YES Airmaster Snowboard Review

The YES Airmaster is the kind of board that almost has split personalities. In the right conditions and doing the things that it loves to do, you might just proclaim this to be your new favorite board!

But in conditions ill-suited to it and doing things (like straight lining and icy slope) it doesn't love to do, you might end up cursing its name. 

In this review, I will take a look at the Airmaster as an all-mountain-freestyle snowboard, which we define as the versatile all-round snowboard that leans more towards the freestyle end of the spectrum. 

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Airmaster a score out of 100 (based on several factors) and see how it compares with other men's all-mountain-freestyle snowboards.

Overall Rating

Board: YES Airmaster 2025

Price: $499

Style: All-Mountain-Freestyle

Flex Rating: Medium (6/10)

Flex Feel on Snow: Mid-Soft (4/10)

Rating Score: 86.0/100

Compared to other Men’s All-Mountain-Freestyle Boards

Overview of the Airmaster’S Specs

Check out the tables for the Airmaster’s specs and available sizes.

Who is the Airmaster Most Suited To?

The Airmaster is best suited to those looking for a surfy, playful feeling ride to get creative with on groomers, dropping into trees and in the park.  

Not a one-board quiver for those with a need for speed or if you ride icy conditions a lot. But would then still be a great quiver compliment to pair with a more stable/carvy board and/or a more powder oriented board. 

In terms of turning, it is super easy going and in that sense would be no problems for beginners, but it lacks the stability, IMO, to be a truly good beginner board. That looseness and the lightning quick, light feeling turns you get from it could feel difficult to control, if you're still learning how to turn - and would likely be challenging one-footing it off the lift. 

Airmaster DetailS

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Airmaster is capable of.

Demo Info

Board: YES Airmaster 2025, 156cm (260mm waist width)

Date: February 13, 2024

Powder

Didn't have anything serious to test it in powder-wise. But should be decent without being amazing, based on feel and specs. 

Feel-wise, I'd say this would be a real blast in shallow powder - where it's enough to give you that floaty feeling, but not so much that it would swallow you up if you're nose dipped under. A small enough amount that if your nose goes under the weight is light enough that you can just plow through and get the nose back above the surface. In those conditions, I would likely up the rating - because it felt so surfy and fun. 

While it's certainly doesn't have a ton of things that make it powder ready, it does have a slightly longer nose than tail and that 3D shaping in the base in its favor. 

Carving

For slower tight carves I found it really fun but it got wobbly and washy when I tried to carve at higher speeds. 

Turning

Ease of Turning/Slashing: Just think about turning and this thing turns! And super easy to slash out the tail too. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Super quick edge-to-edge and just effortless. 

Catchiness: No catchiness whatsoever, by my feel. And I really tried to find a way to feel any kind of catch, and it just wasn't forthcoming. 

Speed

Feels OK when you get a little speed under it, but it doesn't take too much speed before that looser, surfy feel starts to become a liability. As fun as this board was at slower speeds and riding playfully and creatively, it was not confidence inspiring at higher speeds - at least not for me. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud/Chunder: I found that it felt every bit of chatter and got bounced around quite easily. You could pretty easily correct anything and the chances of catching an edge, even in really messy snow and getting bounced around, felt pretty minimal, so while it wasn't super stale in the rough stuff, it did excel for recovery. Though, I'd rather have the fence at the top of the cliff, rather than an ambulance at the bottom!

Trees/Bumps: As mentioned above, this board felt super agile and this bode well for it weaving between trees and bumps. Not as good when its a little icy and rough, and not ideal for deeper powder, but for everything else in between it's lightning in a bottle!

Jumps

Pop access is as easy as it gets but pretty wobbly for anything big or for messy landing strips. 

Pop: As mentioned above, it's super easy to extract the pop. You barely have to bend your knees and there's a good amount of energy ready to go. Total pop is decent too, but it's nothing amazing. But what's there is just so easy to extract. 

Approach: If you've read the rest of the review up to this point, you likely know what I'm going to say here. It's super easy to maneuver and make any adjustments you need, speed checks etc. But when you need more speed for a take off, it's missing the kind of stability I would want.

Landing: Really easy to make any necessary quick maneuvers after landing, when needed and really forgiving of non-straight landings. I feel like even if you were to land sideways, you could just spin out of it, without fear of being tomahawked! That might be an exaggeration....maybe. But it doesn't like landing from high places too much - you're liable to bounce right off the nose or tail and do some accidental inverting. 

If flips aren't allowed at your resort and they hit you up about it, just refer to this review and blame the board!

Side-hits: Bliss! Just so long as you don't go too big, for reasons explained above, this thing is a side-hit wonder. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: Best for small jumps/air. Even medium jumps made me want a bit more stability. 

Switch

The Aimaster isn't a true twin but you wouldn't know it when riding switch . Super easy to transition too. If you don't like a looser feel, you're still not going to like how it feels riding tail first, because it feels really similar to riding nose first. But if you do like how it surfs nose forward, you're likely to have a blast riding this thing switch, even if your switch game is sub-par, because it's forgiving. 

Spins

Sick for small spins where you don't need as much stability to land and are less likely to over-rotate after landing.

No worries, whatsoever, finishing an under-rotation after landing - as mentioned earlier, this board felt like it had zero catch.  But it does over spin after landing for sure and often requires a bit of correction. This wasn't really any issue on smaller spins but with higher rotation force, it becomes a bit annoying. 

But that's a small complaint - overall feels light, catch-free for setup and easy to get spin around with super easy pop initiation and landing/taking off/riding out switch felt really good too.

Jibbing

For obvious reasons (catch-free, easy pop, easy maneuverability) this board was confidence inspiring on jibs. Go too big, and I'm not the strongest jibber ever so I wasn't going big, and that looseness might cause some issues, but for me this is the kind of board I really like taking down the jib line. 

Butters

Super easy to flex the nose and tail. But I did feel like I could over flex it, which made it tricky to find a lock in point. Zero catch and full freedom on rotations for butters.  

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

At slower speeds, I felt like there wasn't much I couldn't at least attempt with the Airmaster. It gave me the kind of freedom that I really like when trying new things and being able to do them at slower speeds and not feeling like I needed more speed to find its rhythm. 

This is the kind of board that I would take out when I was riding with slower or newer riders and wanted to entertain myself and try things, without having to get to the chairlift and having to wait 5 minutes for the rest of my crew to arrive! It's also playful enough that lapping the jib-line in the park, with some small hips and jumps thrown in, would be enough to keep me smiling from first chair to last. 

I personally wouldn't have it as my only board - because it didn't feel great at speed for me and its icy edge-hold wasn't enough for me to want to take this out on icy days. But in the right conditions and situations, it's a super fun, ride that sometimes felt like surfing powder on average groomers.