Yo turbo'd my Core man!

No work this weekend so we trotted down to Hamamatsu. Forecast was ass but I took a full load of kite gear and lobbed my Core 6.7 and new Ozone Turbo bar in the boot too ...

Arrived at Maisaka Beach about 4pm with a touch of wind, so I unpacked the Core and Ozone and had a play while the wife went walkies.

There was hardly any wind so set up was no problem - walked the lines out of the bag, had a quick fly so I remembered what flying on handles was like (it's been a few months!) then landed and swapped to the Turbo bar ...

Compared to my homemade thing, it's much smaller and nicer :D the amount of "depower" throw is much less, as is the trim and the leader lines are much shorter. Something to work on for the rest DIY version ...

Launched and had some play time ...
Works real nice! Strangely enough :D
Brake input is enough for turning but a bit limited for actually stopping the kite but you can trim in more.
Kite turns lovely - tight enough to turn almost on a wingtip yet not lose too much speed - and is super-stable, easily recoverable in the light winds when it luffed - quick tug on the center lines.
Tested the various safety releases ... red hat above the bar is the best without a doubt, but I'd need to train my instincts for that one. Chicken loop release with a leash to the landing handle is probably easier to do but the leash doesn't spin with the bar and that lead to tangles.
Also played unhooked and the bar could be trimmed to fly nicely like that but DAMN the whole point is to take the strain through the harness!
Compared to my Version 1.0 DIY crossober bar, I had too much depower and the leaders were too long, but they handled pretty much the same ... although being able to stall the kite with the bar on my version was handy. Probably unnecessary too :)

So I think in the end, the landboarders will love it but the buggy guys will probably stick with handles. There's a little loss of fine control that you have with handles but you gain more consistent power and a much longer ride!