It started with a 7m Machine file that felt like a different kite entirely.
Adi Conrad had been working on the Machine, Slingshot's 5-strut big air kite for a while. He knew that platform inside out. But somewhere in the development of a smaller 7m size, something shifted. The kite was lighter, more direct, faster to turn and more intuitive. It felt like a different kite entirely than the rest of the size run.
Adi made a decision to take that 7m file, strip it back to three struts, and build something that had never existed before. Not a big air kite. Not a freeride kite. A New School Big Air kite.
The Sport Was Already Changing
While Adi was head down in his design files, big air kiteboarding was going through a change. For years the formula at Red Bull King Of The Air was clear: big single loops, maximum hangtime, highest scores. The same pros dominated year after year.
Then three young riders showed up and rewrote the playbook. Jeremy Burlando was one of them. Board offs while mid loop, Tick tack double back rolls, board spins into front rolls into kite loops. All of it requiring total trust in the kite, because the kite had to handle itself while the riders focused on everything else.
The announcers called it "Changing of the Guard" on the broadcast. We called it the beginning of New School Big Air.
Building the Code
What Adi was chasing was a kite that felt trustworthy. Loop it hard, commit fully, and never wonder whether it would catch or drop you. Jeremy had been working with Adi during development, helping shape what the kite needed to be. Something intuitive, consistent, predictable all while maximizing hang time and power.
That kite became the Code.
2022. Code V1 launched. Jeremy had already competed on a prototype at his first Red Bull KOTA that same year. The changing of the guard moment, on a kite that wasn't on shelves yet. It was the kite that made big air feel possible for riders who had never tried it, and for the ones already looping, it gave them the trust to start adding board flips and rotations previously thought impossible.
Raising the Ceiling
2023. The first Code NXT V1 prototype was ready. Same DNA, more refined. Jeremy competed on it at KOTA. The kite was evolving in real time, alongside the riding.
2024. Code NXT V1 launched publicly. The Aluula-spec version of the original idea, available to riders everywhere.
The Code was no longer just a kite. It was the start of a new category.
The Team Grows
What started with Jeremy Burlando and a 7m design file had become something bigger. Zac Adams. Kimo Verkerk. Three Slingshot riders, all pushing New School Big Air in competition, all trusting the same kite.
KOTA 2025. Jeremy, Zac, and Kimo showed up at King of the Air on fully branded Code NXT V2 kites. The kite had not launched yet and it would not hit shelves until March. But at the largest big air event in the world, three of the best riders in the field were already on it.
Right after the event, Slingshot took the whole Big Air team in South Africa to Namibia to put the kite through its paces in some of the gnarliest conditions on the planet.
March 2026. Code NXT V2 launched. Aluula leading edge and struts, the lightest and most responsive version of the Code yet. Already proven at the highest level.
August 2026. Code V3 launched. Same DNA as the Code NXT V2 but in a Dacron construction at a more accessible price point. The same kite, made for more people.
Now
KOTA 2026. Jeremy and Zac both confirmed for the event, both competing on Code NXT V2s.
Four years ago it was one rider on a prototype at an event that would later be called the changing of the guard. Now it is a full team, a named category, and two kites built on the same idea Adi found in a 7m Machine V1 file.
The sport changed. We built the kite and the team for where it was going.
