I would say that the Blade is one of the most predictable kites on the market and one of the easiest to fly. The Blades are powerful and fast but I consider them to have an important design feature – they are difficult to overfly. Some of the high performance “racing” foil kites will fly straight up and will actually go over the flier’s head. Unless you react quickly with the brakes they will quickly deflate – the tips collapse first followed by the rest of the kite and its tidy up the mess time. However try this with a Blade – it accelerates up and actually slows down at the top of the wind window. If the lines are pumped to inject a burst of acceleration it will still back off directly overhead and seemingly reverse in a semi-inflated state until it reaches its ideal angle of attack. This may restrict the ultimate performance of the Blade but it offers so much for the average flier and the stability is very welcome and reduces those annoying knot unscrambling sessions.
The decision between a 3.3 and a 4.9 depends on many factors. For example if you usually go out in winds of say 15mph plus then the 3.3 is very good, however if the local conditions are calmer with typical winds around 10-15 mph then the 4.9 is better. As the size of kites go up their effective wind range reduces. If we take the example of the 3.3 Blade it can be flown in anything from a few mph up to 30 ish (if you really wanted to). Here on the Wirral the most useable kite is somewhere between 3 and 4 metres. The wind is typically westerly and on a “good” day it is usually better than 10-15mph therefore the 3.3 gets the most use. If the wind drops to about this level then a 4.9 would be very good, however it is easier to be overpowered with a larger kite which isn’t much good for buggying since you end up sideways. However there are activities when more power is needed -ie: jumping, moonwalking and kite surfing therefore a 4.9 in 15 –20 mph is great. Unfortunately there is no “ideal” kite and it’s a fact of kite flying that you need a range of kites to make the most of any opportunity to fly. In value terms the 4.9 is probably better since its not that much more than the 3.3. Generally speaking a range of kites from 2m to about 7.5m covers the range but the expense is very high. Owning a single kite of any size will cause frustration. The BEST thing to do is to befriend a couple of other fliers and fly each other’s kites. This is ideal if one of you has a 3.3 and the other a 4.9 !!
But what of kites such as the Spider Modulus ? The Modulus is reasonably close to an ideal kite. If we take the 38 special for example it can be configured from 1 sqm to 3.8 sqm. The standard Carrington K42 38 Special is superb in higher winds – probably from about 15 to 35+. The construction is very strong and it is unlikely to give any problems at all. If the wind increases simply zip out a section and you’re away. The full Modulus 58 is available or you can upgrade the 38 Special to the full size, however I feel there are limitations. The kite is quite heavy due to the zips and at the larger sizes (say 4.5m+) it is a bit cumbersome and prone to oscillation since the aspect ratio is too high. I haven’t tried the newer lightweight version which should be better. The other problem with the Modulus is its upwind performance which has been eclipsed by Skytigers, Blades etc. However for higher wind use I would say that the Modulus is ideal since it can be sized perfectly for the conditions to ensure that you are neither under or overpowered. As an example during a recent weekend with a 30 mph gusty wind the Modulus at 2.8m was only about 2mph down on a 3m Predator (based on a clocked buggy speed of 50mph). The Modulus felt comfortable, the Predator on the limit with the buggy suffering from a severe case of the sideways slide and I was dumped on the beach several times !!