Review by Kitefinder.com: The Orbit

The North Orbit is a mind bending kite, with hugh lift and unreal upwind performance.

The name Orbit leaves little to the imagination on its intended use, and is the five strut booster of the bunch with freeride leanings, a common theme across most major brands at the moment. So, how does the new boy measure up? From a build perspective you’ve got materials from Teijn and D2 cloth forming the bulk on the canopy, with a Dacron frame around the extremities to keep things tight. This scallops in around the struts to stiffen the rear of the canopy nicely. There’s a liberal application of Kevlar on the tip ends and strut joints and some PVC on wear areas on the wing tips. In the air, the bar feeling is relatively light and neutral with a healthy amount of feedback, but it’s certainly not going to turn your forearms into sausages when things get windy. In fact, the bar pressure stays more or less the same as the wind shifts up. for more info on the North Orbit check out www.s2as.com

From a day performance perspective, the Orbit almost has two characters and uses. In it’s lower end it’s a very fine and smooth freeride kite, ideal for pottering about on, and I daresay it’s almost beginner friendly, due to a simplistic relaunch and easy sheet to power delivery.

Power when looping is very manageable and you can really feather the depth of the loop and how much forward pull you would like with simple bar sheeting. The Orbit achieves a level of control in its top end that is truly confidence inspiring, which is the same of the game in the world of Big Air, and a real success from a design perspective. 

Check out the review here.