All I Wanted To Do Was Fly

The community kite fly day has come and gone. An unwanted guest showed up and caused a cancellation. The guest’s name — FLORENCE. Hurricane Florence brought two days of high winds and three days of rain. And evacuations and curfews which kept us from the beach. Even though I had thoughts of taking my Flexifoil out and flying in the higher winds. Of course, no one would go with me. And I had no re-entry pass to get over the bridge to the beach after Florence passed.

So let’s go back to a better time when we got together with a group of kite builders for a weekend of building. The Keystone Kiters Club of Pennsylvania sponsored a kite building workshop in the month of August. The workshop is a major trip from North Carolina for a weekend but it is also a time of sharing and learning. It can get intense.

This year we built a modified edo designed by Mike Mosman, an American Kitefliers Association Grand Champion Kite Builder. The sail designs were completed at home so the weekend would be preparing and framing the kite. I had a vision of what I wanted this kite to look like. And I tried a different technique of appliqué. After several evenings of sewing the sail was complete. At the workshop, it took both days to hem, attach the cross-spars and vertical spars and bridle the kite. The bungee cord arrangement for the vertical spars and the cascading bridle were new constructions for me. That’s one of the reasons to travel to these workshops – to learn new construction techniques. Especially those that you would never think of or figure out on your own.

The end result is a kite that flies beautifully, looks the way I had imagined it would and has stitching I’m proud of. The kite is named “The Koi Pond”.

Fair Winds All

We Want To Fly!!

It’s been almost a month since we’ve been flying our kites. Seems like forever. There are some new kites still in their packaging, waiting to be freed to touch the sky. And why have we been keeping them captive? It’s the weather.

It has just been too darn hot to do much of anything. The regular flyers have been staying home and the new flyers, who have stopped at the shop and bought a kite or had a kite repaired, have avoided the heat and humidity on the beach, too. To top it off, there has been little to no wind. The most activity the kite club has done is stand in the parking lot looking at the flag on the Fort Macon flagpole hanging straight down and sweat.

Hopefully, things will change soon. We want to fly!!

Fair Winds All.

The Cool Cabana and No Wind

The heat has continued throughout the week. After almost succumbing to it on the Independence Day holiday fly, we’ve decided we will not go to the beach without some sort of shelter. Most people use a 10×10 foot pop-up tent. Considering we have to walk from the parking lot, up the road and to the beach, that option is rather cumbersome. So we invested in a new kind of beach shelter – the Cool Cabana. It is a smaller tent with only a center pole, like an umbrella, but it has four corner legs that are weighted down to make the shelter stable in higher winds. It is light weight and super easy to erect and take down. It provides just enough shade for two chairs and a cooler.

The lack of wind made the heat even hotter. What we should have done was leave the beach and return to the air conditioning. That was the easy way out and not for us this day. The small hardcore group went down to the beach and nursed our low-wind kites into the sky.

The Skate by Into The Wind and the Penguin Critter Kite by Skydog Kites

The Laima by Flying Wings, the Skate and a vintage box Delta

The one kite that defied the odds of flying was a vintage box Delta with wooden spars. By no stretch of the imagination should that kite fly. It was too heavy for the winds available. But it did. Just goes to show what a good design can do.

Just for fun, one of our club members tried to fly the new Skeleton kite. After all, the box Delta flew so maybe there was a large enough sail to get that kite in the sky. Unfortunately, it was a no go. But it was fun to watch as it danced crazily before settling to the ground.

With the heat index rising, we decided to call it a day and head for a cool place. Hopefully the extreme heat will move on and the winds will come up and we can soon fly and fly and fly to our hearts content.

Fair Winds All.

A Hot Independence Day Weekend

The Independence Day weekend was hot and crowded. As this holiday was on a Monday, we had the red/white/blue fly on our usual club fly day, Sunday. This also kept us out of the insane traffic a second time. And it was so hot, a second trip to the beach was not desirable. Okay, maybe it was desirable for those who don’t live here and only have a chance to get to the beach on holidays.

While there were only a few flyers in attendance, there was a large variety of kites in the air. All but two red, white and blue. They included four deltas, a flowform, a powersled, two Joel Scholz eagles, a parafoil and a sky skimmer. The blue delta had the space shuttle on it which made it patriotic enough for the holiday. The other non-RWB kite was the black skeleton, being flown by special request.

IMG_0375A — Small Joel Scholz Eagle kite and two custom kites – Eagle Parafoil and Space Shuttle Delta

IMG_0376A — Patriotic Delta by Premier, a Flowform and a Double Box Delta

IMG_0378A — Sky Skimmer by Kites Unlimited

IMG_0380A — Large Joel Scholz Eagle kite

After the single line kites were up and anchored, the stunt kites came out to play. Not a large number of kites but a sampling of the different types, from dual line to quad line to a stack of Hyperkites. Two of the stunt kites were vintage, a Star Dart and a Spirit Quad.

IMG_0385A — Star Dart by Action Kites and Hyperkites stack

IMG_0401A — Spirit Quad by New Tech Kites

To complete the show for this Independence Day, there were a couple of banners placed on the beach. Actually one was a banner and the other was a Masterpiece Rev that was created by Randy Tom. One by one the flyers had enough of the heat and packed up and headed for the air conditioning. There was satisfaction in that we had put on an appropriate display for this Independence Day.

Fair Winds All.

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