#ThursdayIsKiteDay
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About two weeks ago I was over a friend's house. He has 2 young daughters and while on a trip with the girls he bought them a kite which they tried out in a grassy field at a relative's house, and while it didn't fly hardly at all the girls were still fairly interested in it. They had misplaced the cross spar on the trip back, but he eventually found it and I asked to have a look at it.
It was fairly typical for a kid's kite. It is small & the fabric is a bit heavy for...
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...design, but one sometimes chosen to hide uneven stitching. Troubling, it did not have a keel, which is considered a standard part of any delta. A keel always acts as a weather vane to point the nose into the wind. My friend's problem was that it would circle off to one side and spin repeatedly until it nailed itself into the ground.
I don't like to give up on a kite. I own several from toy stores that originally did not fly well out of the package. Every kite deserves its chance to...
4/6
..soar.
So here we were, a 40 something and 50 something year old flying a kite in his gravel driveway between trees with almost no wind. I taught him to do a long line launch. I taught him to walk backwards while pumping a kite up in almost no wind. I taught him to do his own single person long line launch by pouring sand (in this case – gravel) on the trailing edge of the kite while on its back and to gently lift it up to a flight ready angle by the line from a distance. And after a few..
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...short flights, I taught him how to loosen up the bridal knot & pull on one side to adjust the angle of attack. I made it shallower, tested it, and he marked the new knot location on the line with a pen, which is something I had only mentioned in passing.
We had a nice afternoon, 2 friends working on a problem together. I left when he had to go pick up the girls from school.
He sent me these pictures the next weekend. He got a call to meet his mother-in-law at the coast & grabbed this...
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...kite at the last second. He said it crashed a few times, but then the wind calmed down and they had it flying high for about an hour. He brought it down and had each of the girls do their own long line launch when it was their turn. I have another delta that I saved from a thicket of scotch broom, in a new bag, with new line on a handle, waiting by my front door to give to them the next time I go over.
Urban Hermit