A Flying KiteOn The End Of A String...Is a wonderful thing! Is watching a flying kite one of your hobbies? Seeing your own creation up there definitely adds a new dimension to the experience. This page is devoted to a whole bunch of flight reports with my own collection of home-made kites. Elsewhere on this site, you can find plans, templates and tips for my 3 series of 8 kites. That's right, 24 designs in all. Within each series, each kite is roughly the same size. Browse the reports then have a guess which kite is featured in the video up there! Nearly every flight report features 10 seconds of video, plus an in-flight photo of the flying kite. Each section below is devoted to one of these series. Follow the links to experience some real-life flights. The weather's never the same 2 days a in row, so there's plenty of variety in there! Also, you just never know what random incident might happen while your kite is up. Nothing earth-shattering generally, but often enough to make you (or others) crack a smile! For each kite, the most recent flights are listed first. A Flying Kite Made Of Dowel And Plastic... is likely to do pretty well in light winds, as long as the dowel isn't too thick and heavy. The Dowel Kites Series was made with adults in mind, who want something of a decent size to fly. The first thing you might notice about a flying kite of the Dowel variety is that it doesn't have a tail. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from adding a tail just for looks! These kites will fly a little higher and steeper without tails though. Enjoy browsing through these accounts of outings with a Dowel Kite... Sled: Fewer Collapses, Much Higher And Longer Flights Just Hanging As The Sun Goes Down Diamond: Long Climbs In Light Warm Breezes Flies Like A Dream - If Thermals Not Too Extreme! Barn Door: Lolling About In Large Areas Of Lift And Sink Awesome Performer In Smooth Moderate Winds Straight To 80 Degrees In Gentle Winter Thermals Sode: Frolicking In Moderate Winds And Thermals Smooth Stable and Predictable! Rokkaku: Straight And True Over The Whole Wind Range Had To Fly Higher To Find Slower Air! Flying High In Smooth Breezes - After Some Drama! First Test Flight In A Light Gusty Breeze Delta: Amazing Flight In Almost Zero Wind Smooth Stiff Breeze Keeps Line Straight And Spars Bent! Roller: Light-wind Workout But Still A Height Record! Successful Test Flight In A Cold Fresh Breeze, With Gusts Dopero: Eventful Outing - Pelicans, Failed Tape And More Simply Superb Thermal Floater! Promising Test Flight In A Sharp Winter Wind Gradient Box: Winds A Bit Light, But Still Flew HIGH A Flying Kite May Be Modest In Size But EfficientI've had some fantastic flights with the 2-Skewer kites on light-wind days. What I love about them personally is that despite being fairly small, they hit a performance sweet spot. Here's what I mean... Two bamboo BBQ skewers end to end turns out to be a very ideal combination of strength, rigidity and light weight. Add extremely light single-ply plastic, and you have one super light-weight flying kite! Saving weight is what it's all about, as any kite-maker will tell you. See what some of these kites get up to, on a long 20 pound Dacron line... Diamond On A Taut 70 Meters Under A Leaden Sky Barn Door Gentle Flying Near Its Wind Range Lower Limit Rokkaku Rok Rockets Up, Aided By Thermals And Light Wind Pushing The Envelope In Moderate To Fresh Winds Roller Long High Flight In Perfect Weather Box: Sitting Pretty Above The Wind Gradient Some of this series are due to be re-made, with design improvements. When that happens, more flight reports will be added above. A Flying Kite May Be Tiny But InterestingParticularly if it is an MBK 1-Skewer kite! These have wing-spans the length of a single BBQ skewer. Most of the designs in this series are rarely seen in such small sizes. But I thought it would be fun to re-create them anyway! How about a ... 29cm (1 foot) wide Dopero? Just for moderate wind fun. It's simply too tiny to lift a camera of any kind, unlike its much larger cousins. Diamond: 2 Orange Diamonds Flash In A Blue-Gray Setting Delta: Almost Zero-Wind, But Still Some Interesting Flying! Testing Conditions, But A Great Little Flier! Most of the flight reports for these kites are in an old discontinued blog, elsewhere on this site. However the Delta was recently re-vamped, hence the flight reports above. The others are slated for improvements too. When I get around to that, more reports will follow, as I give each little flying kite a work-out! I usually wear a pair of cheap running shoes when I'm out flying. Anything flexible, comfortable and durable is good, like the tennis shoes from Midwest Sports, in the U.S. MBK Flying Skewers And Plastic is a fun publication for kite lovers. Particularly single-line fliers! This FREE monthly newsletter will help keep you in touch... There's always something new being built or flown at MBK! Your FREE COPY of a great 87-page eBook on popular kites is waiting to be downloaded. It's my way of saying 'Thank You' for subscribing. Last updated: 2 Sep 2010 Return to Home Page from A Flying Kite
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