What Am I Doing Out In This Heat?

There has been a heat advisory out for our area all this week. Yet, it was the day of our weekly kite fly and I left the air conditioning and headed for the beach. Let me tell you, it’s not all that much cooler at the beach than anywhere else. Upon arrival, a couple of us spent some time in the parking lot trying to decide if we should fly or not fly. After all, who in their right mind would come to the beach today to fly kites? We would. Three of us headed to the flying beach, not expecting to have any other company. On the plus side, the wind was the best it’s been in a while. I grabbed only two kites, a single line kite and a soft stunt kite. I didn’t expect to stay long and didn’t want to lug the bags in the heat.

After filling a sandbag for an anchor, I put up my Twin Tail Dragon by Into The Wind. I hadn’t flown it in a while so it needed to get out of the bag. It flew great. The wind was blowing about 15 mph and was perfect for the long tails on that kite. And I love the many colors.

Then I went out to play with my Symphony 1.8 soft stunt kite. I had been ignoring this kite in favor of my quad line kite and my latest couple of delta-type stunt kites. So today was to be a fun day. Little did I know that the wind would pick up in just a couple of hours.

The initial plans to not stay out long didn’t pan out. There were about three families from out-of-town joining us and flying their kites. They also wanted to visit and learn about the kites we were flying. Our local kite shop host pulled out the Symphony 2.2 for one of the visitors to try out. This is a larger kite than my Symphony and it has more pull. Both the father and the son tried this kite out and really enjoyed the pull and the speed. They had just purchased a smaller soft kite but I think their will be a larger one in their future. They had way too much fun. Even when the flying line broke when the son was flying. Guess the wind was picking up too much. I know I was getting a lot of pull from my 1.8 so I can understand why the son was digging himself into the sand as he flew. We’ll be looking for this family to come to the festival this fall.

Another family came down with their kites. The father had a vintage Skywave kite. I would love to have one of these. He flew it for a while but, as the wind picked up, he decided it was a little too much and packed it away. They also had a couple of smaller single-line deltas up and they also took them down so they wouldn’t crash and break. The third family had a couple of smaller (shall I say cheaper) single-line kites that couldn’t handle the wind at all. But they tried. By this time I was ready to leave. The sand was blowing across the beach. The sign for me to pack my kites in the bags and head for the shop. I may be too cautious but I don’t want to have a major accident or an unrepairable kite.

I will say that there was so much going on, I didn’t notice the heat on the beach. I guess I’m becoming more confident with my ability and my knowledge because I’m beginning to interact more with visitors. Now when I got back to the parking lot the heat factor hit. A little bit more visiting and I was ready for somewhere cool. It was a pretty good morning but now I’m going into hiding, at home, in the air conditioning.

Fair Winds All.

Beautiful Weather For A New Kite

This weekend was the inaugural flight of my newly completed “Painless Parafoil”. As soon as I unfolded it, it wanted to fly. And it did. What a wonderful feeling when something you’ve worked on for weeks is completed and behaves like it should. It flies!

I spent the first flight making changes to the bridle to get the right angle on the kite so it would fly the bet it could. It was more active than I expected. So I borrowed the ribbon tails off my husband’s delta kite and sent it up again. The tails helped a bit. I could see that I would need more that just those short tails to tame this kite. I made a couple of more bridle changes before bringing it down and going home. It was a wonderful first flight.

Today was the weekly kite club fly. I got some 24 foot transition tails to put on the Eagle and planned on doing some final tweaking at the fly. The transition tails did help. But it’s still more active than I thought it should be. I’m going to borrow some larger transition tails from my husband and see if the next flight isn’t even better. If so, I may be doing some heavy negotiating about a trade of the smaller tails for the larger. Or I may just not give them back. LOL.

The club fly was not well attended today. I got there late. There were a lot of kites up despite the low turnout. After about an hour, everyone left. My kites were the only ones in the sky. After I got the Eagle settled, I added my large mesh delta with its long tails and my small Stowaway parafoil with its long tail. The tails made it seem like there was more in the sky and my kites didn’t look so lost and alone. It was rather strange to be flying by myself. I got out my Symphony soft stunt kite and played with it for a while. I hadn’t flown it in quite a long time so it was fun to play.

It looked so colorful against the blue sky that I was wishing I could get a photo of it. And that made me realize that I didn’t have many photos of any of my stunt kites. It’s just not possible to take a good photo of a stunt kite while you’re flying because your hands are full of either two or four kite lines. I need to arrange for someone to take photos while I fly and just switch from one kite to the next until the entire contents of the kite bag is flown and shot. Let’s see, who can I draft for a project like that?

Anyway, to get back on topic, it was so beautiful on the beach today and so peaceful that although I was flying alone, I didn’t feel lonely. It was peaceful and quiet and just a great day to be there. And so I spent almost 2 1/2 hours on the beach with my kites. Until hunger drove me home. It was a great day and now I’m sitting in the backyard listening to the night sounds. Seems like an appropriate ending.

Fair Winds All.

A Holiday Weekend Has Come And Gone

I hope everyone had a good Fourth of July weekend. Our celebration was kind of low-key. Mostly because the kids did not make it home this year. We did attend the annual Neighborhood Cookout and were able to put faces to a lot of the names of people living on our road. Still don’t know everyone but our reputation is growing. We heard a lot of “Are you the people who fly the kites?”. Several have seen us cleaning out the bags in the yard or loading up the car to go to a fly. Most of them haven’t flown a kite since their childhood and fondly remember the paper diamond or box kite of their youth. They have no idea of the kites available today. Nor do they believe that we have so many kites for so many different kinds of wind.

Sunday was the regular weekly club fly. It was all the more special because there were more kite friends there from out-of-town. We got there earlier than usual but not as early as most. We remain the “second shift” of the fliers. The sky was filled with kites of all shapes and sizes. I couldn’t begin to describe all that was there. The kites ranged from the large Suttons with banner tails and mesh and flo-tail deltas to the flakes, dragons, smaller deltas and the most unusual kite of the day, the flap kite sun beam by HQ. There were several dual-line stunt kites flying along with a couple of quad-line Revolution kites.

The sky was so full we only put up three kites ourselves, the Flo-tail Delta by Premier and two limited edition dragon kites by Go Fly A Kite, the Flying Tiger and the Jester. After a while I flew the Vamp Devil. I’m still having a bit of trouble getting the brake lines exactly right but each time it’s getting better. I’m getting a better understanding as to how the four lines work together and how some changes make things better and some make things worse. It’s all good. The only bad thing about the Sunday fly was that I forgot my camera and my iPod died. The sky was so beautiful that I was kicking myself for not being able to get some photos. I am also trying to figure out a routine for the Vamp Devil for the kite festival in October. And I was really inspired to listen to some music while I was flying. I guess I’m going to have to work things out on paper first and then add the music. Thank goodness I have a few months and the option of backing out at the last-minute. After four hours on the beach, we went home and nursed our sunburn.

Monday, being the official holiday, was crazy at the beach. Many people came to the beach for the day, many people came to the beach for the weekend and were trying to go home and many people were staying for the week. It all added up to a lot of traffic and a lot of people on the beach. Parking was hard to find. We didn’t fly but did hang out at the kite shop for a while. What holiday flying we did was done today. A good friend had to come down to work in the area and made it a “busman’s holiday”. For those of you who don’t know it, a “busman’s holiday” is when you combine a workday with some sort of non-work recreation. In this case, flying a couple of kites for a couple of hours on the beach before returning home. For him, it was a long day of driving. But we met on the beach and had a nice visit and a good couple of hours flying.

For those who are following my kite building progress, I finishing the replacement bottom panel late Saturday night. I looks so much better than the first one. I changed the way the pieces were assembled and stitched. Now I’m not afraid to have anyone see what I have done. And I’ve learned a lot. About appliqué and about my perfectionism. So the kite was not finished in time for the holiday. In fact, I have not sewn a thing in the past two days. The pieces are laying on the table waiting for me. I will probably finish this week and try to fly it at our next club fly. Just a week late. But better late than never. And I will not let this project reach the never stage. So, until the next time we fly…

Fair Winds All.

All Beach, All Day

Sunday was the weekly club fly at Fort Macon. Quite a few of the usual suspects were there. It was a gorgeous day with great winds for all types of kites. And we had kites of all types in the sky. One of the better shows in the past few weeks. I put up my mesh delta with the transition tails and spinner. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown that kite. I also put up a White Bird dragon. I used to fly at least one of these every time I flew but had gotten out of the habit. Time to renew this habit. My husband put up his early Father’s Day present, the very colorful Flo-tail Delta by Premier. It is one beautiful kite with a lot of pull.

Three Kites — Premier Flo-tail Delta, White Bird Dragon, Premier Mesh Delta

There weren’t a lot of stunt kite fliers present but I did get some practice with the quad lines. First, I got a chance to fly the Volksquad by New Tech. It was a very short flight. Before I could get the kite balanced and a feel for how it flies, one of the bungy cords on the sail snapped. That was the end of my test. With no tension on one side of the sail, the kite came tumbling down. I will probably hear about “breaking” the kite for quite a while. At least I won’t have to fix it. It was a tester from the kite shop. However, It may be a while before I get to try out a new kite again. Later, I put up my Vamp Devil. Flew it for a while and then stopped for a some water. I highly advise everyone to mark their quad line handles so you can tell right from left. I haven’t and when I picked up the handles again, I got them reversed. The end result was a mess of tangled lines. It’s no fun to have to spend the end of your kiting day untangling lines so you can wind them up and put them away. Not my morning.

The day got better, however when we were invited to join some friends on the beach for more kite flying and good company. Someone had been flying on the beach in front of their house and the kite-flying gauntlet had been thrown down. It would be an afternoon of big kites and even bigger line laundry. We took two of our biggest kites to fly. And out friend had a huge Premier spinner to try out on his large Sutton. The winds had picked up from the morning and it was a perfect kite flying day. Before we arrived, the spinner was put up. And it broke the heavy line it was attached with and straightened out a large swivel. We missed the show of our friends running across the beach trying to get the spinner deflated and safely grounded. The call went out for a heavier line and swivel.

Our local kite shop owners came to the rescue and brought over the line and swivel after the shop closed for the day. The guys put up the spinner while the gals visited and supervised. The first attempt resulted in the sand anchors being pulled down the beach as the spinner caught the wind. It was gorgeous, but the pull was tremendous. Not to be defeated by line laundry, the anchors were re-buried and the spinner was put up once again. The spinner was a great show on the beach and drew a small group of people to watch the launches and the flight. When, once again, the anchors started to be pulled out of the sand, we quit and brought the spinner down. It went home to the kite shop and we enjoyed the last of the afternoon sun.