I’ve had two sessions on a 12m GK Lift (2004) that I had the good luck to get hold of on demo. One in the lower end of its range and one in the mid end of the range.
The construction looks solid enough, and I did notice that the struts and main tube had quite a narrow diameter which makes this kite very light, the main strut curls round into the end strut and has three vales one in the middle and one at each tip which are useful for letting out the air as you roll up the kite. The smallest struts have good non return valves and the rest are free flow. I had a bit of trouble pinching the valves but I think this was more down to the very cold weather rather than anything else. The bar and de-power/leash setup are simple but very effective, and are of the standard sliding front line variety.
The first thing to mention is the range maybe it’s because of the (KPO) kite power optimizer at the frontline attachment points or something else, whatever it is it works. Low end for me was about 15mph top end is 30+ I’ve not reached the upper limit yet.
Saturday I rode it at the full power setting, in winds around 15mph, I had to work it in the lulls but it delivered constant pull from the main loop and despite having to sine the kite now and again I stayed upwind with ease. It jumps surprisingly well in this low end of it’s range and I could really feel the extra vertical lift this kites produces compared to my 12m Caution (03). This lift made the jumps nice and floaty and the KPO gives you lots of control over your rate of decent. Didn’t even put it near the water so no idea how the re-launch is.
My second session was in much stronger conditions, gusting in the 20-30 mph range and I actually thought there would be too much wind for a 12m, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway, a mate was out on a 9m Fuel (04). I was surprised when I got out on the water that I had to let the main strap out to about 70% of it’s longest to have the right power setting, which leads me to believe there is still a lot of range left in the kite.
There is a lot of range in the chicken loop so I was able to handle the gusts with ease but because of this range you have to be quite subtle with the power when jumping to get the best lift and hang time out of the kite in other words it’s a more technical kite to ride than my Caution.
There are a multitude of tuning possibilities for the KPO system but the default setting seems to work real well. All in all an excellent kite IMHO

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