My first kite review, enjoy.


Kite: Ozone Zephyr V5 in theft resistant yellow on 23m lines.
Boards used: Mako King, Litewave 137 Stealth and a Flysurfer twintip I borrowed off a bloke on the beach.
Rider: 80kg, confident cruising around. Flown lots of kites over the years.
Style: Freeriding.
Conditions: Sunny, seabreeze that was light increasing to moderate, bay chop.
Build Quality: 8.5/10
Satisfaction: 9.5/10
Disclosure: Not sponsored. Sponsor me pls..

*Important to note I was running the Zephyr on a Blade bar - 23 metre lines which are apparently quite a bit shorter than the recommended line length.*


On the beach:

Pros:

Nice bag.
Kite looks the goods with solid construction and features.
Big inflation valve worked well and inflation wasn't overly painful using a new generation up-sized pump that's now common.

Cons:

I could not deflate the kite struts! Despite making sure the clips were undone air would not freely pass out of the struts on packdown, I tried changing the angle of the tubing and fiddling around for a couple of minutes to no avail. I imagine I'll work something out in the future but right now that's a frustrating issue. Never had this problem with the 20 other kites I've used. This is what dropped the build quality score.

In the Air:

Roughly a 3 hour session. When I launched there were several kites on the beach due to a lack of wind while I was able to easily stay upwind and jump in the fairly light conditions. Ozone seems to think the Zephyr will get an 80kg rider going in 5ish knots. That strikes me as ridiculous marketing. Obviously a 17m kite has some decent low end power. 5 knots. No.

Where the kite excels is its range - in the light wind I did some stupid stuff (slack lined the **** out of it) and it would not fall out of the sky. When the wind picked up guys were hammering on 12s and I still had the Zephyr trimmed for max power! Gusts to around 23 knots and I had the full depower trim strap up my sleeve, half a dozen guys commented 'big kite!' but it was a piece of cake to control.

Considering I was running on shorter lines the kites turning speed was reasonable but not overly impressive. Fine for downloops and that's all I really need. I had the rear lines set to the mid-speed setting, I will move it up a notch next time for a little more speed at the expense of bar pressure. On the subject of bar pressure it was 'good.' Light enough to be comfortable but heavy enough to know exactly where the kite was when I was dunked underwater.

I wasn't jumping much as I was working on other stuff but I did 'send' the kite once, it has some nice lift and float up its sleeve! No surprise there.

Bottom line is it's a piece of cake to fly despite its size and has a massive wind range. I'm very happy with the purchase, just need to sort out deflating the struts.

**** man, run over it with your car. Works for me

I find all my struts deflate ok except the centre strut looks like the hose is to long and valve outlets set on wrong angle yep bit of a pain my only thing I could fault on this kite great kite v5 zephyr

Totally agree, the strut deflation issue is a pita and is being addressed. I've sent this thread to Ozone as well as other feedback regarding this issue.
I hold the kite from the centre when I undo the main valve, pop the valve back in its cover and velcro onto the LE, then I grab the centre strut and straighten the hose (which kinks as soon as the kite loses pressure), I then squeeze and fold the centre strut to get at least 50-60% of the air out then just drop the kite and wait a few minutes until i roll it up. By this time more than enough air has escaped the struts and le to allow the kite to easily fit back in the bag.
For holiday travel when you need to get all the air out so you can pack as compactly as possible, do the procedure indoors on a flat surface, reverse pumping will help.

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Ozone Kites Aus said..
Totally agree, the strut deflation issue is a pita and is being addressed. I've sent this thread to Ozone as well as other feedback regarding this issue.
I hold the kite from the centre when I undo the main valve, pop the valve back in its cover and velcro onto the LE, then I grab the centre strut and straighten the hose (which kinks as soon as the kite loses pressure), I then squeeze and fold the centre strut to get at least 50-60% of the air out then just drop the kite and wait a few minutes until i roll it up. By this time more than enough air has escaped the struts and le to allow the kite to easily fit back in the bag.
For holiday travel when you need to get all the air out so you can pack as compactly as possible, do the procedure indoors on a flat surface, reverse pumping will help.

Yep. Have this same problem with the centre strut on my 12m V1 Catalyst. It is a PITA and would like it rectified.

I have 3 kites with same struts setup and it is not really too hard to deflate them. 1) Straighten the hose 2) Squeeze the air out from strut by pressing your hand from trailing edge to leading edge.

Before this Ozone had valves pointing up & I have changed numerous strut valves because everytime you roll the kite valves in are bend & will break overtime.

I would take this new setup in a heart beat compared to old system :) Also I think the new setup has less changes for line catch & might even be more aero :)

... some more feedback from another user regarding the strut hoses thing.

My 19m Edge same same with the pain in the 'a' when deflating, centre and mid struts kink and won't deflate, end struts ok.

When inflating, only centre strut doesn't want to fill until I lift the entire kite up and straighten the hose with the other hand.

Love the kite so its a small price to pay I guess.

Robbie

I think a friend's turbine has no such problems.. gets going in 8 knots too and is slow but quite powerful and a real session saver!

My north Vegas all have central strutt issues, you have to fiddle with Le to strut tube to inflate and deflate,
only kite I've ever regretted selling was my 2015 zephyr, you'll not find a big kite with such a controlled wind range, end of story, wish I had the coin to grab another,

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cauncy said..
My north Vegas all have central strutt issues, you have to fiddle with Le to strut tube to inflate and deflate,
only kite I've ever regretted selling was my 2015 zephyr, you'll not find a big kite with such a controlled wind range, end of story, wish I had the coin to grab another,

Errr have you ever flown a Flysurfer?

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NorthernKitesAUS said..

cauncy said..
My north Vegas all have central strutt issues, you have to fiddle with Le to strut tube to inflate and deflate,
only kite I've ever regretted selling was my 2015 zephyr, you'll not find a big kite with such a controlled wind range, end of story, wish I had the coin to grab another,

Errr have you ever flown a Flysurfer?

A 17 in 25 knts
no