Happy Go Fly a Kite day

[CeaSaR]

Happy Go Fly a Kite day to everyone. Get outside and enjoy a relaxing time.
For those in stormy weather, tie a key to the line and act like Ben Franklin!

CeaSaR

[dacflyer]

talk about stormy weather, we had a tornado near my house today..less than 1/2 mile away.
F1, destroyed about 20 houses, flipped a few trucks on I-95, luckly only 1 person was injured.
season is already starting off rough..

[Joseph]

I've thought that a project might involve remote control on a kite. The kite could be bigger and use elevators to change its angle of attack to keep it higher with less pressure on the string. It might use microprocessor control. Maybe mount a camera, too.

[dacflyer]

i actually have a large kite, i fly it at night some times, i have many leds that flash and blink etc.
it has been known to draw people out of their houses to invistigate.. it makes no noise, so it really freaks people out..lol UFO ? or FT. Bragg ? Hmmmm

if you fly it, they will come..lol

[Joseph]

If there is enough space around and the kite is special enough, it ought to be possible to keep one up for very extended periods of time. The LEDs were a good idea. The local population's reaction to it illustrates how misunderstanding has spawned myths over time.

[jollyrgr]

Kites are fun. I used to build large(ish) deltas; about a five foot wing span. My problem is they would break just about any string I used with them. I had to wear gloves to reel them back in. I always wanted to attach a strobe or other lights to one and fly it at night. When one of those gets to spinning it would be a UFO.

[dacflyer]

i bought mine several years ago.. made of dracon and special heavy duty. 200lb test line
the kite is bout 7" wide delta.

i got it from www.intothewind.com
its got attachment points to hanf accessories from it.
and fiberglass rods, ITS TOUGH !

[Bob Scott]

You must mean 7' ? I always used a Popeil pocket fisherman for the kite line for my kids, but it wouldn't hold 200 lbs. Neither would the kids.

[sofaspud]

Miscellaneous thoughts sprung from this thread:
As a kid, I remember an older neighbor who would send his kite up until it was
barely visible. He made a spool that he could fit into the chuck of an electric
drill. Getting the kite back down was a breeze. (pun intended)
I received a kite catalog in the mail several years ago and was surprised to see
warnings on several of the models to the effect "able to lift 380lbs." Some
serious kite flying!
Programmer/publisher Jeff Duntemann is also a kite hobbyist. Ran across his
junkbox.com website recently. He has some kite stuff there, along with his
advice for workbench storage, including wire & cables, which has been the
topic of at least a couple of threads here. Might wanna check it out.

[CeaSaR]

I used to use an old deep sea rod (shortened to the middle eye) to fly my
Dragon kite with 50' tail. I used 3 spools of kite string for just about 900'
of line. At that distance, it was rather hard to see. Anyway, it would take
about 20 minutes to reel it back in, and I eventually broke the reel - busted
the riveted spacers out from the sides.

CeaSaR