were looking the other way) this little bugger was about as much fun as I can imagine ever wanting from a trick kite. Epic and lovely. Yes, the FlicFlac is a bit… curious… but just work around it. There are plenty of options available.

And then the wind would change microscopically and…. it didn’t fall apart so much as wander off . The various tabs ‘n’ slots suddenly didn’t fit and it was all very disjointed. If ever a kite presented a more compelling case for moving to the coast then I’ve not come across it.

I think I can offer a reason why it behaves this way: mental stiff frame combined with a drum tight sail means it’s very responsive to the wind. A little change in the wind speed and you need to make a different input for your flying. Unless you have a divine touch on the lines (and I don’t) then variable winds just mess things up. At one point I had trouble getting Fractured Axels into a Fade to work at all and that’s really pretty basic.

So who is this kite for ? What is it meant to be ?

Frankly… I dunno. The choice of materials is truly surreal. I simply cannot see these beasts reaching a ripe old age. They beg to be flown in a way that is almost certainly going to damage them. It’s a bloody entertaining ride, I just don’t expect it to be an especially long one. The same kite with an Icarex sail and some beefed up (not slimmed down) reinforcement makes a lot more sense to me.

Do I like the kite ? At times I frickin’ love it. When the stars align it goes to 11 and proceeds directly towards 12. I can live with the crappiness as long as I get some of the good stuff now and then. That’s not to say it can’t be unbelievably frustrating.
Is it worth £260 ? Ooooh. Difficult. In many respects; no, not by a long shot. In others; yeah, why not ? Can’t take it with you.
Could it be better ? Yes. Ditch the Ghost material, stick with Nitro LSs, fit rollbars as standard, drop the price. That would be a borderline essential purchase.

Continuing kudos to the FA Shop for making this sort of highly specialised toy available.

Mike.

The latest addition to the Cosmic TC range… It’s a small one, somewhere around 91% the size of the full size version! 2.25M wingspan.

The CTC has been really quite successful as a competition kite. Pretty good precision coupled with a comprehensive trick repertoire and a degree of presence in the sky make it stand out as a top choice for competitive fliers.

So, a smaller version – Where’s the sense in that? What’s it for?

First off, this is a pretty expensive small kite, 319 Euro for an Icone version, 349 Euro for one with Aerostuff spreaders. Of course, the craftsmanship is superb, what with it being made by Kitehouse and all, and the materials used are top end stuff. Structil Highmod and Avia sticks supporting the light weight high fangled sail material that now comes in red and blue as well as white (the stuff that the Ghost version as made from) apparently, so you can have a white one with red stripes, or a white one with blue stripes – no customs (Hmmph ). Design features include covered leading edges, tensioning for the trailing edge decent yo-yo stops and a bit of weighting round and about. The nose construction, stitching and general build quality is great, so I suppose the hefty price tag is just about justifiable so long as it’s as sublime to play with as the full size version.

Let’s see…

The stated wind range is mightily impressive at 1-5 BFT (about 2 – 20 mph). I’d say though that the XS doesn’t really start flying on it’s own until about 4 mph, and much over 12 – 14 mph and it’s so stupid fast through the air that you’d be needing ‘go faster’ striped gloves to keep up with it. 6 – 10 mph though, and there’s enough feel on the lines to let you know what’s going on, and easily held stalls to let you trick and freestyle away to your hearts content.

Everything happens just that bit quicker, and with lesser inputs than the bigger TC. It’s really smooth with delicate commands, but manic when you really tell it what to do. This thing can be thrashed around at lightning pace, and yet tricks and freestyle combos are really accurate and defined once the timing is under control. The balance is fantastic with very little over-steer, solid tracking and pretty much all of the current whirly, whizzy, wrappy stuff perfectly accessible along with really controlled ‘Old Skool’ capability.

It is, quite simply brilliant.

To answer the question – ‘What’s it for?’ – ‘tis just a trick kite. For flicking about in a style and fashion to match your mood. I couldn’t honestly say it’s a good competition kite, other than maybe Virtual Freestyle or Head to Head Trick-Out type stuff, there’s not enough presence to make it a good ‘show’ kite and it’s a bit too tricky / twitchy for a good ballet. Just for fun then – Ah yes, and what fun! It’s not so much ‘smooth and flowing’ like some freestylers with a curve to the leading edge, more ‘Spiky Death Machine’ but it all hangs together really nicely. Sweet.

A note of caution – If the dead spot in the flare caused issues on the full size CTC, the same issues are here – well worth working around, but there none-the-less. I’ve also got a slight issue with the sail material. It is gorgeous stuff to be sure, and on the SUL ‘Ghost’ works beautifully. This however, is a ‘more or less’ standard weight kite, and it’s a bit, ermmm… delicate. Mine had sail damage after flying over some ‘slightly spiky’ grass and had to be patched up a bit. Nothing serious at all, but maybe not quite as robust as PC31.

OK, all’s well and good and this’ll be a go-to trick fest for a while yet. It’s not going to suit everyone, but if you liked the CTC range, and can keep up with the pace – the CTC XS is absolutely awesome.

Bryan