MBK Kite Plans

The Way To Go If You're In The Know!

Having said that, if it's the step-by-step approach you prefer, take a look at the ads over there on the right. Those eBooks include full plans for many kites, as well.

There's another plus to the plans-only approach too. It's easier to substitute your own different materials or way of doing things, as you see fit.

For example, you might use rip-stop nylon instead of plastic, or artificial materials instead of wooden doweling for spars.

If you're building from the Dowel kite plans, you'll need 50 pound Polyester flying line. The Stake Line Winder from Amazon will do the job nicely.

For the Skewer kites, the 30 pound line is better. Eventually, you might want to find even lighter line for the 1-Skewer designs, since they struggle a bit if you have too much line out.

The bridle for each kite is made from the same line you intend to fly it on.

Between the plan and the list of hints, 90% of the kite's construction should be covered. If you're a 'plan builder' then the remaining 10% shouldn't worry you!

Here's some tips for finding the area of a kite, if you need to do that for any of these designs.

The links up there take you to plans and tips for the 1-Skewer, 2-Skewer and Dowel version of each kite type. Put one together, then go out and fly it really high!

New to this site? OK, let me explain about '1-Skewer', '2-Skewer' and 'Dowel' designs. These simply refer to the basic building block of the kite.

Except for the Delta, 1-skewer designs are no wider than the length of a single bamboo skewer. Similarly, 2-skewer designs are mainly constructed with 2 skewers joined end-to-end. Except for the Delta, these designs are never more than 2 skewers wide from tip to tip.

Finally, all the Dowel designs except the Delta are 1.2 meters (4 feet) from tip to tip.

I've used various kites from these 3 series to illustrate some points about kite bridles. Have a look if you're interested in this aspect of single-line kiting.

Overall Goals

My ultimate goal is to have a large collection of kite plans and instructions that have been refined and standardized through lots of building and flying! Small design changes might creep in too, as I experiment and improve the flying characteristics of these cheap kites, so you have a better chance of success.

If you are curious, I've written down a lot of recollections and comments on how the MBK kite designs came to be.

Finally, the kite drawings here are not intended for just printing off and enlarging. The result would be stretched a little in the horizontal or vertical direction. However, if you went ahead and built a kite from such a plan, I'm sure it would fly! Nothing a bit more tail and/or dihedral wouldn't fix, don't you think?

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