Adelaide Kite Festival 2015

The View From 250 Feet

Yes, at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2015 we finally got around to doing some kite aerial photography (KAP) of the event. You could say that Saturday of the Easter long weekend was "the main event" since the weather came good in spectacular fashion. It was just in time really, after being almost dead calm earlier in the morning.

Of course, we also got around on the sandy beach, taking plenty of photos and video from that perspective. As usual, a very wide variety of craft were floating about, giving the public an education on the breadth and depth of modern kite-making!

This year, we graduated to flying on the north side of the jetty, since I had become a member of AKFA (Adelaide Kite Flyers Association). Our Multi-Dowel designs were large enough to not look out of place over there. All the same, there were no rules on kite size. In fact, some of the most interesting designs this year were relatively small ones!

The public flying area to the south of the jetty was alive with smaller kites. Occasionally, a mishap would occur, sending a colorful piece of ripstop nylon drifting through the registered-flyers' area. Sometimes it was with nylon line attached and sometimes not.

Sunday also turned out well, although we didn't attend. Then the wild weather hit on Monday. There were gale-force gusts and buckets of hail!



 

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On this site, there's more kite-making info than you can poke a stick at :-)

Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?

The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.

Every kite in every MBK series.


 


Two More KAP Perspectives

My Pentax Optio camera was set to take 20 images at 10-second intervals. Also, a 4-minute initial delay gave ample time to launch and climb out the kite. Thanks to the super-steady flight of the 2-m (7-ft.) -span Carbon Diamond, just about any of the images could have been used.

Several flights were made. Shown below are the results of tweaking the rig left then right. Hence, both ends of the jetty were captured.

Click on an image to enlarge it. Make sure your browser window is full-screen! Try the image at the top of this page as well.

 


Photos From Below

My wife and I both walked around with the camera at different times, snapping whatever seemed interesting. Here's a selection; each photo is clickable to fill your screen:

 


Our Day at the
Adelaide Kite Festival 2015

The weather forecasts in previous days were showing ominously little wind. Even on the first morning of the event, a Saturday, the air was practically dead calm. But it turned out to be the calm before the st... stirring of leaves in pleasant light wind. Whew! Actually, the storm did arrive—on Monday, which saw no official flying.

Adelaide Kite Festival 2015 - Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite.MBK Multi-Dowel Barn Door

We arrived around midday and set up our little throw-down tent on the sand. Young Aren was tasked with filling sand bags while Dad walked back to the car ... soon to return with an armful of Multi-Dowel kites plus the #2 Carbon Diamond, a 2-m (7-ft.) -span design with Tyvek house-wrap sail.

The photos in this section were not taken on the day, but give a closeup view of the kites mentioned.

First in the air was the Multi-Dowel Barn Door. The big kite was very straightforwardly let up to around 300 feet on my hose-reel-mounted 200-pound Dacron line. A sturdy calico shopping bag, a third full of sand, was adequate to hold the tailless kite in the fairly smooth 8- to 12-kph breeze. Weaving gently from side to side and sometimes straightening up in slightly fresher periods, the barn door was slightly downwind of most of the biggest festival kites.

That was one done; there were a few more to go! Now it was time to spend a few minutes with family in our little home-base on the sand, before wandering off to take photos and the odd video.

I was determined this year to get some KAP images of the festival. Although the barn door is a good reliable workhorse for aerial photography, I chose the Carbon Diamond to hoist my bamboo-skewer rig over the Semaphore sand. Besides being very steady in flight, this diamond also allows the KAP rig to hang just 15 m (50 ft.) from the kite, with no stability problems. This is unlike other kites of mine, which require the rig to be hung 30 m (100 ft.) from the lifter kite!

Again using a calico shopping-bag as a sand anchor, a 100-pound line was laid out and the kite rigged. Next came attaching the suspension lines to the flying line and inserting the camera. After setting up the photo sequence and pressing the shutter button, it was time to launch the diamond and carefully let the KAP cradle rise away.

Adelaide Kite Festival 2015 - Multi-Dowel Diamond kite.MBK Multi-Dowel Diamond

Soon, there it was, the camera a little black dot in the sky to people watching from the jetty. It was capturing all the action from over 250 feet above the beach.

Son Aren's next task was to remind me every 10 or 15 minutes to take down the camera and tweak the direction. In this way, over several flights, 90% of all the activity on the ground and in the air was covered.

In the meantime, we walked around and got to meet a few notable kite people. This included a Japanese kite-master who was very approving of the way my Multi-Dowel Barn Door looked and flew. It was sort of refreshing really, considering the decidedly homespun look of most of my kites! Modern designer-kites are so hi-tech and arty in comparison.

Finally, it was decided to put just one more kite up. It seemed prudent to try a short line length this time, as the sky was getting crowded! So, the dark-blue Multi-Dowel Diamond was secured on a short 100-pound line, upwind of the other two. A drogue was added too, just to be on the safe side.

During the afternoon the wind gradually freshened until it was gusting to just over 20 kph at shoulder height. With the ideal weather, all three kites behaved themselves immaculately the whole time they were up. The Carbon Diamond needed a small bridle adjustment to stop it hanging left, toward the very big kites. Then it tended ever so slightly to the right, but that wasn't a problem at all.

Around 4:30 pm, we took all of our kites down, having been part of possibly one of the best festival days ever. There was such great weather this time for the Adelaide Kite Festival 2015!


Adelaide Kite Festival 2015 - black pegasus inflatable kiteGreat shot of a black Pegasus inflatable, by my wife May


Finally, here is a pan-around video of some of the action:


 


 


As mentioned earlier, there's more kite-making on this site than you can poke a stick at :-)

Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?

The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.

Every kite in every MBK series.