High Flyers

I found these two miniature Japanese kites at a yard sale six years ago.  They have been hanging on my den wall ever since and the colors have gotten very faded.  Still, they are nice reminders of my own kite flying adventures from years past.

This morning I entered the search term, "Japanese kites" into Google and was surprised when I clicked on the "Images" option to find not only a fine collection of kite images but also a very nicely designed page on the subject including a row of tabs at the top pointing to categories of kite lore and images.

I was also reminded that Google in its early days had actual humans who maintained lists of links on popular topics.  The explosive growth of the web and automated search algorithms have moved us light years beyond those days.

Visiting Mexico

One of the photo sites I continue to visit regularly is the Flickr Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) group.



This great photo of a Tijuana bull fight by "El Kite Pics" was made with a kite-suspended camera from the U.S. side of the border. Be sure to read the story about making (and taking) the shot.

one dollar flight

I bought five of these Chinese-made kites at the dollar store.



I was attracted to the design, which is similar to the Indian fighter kite or the Nagasaki Hata. The kite is made from very light-weight materials, including small-diameter plastic spars.



Everything needed came in the package, including the winder, the kite string, a plastic ribbon tail, and a nice little clip for attaching the line easily to the kite bridle. This type of kite needs no bow string; the pressure of the wind on the surface forms the airfoil.



A lot of cheap kites look good, but are poorly made and unflyable. This one was designed and produced by people who understand kites and how they must be made to fly properly. A well-balanced fighter kite is very maneuverable. Letting out a bit of string allows the kite surface to flatten, and the kite begins to oscillate back and forth. When the nose is pointed in the desired direction, a strong pull on the line bows the horizontal spar, forms the kite surface into a lifting shape, and the kite moves briskly in the direction it is pointing.

I also picked up the Mini Copter and the four-inch Spiderman kite, which flew better than I expected.



One of the neat things about kites is that they demonstrate the capacity of humans for intuitively deducing very complex laws of physics. Kites were invented thousands of years ago, probably in China. While the disciplines of mathematics and physics were little developed then, the kite makers nevertheless were able to solve some extremely complex design problems, and to achieve a working understanding of the principles of flight. Because of the flexibility of kites which responds to variable wind pressure, their flight resembles that of birds more than it does modern fixed-wing aircraft.

To get an idea of the variables and the formal calculations required for the design of a kite, take a look at the on line Kite Modeler program posted on the web site of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Some useful thoughts about inductive reasoning can be found in a posting at Slashdot.

just in time

I found these fine miniature Japanese kites this morning at a yard sale put on at the Harwood Art Center. So, I'm all set for kite month which is nearly upon us.

wind driven

I've been obsessed with the idea of flight as long as I can remember. However, I don't think I ever really seriously considered piloting an aircraft of any kind. It's the idea at a somewhat abstracted level that is appealing, and the experience I have sought is vicarious or virtual flight. I suppose it started for me with watching birds and planes in flight and imagining some connection to them.


Popular Science, Aug.1936,p.69

Like most kids, I soon moved on to flying kites. In those days, there seemed only to be two available choices. One flew either a diamond-shaped stick kite or, for a bit more of an investment, you could hoist a box kite. We usually chose the diamond based on the availability of a meager allowance, augmented with earnings from collecting bottles to be turned in a the local grocery, coincidentally also the kite store.

Seattle often has gusty wind conditions in the early Spring when we were beset by the kite-flying urge. To deal with that, we always hung enormously long rag tails on our kites. There was some satisfaction to be had from learning to balance tail length and bow depth with wind speed to keep the kite in the air. However, the skill acquisition was really secondary to the exhilarating sensation of watching the kite do its slow dance in the sky at the end of several hundred feet of string. When the conditions were just right, you could stake the kite string to the ground and lie on your back on a grassy hillside, dividing your time between watching the kite and conjuring great, puffy cloud animals.

I left off kite flying about the time I went into junior high school, I think. I took it up again for a couple years at around the age of thirty when we moved to San Francisco, also a great kite flying location.


Popular Mechanics,June,1961,p.142

Inspired by the DIY exhortations of Stuart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog and other back-to-basics savants, I taught myself to build coynes, deltas, Japanese hatas and Indian fighter kites. I flew them often from the summit of Bernal Heights, and sometimes at the beach, though the winds there were often too strong for even my stoutest flyers.

Since San Francisco, I've only flown kites a few times, usually accompanied by grandchildren. There are more sophisticated styles of kites available these days at the local grocery and drug stores, but in my experience they are often poorly balanced and unflyable without modification. It must be a frustrating experience for budding flyers.

I haven't flown this miniature yet which I picked up at Hobby Lobby for myself over a year ago. I'm not real optimistic about its performance possibilities, but I think it's a neat design.