Wherever we can drive to fly at event, we turn up in Andrew's toy, the Mercedes Kite Van. 150 BHP, colour mactched bumbers, alloy wheels, cruise control, sunroof, air conditioning, swivel seats, electric adjusting and folding mirrors, privacy glass, 5 doors, auto lights, auto wipers. It has enough room for all our kites and toys.
But when we go to fly by ourselves, we go in Kathleen's little red button. There is room for one kite in the boot.
We also use other cool vehicles when available.
The centipede isn't a kite. Rather, it is "line junk", something decorative to put on the flying line of some other kite. The Centipede has a wonderful walking movement in the wind.
The centipede has 20 legs and a pair of 4m antenae. Although a pilot kite is required to lift the head into the wind, the centipede generates lots of lift of it's own. It has a reputation for breaking 1.5 ton flying lines.
The flag has a pair of large red-white-blue tails that can be flown individualy or in a loop depending upon wind conditions. We fly the flag from medium to strong wind. In Washington 2006, a squall came through with wind so strong that we didn't risk life and limb to bring the kite down. It flew until a gust hit that broke every single bridle simultaneously. The kite now flies with a stronger, replacement bridle.
Also in 2004, we flew at the opening of a shopping mall built on the grounds of an old airbase. We flew on the park opposite, on the other side of "Patriot Boulivard". On the Saturday, we flew the Manta Ray at 1000' without incident all day. On the Sunday, we put the Union Jack up high. The Police turned up in force, in the middle of the field, to ask us to bring it down...
Spot the picture of the Union jack when it was first flow with the design upside down and loads of bridles (thanks, Aeolian)
At High Force in 2004, all four geckos were in the same place and we flew them all together. The picture of the four, taken by Graham Lockwood has been widely published in newspapers.
Andrew thinks that Scot Adams Dilbert is Too Frickin Cool and often picks out good strips to show Kathleen.
When Abdulrahman and Faris Al-Farsi came to England to fly the world's biggest kite (in the shape of a 1000 square meter Kuwait flag, we naturally mucked in to lend a hand. They took us under their wing and now we often fly with them and help with the logistics and repairs that are part and parcel of flying the Official Guinness world record holder.
Loads of panda pictures turned up in my mailbox within hours!
Many thanks to:
Are we having fun yet? andrew@tug.com and Kathleen
Fun
Kite flying is about much more than flying kites. Wherever we go, we have fun. It's hard to capture spontaneity in pictures, but here is a taste:
Kuwait Flag
Traction Kites
We occasionaly get involved in a little traction kite flying. A number of years ago, Andrew put his heart and soul into developing the Chevron and we like to buggy and kitesail when we get the chance.
Panda
The latest addition to our family is a Panda Bear.
We don't have a picture of our own just yet.
So the call went out for assistance.
Football
We havn't even flown the Panda and already we have a new toy. The football. Built in the traditional pattern of a trancated icossahedron with black pentagons on white hexagons. It has a diameter of 8.4m. It is not a kite but rather it is a Bernouli device, which bounces in the air due to transient and surface effects.
A full sky
Of course, we don't just fly one kite at a time. At an event, we try to get as much in the air as space will allow. The following pictures give a taste of what it looks like to get a number of big kites in the air:
Sewing
Many of the kites you see here are made by Peter Lynn in New Zealand but we now have an industrial sewing machine to do more of our own work. It is perfect for our needs. It has a long arm, big bobbin (up to 9mm stitch), walking foot, computer control, auto backtack, auto thread cut, it is fast and it sews through 6mm line with ease. So far, we have made pilot kites, tails, bags and flourescent pink tutus. We plan to make more kites over the winter.
Tri-D
The Tri-D is a big box kite, with carbon spars like scaffolding. We don't have a picture of our own, so again we thank Peter and Aeolian.
Graphics
We also do our own graphic work, which turns up on cards, posters, letters from time to time.
