U-turn Oxigen Pro 3.2m 7.8m

Lets start with the Oxigen Pro 7.8m. I have had a few months flying this kite now and every time I come back from flying it I find myself saying that I should have bought one of these a long time ago. It is simply brilliant. I obviously can not just make a statement like this without qualifying it so here we go. My aim was to get a kite that had real low wind power and performance. After making a costly mistake with another kite I decided to be more careful this time by flying the kite before I bought it. I got the chance at a kite festival to fly the whole range of kites from U-Turn and was impressed with every one. I was concerned that the 7.8m Oxigen would be to slow and fall out of the sky needing more than 6 mph to keep such a big kite inflated. There are two versions of the Oxigen, the standard and pro. If you need a smaller kite then I think there really is not much difference but in the larger sizes the weight saved with the better, lighter fabric and lighter bridles of the Pro does make a difference to real low wind performance. Once I had flown the kite a few times in very low wind and managed a few scudds it was time to get out in slightly stronger (7-8mph) wind. Wow. The power, speed and stability of this kite are great. Lock it in position in the buggy and away you go. You don’t have to worry about any static lift in the turns because it is there but very controllable. This kite is so easy to fly. Even when the wind dies in a lull the kite will just sit almost paused in mid air waiting to reinflate. It does not do the, loose pressure from the canopy and fall out of the sky thing, unless the winds drops to zero.The really big surprise this kite has is when using it on a board. You would think it would be no good having minimal lift. Any big kite will lift you if worked properly. I was thinking of getting a bigger FS, a 14m Voodoo maybe, but not after flying this kite in 10 mph wind. Travel down the field on the board, turn the kite up to the zenith and pop, airbourne, look down, turn the board and softly land. It is so easy .This kite almost announces that it is going to lift you and when it does the control and air time are amazing. What is great is that it is all so controllable. In the buggy you simple stop the kite lifting you by the way you fly it and by the same token you create lift on the board the same way. It is always very hard to explain to someone how reassuring a kite can be when its task if to lift you. My 2m Blade lifts me but then puts me down hard. My 7m Voodoo is a great lift machine but has a very distinct style. The oxigen is just smooth.

Due to the medium aspect AR the kite will overfly if you let it. This is never really a problem because you make sure you place the kite in the correct place in the sky and when jumping bring the kite back to the zenith. The kite works well with a little brake although the initial brake does not stall the kite but in-fact powers it up. There is s distinct flap formed along the trailing edge of the kite when the brake is applied which increase the power. Applying full brake will stall the kite but not straight away. A little care does need to be taken because this kite is designed to fly powered up. It is not that easy to stall.

After flying this kite on handles, then the c-quad bar for a few weeks, it was time to test U-Turns claims that this kite is fitted with a bridle that ca be retro fitted with a full depower, (UDSII). All I can say after fitting this system is that I am not going to fly this kite on handles or a c-quad bar again. I now have a 7.8m depowerable foil that will fly from 3 mph and now has a good top end. The depower when fitted and trimmed is as good as any system fitted to any other depower foil. I have set the system up so it can be fully adjusted, in a similar way to the WAC system on the Flysurfer. This way, with only a few tweaks the kite can be setup for the board with greater lift and less overfly or for the buggy with more of a stall turn and more overfly to get up wind better. To sum up the depower system, it simple works brilliantly. It is so good I have now fitted the UDSII to all my U-Turn kites.

Oxigen 3.2m

I was looking for a three meter buggy kite, not much static lift, good up wind performance and high quality. After being so impressed with the 7.8m the 3.2 was the next logical step and once the depower system was fitted this kite really rocks. It has a good amount of power for a 3 meter kite but it is increase by fitting the depower by about 20 %. The kite can be worked up wind much more easily due to the increased speed gained from depowering then repowering the kite. With the kites medium AR and natural overfly it make it very easy to use as a buggy kite. I regularly buggy with two guys that use a 3.5m Bullet and 3.2m C-Quad. The Oxigen has a much better upwind flying ability than the Bullet but not quite up to the supreme dominance of the c-quad.

I would not normally of considered fitting a depower to such a small kite but with what it adds to this kite in performance and power it was well worth the effort. It was slightly harder to set up than the 7.8m because it seemed to overfly and collapse more but with some tweaking now flys perfectly.