Types Of Kites

8 Popular Single Liners

The focus here is definitely on single-liners, and 'flat' types of kites in particular. However, I like to include designs with bowed spars or dihedral in the 'flat' category also. For example, the Dopero, Roller and Rokkaku, which you can make for yourself from dowels and plastic sheet.

Some designs are a lot more popular than others. For example, it's not hard to find Diamonds and Deltas online...

Try this if you're not living in the U.S.

Try this if you're not living in the U.S.

However, we hope you enjoy getting educated about the more obscure ones!

If you have browsed around this site a little, you know that we build and fly 8 different types of kites that are known in the West. Not all of them originated in the West though.

3 complete series of the 8 types have been designed, built and flown. All the kites within a series are a similar size. The results form a large portion of the content on this website!

Along the way, a fair amount of background info has been collated on these types of kites. Down below is a short introduction to each type, containing a link to a page of much more detailed info if you are interested.

The Sled Kite

In terms of popularity and sheer numbers, the Sled kite is up there in the Big Three - Sleds, Diamonds and Deltas. I've never seen a truly large Sled, but have often seen smaller ones flying here and there. In parks, down at the beach, even at Kite Festivals. This entire web site started out by featuring a humble little $5 all-plastic Sled we bought for our toddler! It's still out there in the back shed...

A bit of research on these types of kites turned up an amazing variety of configurations for such a seemingly simple design. Extra spars, vents, cutouts, you name it. Whatever its exact form, the attractive thing about these kites is the built-in transportability and instant setup. Pure convenience.

The flying performance of store-bought Sled kites tends to be modest, but that doesn't bother the people who fly them!

On the other hand, you can make your own big Sled for just 2 or 3 dollars. Watch it go almost overhead on a light-wind-and-thermals kind of day!

The Diamond Kite

I can't help noticing how often we are bombarded with images of the Diamond kite in daily life.

It seems every second kid's show on T.V. and every second children's book has an image or 3 of this extremely well-known kite shape. It seems that, in the West at least, the word 'kite' is almost synonymous with the shape 'diamond'. Hear 'kite', see a 'diamond'!

As a family we have often seen a Diamond kite of some description floating on the breeze. Usually, the person taking an opportunity to fly a kite is hidden by the houses and trees of suburbia here in Adelaide.

Interestingly, all our building and flying of simple Diamonds has underscored the basic reliability and idiot-proof nature of these types of kites! Many other designs can have their quirks and give trouble when built from scratch by inexperienced fliers. No wonder the Diamond is so popular. The larger ones which break down for transport are very quick to set up too.

With accurately made modern materials, Diamond kites can have quite a good wind range, although they don't necessarily fly at very steep line angles.

In some corners of the world, you might hear a Diamond referred to as an Eddy kite. There are a number of similarities!

You can easily make your own big Diamond from dowels and plastic. This particular tail-less Diamond is very similar to the classic Eddy and is particularly good in light winds.

The Barn Door Kite

With so many visitors from the U.S. passing through this site, it's appropriate to include a design that apparently originated in that country. The 3-spar Barn Door doesn't make it into my top 3 types of kites. However, a little browsing around the Web reveals that a number of keen kite people take pride in making and flying large examples of these types of kites.

I have to admit, I've never seen a Barn Door flying here in Australia! Apart from our own MBK versions of course. There must be a few around though, since the term '3-sticker' has been in use for many years.

Both our own Skewer designs are very much at home in fresh breezes, although we fly them both with tails. Larger Barn Door kites are able to fly tail-less, at least in light to moderate winds.

Why not make your own big Barn Door for those moderate wind days.

The Sode Kite

Otherwise known as the Kimono kite due to its resemblance to that Japanese garment, the Sode has often been copied in the West. It's not unknown for a large Sode to be spotted at a kite festival. The rectangular areas of sail make a good canvas for artistic expression!

Our MBK Sodes are great light wind fliers, and gain height easily in thermals just like Deltas. The Japanese originals fly without tails, and use Washi paper for the sails. Apparently, some tragically keen Japanese fliers still make their own Washi paper from mulberry bushes...

Beat that for 'building from scratch'! Sode kites can seem quite flimsy when being handled on the ground, but these types of kites fly very steadily up high.

It's not hard to make your own big Sode from hardwood dowel and plastic sheet. Just about any kind of large plastic bags will do. With their cambered 'wings', big Sodes are remarkably efficient.

The Rokkaku Kite

Continuing the Japanese theme, the Rokkaku kite, often abbreviated to just 'Rok', has to be the most copied Japanese kite in the West.

These types of kites are everywhere, from small ones turned out from children's kite-making workshops right through to large expensive air-brushed versions for sale in kite shops.

Like the Diamond and Delta, flying characteristics have a lot to do with their considerable popularity! In my humble opinion. However, they don't quite make the Big Three.

I've seen a Rok Battle at a kite festival, and have to say it's not a bad spectator sport! The competitors try to force all the other kites to the ground, any way they can. Well, not quite, I'm sure firearms would be against the rules ;-) Personally, I'm not so much into kite fighting, and prefer to fly my Rokkakus up to 400 feet in light wind and thermal conditions.

Rokkaku kites are quite forgiving to construct and fly. They are so stable that a tail is needed only for decoration, or perhaps in strong wind conditions. The larger Roks can have more bow pulled into the lower spar for more stability anyway.

In terms of getting flying performance for a minimum of building effort, Roks are just great. Do yourself a favor and make your own big Rokkaku one day!

The Delta Kite

Number 3 of The Big Three! Of all the different types of kites, the Delta kite is most commonly recommended to beginners by shops and festival commentators, for good reason.

The Delta is easy to launch, flies on the lightest of breezes, and almost always sits at a good steep line angle. These characteristics have pushed along the popularity of this design to huge levels, despite having only a fraction of the history of the Diamond and perhaps even the Sled kite.

The vast majority of Delta kites are bought from a shop, since they are not nearly as straight-forward to construct as the Diamond or Sled. However, building Delta kites can be very rewarding, as I can attest!

Our experience of Deltas has uncovered a tendency for them to get unpredictable in gusty or fresh winds. However, in light winds or stronger smooth breezes they are truly wonderful fliers.

Our MBK Delta kites are nice steep fliers too, and tend to go straight overhead whenever a patch of rising air passes through. Verify this for yourself by making your own big Delta for those pleasant light-wind days! This kite costs only a few dollars in materials.

Dan Leigh has been designing light wind kites since 1974, and specializes in the Delta configuration. Customers rave about the quality and performance of Dan's Delta kites. Mind you, they don't come cheap!

The Roller Kite

Not a super-popular design now, but there are people out there who love their Rollers!

An efficient light wind kite that can be adjusted for flying in stronger winds, the Roller has its roots in pre-War Germany. With its tail-less design and steep flying angles, this kite is handy for flying in confined areas.

Our MBK Rollers are reliable fliers, based on the Pearson Roller, with the larger 2-Skewer one quite capable of going overhead on 100 meters of line. The smaller 1-Skewer design once caught the eye of a German blogger who marveled at how a Roller could be so cheap!

I have a sneaking suspicion that Roller kites are more liked and well known in Germany and other parts of Europe than elsewhere on the planet. After all, that's where the basic concept originated.

You can also make your own big Roller from dirt-cheap materials. Give it a go, I've had some good high flights with mine.

The Dopero Kite

Hardly a common kite, the Dopero is however much appreciated with the Kite Aerial Photography crowd. This design is capable of hoisting camera gear aloft in light winds better than other designs of similar sail area. The original kite was actually inspired by the idea of overlapping 2 Pearson Rollers. Hence DOuble PEarson ROller or 'Dopero'.

Our Doperos are rather loosely based on the original! These types of kites generally have drag-pockets under the trailing edge, but ours have twin keels. Also, ours have much lower aspect ratios. To put that in entirely non-technical language, ours are 'stumpy' compared to the more 'graceful' types of kites that were originally made. I have my reasons for this, and it doesn't stop the 2-Skewer version going directly overhead on 150 meters of line...

You can make one of our Skewer Doperos for a 2-digit materials cost - and that's cents not dollars! Moving up to a more impressive size, you might prefer to make your own big Dopero with dowel spars for just a few dollars.

The very best shop-bought Dopero kites are wonderful hi-tech pieces of gear. Hence they are expensive, with dollar prices in 3 digits!

I've mentioned our own kite designs a few times up there. For more of an insight into the world of homemade kites, you can read some of our flying experiences. There's an in-flight photo of each kite too.

I hope you enjoyed that quick tour of the types of kites you are likely to see in the West, floating in the wind on the end of a single string. Although it doesn't belong in my grouping of 8, I might just throw in a mention of another popular type right here - the single-string parafoil.

These types of kites are everywhere, and you are certain to see a variety of them if you ever attend a kite festival. Like the multi-line parafoils that pull surfers across the water at beaches, the single-liner has an upper and lower surface, divided into a number of cells that are open at the front. Air pressure keeps the kite's shape pumped up as it flies.

But here's the point - you are not going to slap one of these together in an hour or 2 on your kitchen table, from plastic bags! Also, with no spars, bamboo doesn't come into it either. Perhaps I could give it a shot, and call it the 'MBK Zero-Skewer Parafoil' ;-)

Finally, if you enjoyed the historical snippets about the various types of kites, you might be interested in some fascinating in-depth kite history. At this site, click on KITE HISTORY on the right hand side to browse time-lines of kite development, and peek into the activities of some early kite pioneers. The webmaster is a historian by profession.

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Last updated: 16 Jun 2010