Listed at 91" on the bag and 86" on their website.
Wind range listed at 3-20 mph. Realistically, I'd say more like 6 mph, at least up here in Las Vegas.
4-10 mph bumpy winds
100' x 90# line (mine, not the included lineset)
2300' altitude
55°F late afternoon
Flown stock except for the standoff positions.
I have now flown the Dream On, Cross Fire and Sweet Emotion. The cheapest of the 3, the Dream On flies the best but is the least tricky. As you go up in price you get a trickier kite with better nose treatment and reinforcement and better materials.
Construction: The Sweet Emotion is a high aspect ratio, weighted kite. The lower spreaders are Dynamic 18s, didn't check the rest of the frame. This is a relatively heavy, very taut sailed kite. There is reinforcement where it should be. The nose is very well executed and the construction overall is pretty good. I'm not an expert in construction. The keel has 2 brass weights around the spine. When the standoffs are inserted into the connectors, the lower spreader bends several inches and the lower spreader connectors twist outward to relieve some of the bending stress. After pushing the connectors back a few times, I ended up slanting the standoffs toward the center-T about 30° to back off the pressure. The LS connectors still rotated a little, but there was never any issue of the spreaders coming unseated.
Visually: I like the look of the kite. The grey on the wingtips doesn't follow the lines of the grey in the rest of the kite. I noticed it but didn't find it bothersome. The grey has a jet plane profile to it and the black laid over the kite works in my eyes.
Precision: Not really. The less expensive Dream On actually had fairly nice precision and was quite well mannered. The Cross Fire and Sweet Emotion are more trick oriented. The Sweet Emotion has a fairly tight spin radius, which I prefer for tricks. The kite became solid around 6 mph and fast by 10 mph. I'd be surprised if anyone would want to try this kite above 15 mph. But that is pretty normal for a standard at any price. There was no noise from the kite at any time.
Tricks: The SE feels like it is one solid thing. The sail feels taut although there is a little motion when you shake the kite. Everything trickwise happens quickly. The weight of the frame and keel rings makes the kite flip quickly. My timing was off as I am not use to this weight, but I was able to do my limited tricks easily. Spin tricks aren't particuarly nice looking, but they are very easy to do. Cascades, half axels, slot machines, Taz machines were there. What surprised me was how easy it was to roll up the kite in the forward direction. I didn't know what to do after the kite wound up because I almost never get a forward roll up. But the SE was pretty straightforward in its ability to pitch in either direction. At the same time, the kite didn't instantly fall on its back like a lot of pitch happy tricksters. It would start to go back when tension was released, but not nearly as bad as others I've flown.
Summary: For $180, you get a well made trickster with an outstanding nose finish and a pitch oriented, high aspect flippy attitude. There are many on this Forum who are better trick fliers than myself who would like this kite.
That's 3 for 3 from Dodd and Skydog. For the money they are all a good deal.
6 pictures start on my Picasa site at the linked photo below:
