Dear Stenninger: Appreciate the response.

I guess my central points were:

1. This downpressing effect is much more pronounced in the Duotones vs the other pump kites. The reason for this maybe that they are much more rigid. The upside is they perform better in appropriate conditions but perform worse outside their intended ranges. For example, if you take a 5M Swing Wing and 5M Duotone out in the same overpowered conditions you will see that the Duotone is much harder to ride. Go with a buddy and switch out, and you will see that its night and day difference.  Or you can even experiment on the beach, take two 5Ms and compare how the duotones downpressure is much more pronounced. The dutone has more frontstalling, the pushdown effect is considerably greater. Its barely ridable in the same conditions where a pump airwing without the boom is manageable. They are more sensitive to overpowering. Ergo, they have less range. This is a big deal on a variety of levels. And I am surprised it hasn't been discussed more on the forums.

2. Does the new cannpopy tension in the new Echos make this effect better or worse? I don't know, my sense is tighter canopy means it will be worse, but when they arrive (4 weeks and waiting now) I will do a test and let the group know.

Obvoiusly there are tradeoffs, the duotone is more rigid/easier hand adjusments which have tons of benefits but its good to know the disadvantages of this approach, which it sounds like, they have less range.

If anybody in the group has input here about this would love to hear more because I am wondering about what this means for quiver size?

Rusty

****