L'Atelier it constantly listening to their pilots and this is the best thing for improving their kites. Your testimonies are of great interest: webmaster@atelierkites.com.

The xt.s is the later offering from L'Atelier of France, the main focus of the kite is a kite designed to fly precise while still being very freestyle orientated as well. The sail is PC-31 Polyester, with Mylar reinforcement panels in areas of high stress. Covered upper connectors are a nice touch to prevent line snags. There's no way around noticing this is one big kite, at 2.65 meters, large by anyones standards. The frame is made up of SkyShark PT7's, Spine, Leading edges, Lower Spreaders as well.

Ballast comes factory pre-installed on the kite of 20 grams, and is movable to suit the fliers needs. Yo-yo stoppers already installed, ballast so lets hit the field for the kites maiden flight to see how it rates.

First off my favorite kites are ones that are not going to drag you across the field. Right off the bat, I noticed no excessive pull in winds up to 17 mph according to the wind meter. No excessive loud TE flutter on the xt.s, silent or not either way no bother. 540's didn't require you to play catch up with the kite, Slot machines come very natural for the xt.s as well as axel baseds moves. 540's flattened out very well, surprisingly well.

On its back the xt.s shows good stability and notably its ability to sit nose deep when adequate slacks given on its back. Backspin is either slow or if you decide to pick up the pace with rapid rotations. I was able to pull off a Backspin Cascade to a yo-yo easily, kite settles and moves out of a Fade nicely and gracefully. Superstarts come easy, even though we are flying a kite of 2.65 meters in size. Flapjacks, the kite rises up, sits nose deep allowing a nice single or double rotation. Coin Toss, the kite felt solid on it tips, as well as having the balance to drop to a tipstand and being able to hold a tip stand. Flying the kite rolled up (yo-yo) takes a light touch, but easily set-up for most any unroll you can think of, a few times, just when I thought the kite would go down, with the right inputs on it back it dropped back and rolled up right before hitting the ground. Multi-Lazies, were just another thing the kite does extremly well. I get the feeling Mayet's influence, not sure. The kites, very agile don't let its size fool you. Transistions, from one move to the next was well appreciated, the kite would give you time to react or change direction swiftly. Wap-Do-Waps can be pulled off and rewarded with a nice smooth rotation to finish off the move. The winglets proved not to be an issue with lines snagging on them, and when a tipwrap did occur it was easily shaken off.

Precision comes natural for the xt.s, tracking nothing less than I expected, turns were nice & clean, sharp without wobbles out of each turn. No shudder was evident even in its upper wind range. Good speed control, throughout the wind window, no excessive pull, nor dropping out near the edge of the window was a problem. The kite is very trick orientated and doesn't overwork the flyer with huge inputs needed to get whatever you want out of the kite. I didn't notice a heavy sluggish feel, but more of a lighter & lively pitch friendly feel. In its lower wind range the kite did well in lighter winds by changing incidence (increments of 1cm) via the bridle upward to change the AoA. A enjoyable kite to fly any day. As Alex Mason said, the kite may take a bit to get used to the inputs needed and time spent to appreciate its full potential. I like it, very enjoyable experience. If your ready to push your limits here ya go this might be the ticket. Kite well designed with many ballet/freestyle possibilities for any flyer. xt.r is a nice addition to your bag, but for a bigger more precise kite this one is a good one! I'm sure much thought and time went into designing (Ramlal) the kite, and approval of the top flyers as well.

Dan SWINDEL (USA)

NB:
The more I fly the kite the better I like it, just a matter of getting more familiar with the kite.