Adelaide Kite Festival 2013

A Public Flying Focus This Time!

Our coverage of the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013 carries on the MBK tradition of taking a new angle each time. Did YOU fly anything down at the beach, on the South side of the jetty? Chances are, your kite is now featured in close-up, in one of the photo gallery categories below! Mind you, this year we only attended on the Saturday of the Easter weekend.

Large kite action North of the jetty

Large kite action North of the jetty

Of course, we have not ignored the magnificent kites of the registered fliers completely. See the image immediately below. This shot turned out surprising vibrant considering the miserable lighting conditions of the day. Incidentally, most of these registered fliers' kites have been seen and photographed by us in previous years. Flying from North of the jetty as usual.

We arrived at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013 around 12:30pm on Saturday. With several MBK kites in the boot (trunk) of the car, to be able to fly in various wind speeds. By the time we walked onto the sand and rigged the Dowel delta, winds were 9.6 kph gusting to 13 kph, but had been lighter earlier during the morning. The commentator was noting how this was better for the big kites North of the jetty.

But the fresher wind was worse for us and our light-wind Delta! I rigged the Dowel Delta and put it up briefly. On 3m (10 feet) of line, it veered left, veered right, leading edges bending in at the tips. The kite might have survived for a few more minutes, but at the risk of snapping the spreader. Particularly if we let the pale-orange Delta up much higher where the wind tends to be a little stronger.

The Big Kites

Just for the record, here is a list which summarizes the big kites that we saw in the air on Saturday at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013...

Whopping great bouncing ball

Whopping great bouncing ball

• several Rokkakus
• several multi-keeled Sleds and Flowforms
• Deltas of course
• an interesting complex cellular or 2
• the yellow Cody with red top sail from previous years
• various inflatable sea creature kites - dolphin, mermaid, blue whale, killer whale, hammerhead shark, manta ray and others
• that giant tethered ball in the photo over there, which I carefully captured in mid-bounce off the sand :-)

In addition to these flying craft, and ball, there was much of the usual line laundry from previous years. One in particular is worthy of special mention...

An intriguing chain-like structure that rotated continuously in the wind, maintaining its general looping shape, but shifting around with subtlety from moment to moment. An aerial belt on invisible pullies, if you like! This is where a picture, or better yet, a video, would be worth 1000 words. But sorry, didn't get it.

At 2:30pm the breeze was definitely stronger. Averaging 11.5 kph with gusts to 17.5 kph when I did a brief check at shoulder height.

Public Area Kites

I spent quite some time criss-crossing the sand and piles of damp seaweed south of the Semaphore jetty, getting shots of the various small kites. Quite a display of the retail scene really! A couple of soft Stunt kites were in there as well.

A few designs were obviously being sold somewhere nearby. There might have been 5 or 10 SpongeBob Diamonds in the air, for example!

Just click on any picture in the categories below to start up a full-featured gallery. For any picture that really catches your eye, you can then see it in a much larger size by clicking on the icon at top-right.

The last category is a catch-all for any remaining images taken at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013.

The Sleds

The Diamonds

The Deltas

Bird Kites

Octopus Kites

Miscellaneous Kites

The Lolly Drops

Several Lolly Drops went off during the afternoon at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013. As usual, these were a massive hit with the kids! A bag of sweets, each individually fitted with a spinning 'parachute', would be hoisted into the air under a kite messenger. The messenger is just a small Delta-shaped sail with a simple mechanism that releases a payload when the device bumps into a stop attached to the kite line.

The lollies drift down, some falling faster than others, and the kids stream in from every direction. By the time the last drop has gone, and with a bit of sharing going on, no kid is disappointed. Hopefully.

The same person with the same distinctive green-and-brown Delta-like kite has provided this essential service for quite a few years now. On a previous occasion, I captured some video of the event. Browse around a bit and see if you can find it

A Wet Ending, And A Helicopter

Later in the afternoon, rain clouds came in despite earlier assurances that rain would stay away. About this time, the wind swung around to the South-West. During this transition is was interesting to watch some mild mayhem! Big kites nosing around with some of them losing height, unsure of which way was up-wind.

A chopper flew past

A chopper flew past

Finally, 15 or 30 minutes later perhaps, the winds smoothed out in the new direction and freshened up a bit more. Once again, all was sedate up there with all the colorful impressive kites back on show.

We had the small 1-Skewer Sode with a rather long tail which would have coped well with the wind strength, but we decided to go home instead. Mainly due to the dropping temperature and threat of further rain. Showers could be seen in various directions but mainly to the South, over land and sea.

It was a reasonable kite-watching outing though, with the whole gamut of single liners on show. From a struggling novelty ship kite to the giant Blue Whale and Peter Lynn Manta Ray!

Not all spectators were watching the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013 from the sand. A least a couple might have been viewing the kite cloud from above, in the WestPac Rescue Helicopter as it flew past...

FREE E-Book!

I'm referring to Simplest Dowel Kites, my popular kite-making download. It's a printable PDF file. Make a diamond, delta or sled. Each kite is capable of flying hundreds of feet up for hours on end.

Could you do me just a small favor though?

Please sign up for my free monthly publication, "Tethered Flying". No other emails will be sent, and your details are safe with me. You need to be at least 16 years old. There's...

• A huge "photo of the month" (via a link)
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• A "flight report of the month" (selected from my own flying logs)

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P.S. Keep an eye out for books by kite author Glenn Davison, a prominent kite person in the USA.

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