Wanted to fly today but, once again, the wind wouldn’t cooperate. We have a couple of new Skydog kites to test fly. Tried to fly them a couple of days ago before the sun set. While the wind was stronger than today, it was not strong enough to get one of the kites into the air. The other took some work but did eventually fly and fly quite well. It just hung in the sky above our heads, no waving, weaving or wobbling. Maybe tomorrow we can try again.
So instead of flying, I worked on a kite for the upcoming kite festival workshop. I got my kite early so that I could get my kite finished for use as a sample. Because of this, I’m moving rapidly into the position of a perfectionist. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not competing in the Nationals so it really doesn’t matter. This is a fun, good-looking kite and I should be having fun making it. And why is my kite a sample kite? I have been given the assignment of workshop assistant instead of workshop participant. Apparently people believe I already have the skills for a beginner class and have moved on. We will see. In one week, it will be only be a year since I made my first kite.
The applique sewing is complete and I am cutting away the unwanted layers of ripstop. Tomorrow I have to get some more thread for hemming and pockets. Then I need to do repair work on some of my kites so they will be ready for the festival. Yes, I have been procrastinating. I hate repair work. Mostly it’s ripping out pockets and replacing them.
My next project is a kite for my daughter. She wants to hang it on the wall in the spare bedroom. So I had better get back to the work table.
Life has been hectic since the last post. And it bothers me that I have left this so long with no updates. I will try to do better in the future. We haven’t been flying much for one reason or another. The first reason is Hurricane Irene. She may have only been a category 1 storm when she passed over our heads but the rains and winds were enough to disrupt our lives significantly. We were lucky in that we had no damage to our property. Although we did have to have three trees taken done to avoid later possible damage. Needless to say, the regular weekly kite fly was canceled.
Right after the clean-up was completed at both houses, it was time to pack up the car and leave for the Mile High Kite Fly at Beech Mountain, NC. This festival was so named because Beech Mountain is 5,506 feet above sea level, the highest town in the state. Saturday is set-up day and a kite builders competition. I decided to take the plunge and enter some of the kites I had built. Hopefully, the judges would be kind and I would pick up some pointers on kite building and competing. I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning attending to details on my kites and getting very nervous about the competition. The judging is done in two stages: in the air ( how will it flies and looks in the sky) and on the ground (how well it is made). I entered four kites in three categories. In the flat & bowed kites, I entered the Penelope Cat della porta and the Green Bay hata. (Side note on the hata – I finished this kite and flew it for the first time on Superbowl Sunday. Need I mention who won Superbowl LXV? Go Packers!!) In the soft & flexible, I entered the Eagle painless parafoil. In the box & cellular, I entered the Dunston-Taylor box delta that I had finished the night before leaving for the festival.
Dunston-Taylor Box Delta (custom kite)Green Bay Packers Hata (custom kite)
The winds on Saturday were light and variable and the skies were cloudy. Not the best day to show off one’s handiwork. But we do the best we can with what we’ve got. There were a total of none kites entered in the competition. They all flew to one degree or another. I had the hardest time getting the parafoil to fly but once it got up, it flew steady like a champ. There wasn’t quite enough wind for the flat & bowed so it took some work to keep them in the air high enough for the judges to see what they looked like. But we managed. The Dunston-Taylor box is a light wind kite so there was no problem there. The judges’ scores were tallied but the results weren’t going to be announced until the next day. More nervous waiting. I did get some great comments from the judges and a lot of good advice and suggestions. Lots of encouragement to keep on building. And have to admit, it was fun and I look forward to doing it again.
Sunday was the festival day. The day full of flying and kid’s kite-making and kid’s flying up and down the mountainside. But there was no wind. Yes, even less than the day before. But that didn’t seemed to stop the kids. They ran up and down and up and down trying to get their kites in the air. Some brought their own kites to fly and some bought kites from a vendor on site. The clouds became thicker and darker and around one o’clock the skies opened and the rain came down. We were ready to wait it out until there was thunder and lightning. Then the tents came down and the banners were put away and the festival was officially over. It all ended too soon. There was a fliers cook-out later that evening despite the rain. Thank goodness for picnic shelters. At the cook-out, the winners of the kite builders were announced.
I was truly surprised when I found out I won first place in soft & flexible with my Eagle parafoil. I truly thought my competitor’s kite was better but the judges thought otherwise. Hurray for me!!!!! Then I won a second place in flat & bowed with the Penelope Cat della porta. A second Hurray!!! Two awards in my first competition. Pretty good. I’ve started planning for next year.
I’ve lost track of the days that there has been an extreme heat advisory. Extreme high temperatures plus extreme high humidity equals record-setting temperatures. There is no reason to be out in the sun and the heat unless you really have to. So we did not go to the beach and we did not fly any kites on Sunday. It was the regular club fly day but it was just too hot. And on top of that, there was no wind. Usually a breeze coming off the water can make the day a little more bearable. But not that day. We called our friend from the kite shop to see if anyone was flying and if we were needed to come out there. Only one other person arrived and it didn’t take much talking to convince him that there would be no flying. So we all stayed in the air conditioning and avoided heat exhaustion and dehydration. We can always fly another day.
The Goblin Stack
The day wasn’t totally without kites, however. I have started sewing on my next kite. I’m making a Dunston-Taylor Box Delta. I’m kind of doing things backwards. The colors were picked out to match some line laundry. I can only hope the kite has the pull and the stability to haul the three-legged drogue. As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also putting some appliqué to the wings and box to add interest. I just can’t seem to do kite building the easy way. If the drogue turns out to be too much for the kite, I will use the leftover material to make a pennant tail to trail behind this kite. I’ve seen photos of this type of tail attached to this kite and it looks fantastic.
I also took my three Goblins and stacked them together. Now I just need a little wind to see how they fly. And I need some cooler temperatures.
DT Box Delta Ready For AssembyApplique Detail
For all those who have to be out in the heat; stay hydrated, take breaks in the shade, and don’t over-exert.
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!
First Flight of the Eagle
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.
Eagle With Transition Tails
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.
Freedom In The Sky - A Kiter's Blog 