Flying Barn Door Kites

Tiny, Medium, Large, or Huge!

Not long after starting this site, I made some tiny barn-door kites from bamboo BBQ skewers and clear plastic. These little barn doors flew well in slightly stronger winds than the similar-sized sleds and diamonds. They had a tendency to traverse from side to side, extending further to each side as the wind speed increased!

Later, the 1-Skewer Barn Door was made more visible by doing the sail in orange plastic and using a simple ribbon tail made from black plastic. The tail was looped, being attached to the lower tips of the two diagonal spars.

Next up in size came the 2-Skewer Barn Door, which again preferred moderate winds. The three-leg bridle kept it steady and helped prevent flexing of the spars. Hence this design can put up with fairly fresh winds, if well made.




Then we started making larger barn-door kites like the Dowel Barn Door. This one also has a three-leg bridle, which is the practical minimum for this kind of design anyway. The 1-Skewer version does manage with a single-leg bridle, but only because the horizontal spar was placed in just the right spot. It took some trial and error!

Finally, the huge Multi-Dowel Barn Door was created. Most of the time, this wonderfully stable and predictable kite was used for kite aerial photography.

Down below is a photo or two and a video of each MBK Barn Door. This illustrates the end result, in case you decide to use our instructions to make one of these kites.



 

The BIG MBK E-book Bundle!


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.

 


1-Skewer Barn Door

Barndoor Kites - early 1-Skewer barndoorOne of our first barn doors

Several 1-Skewer Barn Door kites were made, while I experimented with spar configurations and one or two other things. This photo shows one of the earliest ones, where the diagonal spars come to a point at the tail end of the kite.

These originals were made from clear freezer-bag plastic, which made them hard to see against a gray sky. However, it's a different story when backlit by the setting sun!

 


 

MBK 1-Skewer Barndoor kite in orange plasticMBK 1-Skewer Barn Door

This little barn door required considerable dihedral to fly properly. But the reward was a great reliable little moderate-wind flyer!

We flew this kite on 50 meters (150 feet) of 20-pound line. It doesn't need that strength, but we also flew our 2-Skewer Series kites on the same line.

Over there is a photo of the latest version of the 1-Skewer Barn Door, in orange garden-bag plastic.

The tail is cut from a cheap black garbage bag. The looped tail gives the kite more stability than if the same length was allowed to just hang by one end.

Check out the video below, which shows two more of these kites bobbing around in a gusty breeze. The dark-blue kite is flying off a 2 meter (6 feet) line from the light-blue kite. Extra loops of tail have been added to settle the kites down in the moderate strength gusts.

 

 


2-Skewer Barn Door

MBK 2-Skewer Barndoor kite with looped tailMBK 2-Skewer Barn Door

The 2-Skewer Barn Door is, as the name suggests, exactly twice as tall as the 1-Skewer design. This gives it four times the sail area with not much more than double the weight. Hence, it doesn't need quite as much wind as the smaller design.

The kite pictured has two-ply plastic which makes it a little heavier, but it still flies great. A little dihedral plus the three-leg bridle keeps this kite much steadier in the air than the tiny 1-Skewer version.

This is the kite we pulled out when there was too much wind for all the other skewer kites!

The video below shows this kite flying in rough air that caused it to sweep around quite a bit. Up higher and on a lot more line the kite settled down and flew smoother.

Barn-door kites like this one have no trouble climbing up to 400 feet on a 20-pound line.

 

 


Dowel Barn Door

MBK Dowel Barndoor kiteMBK Dowel Barndoor

For a few years this was the largest of the MBK Barn Door kites.

It took a couple of attempts to design a barn door which was reasonably easy to rig and de-rig. Also, the original one used 4 mm dowel, which proved to be far too light. Not to mention non-standard, since the rest of the Dowel Series used 5 mm dowel.

The Dowel Barn Door is a reliable flyer in light and moderate breezes.

Like most barn-door kites, the flying line angles are modest, but it climbs easily to 400 feet if you let enough line out.

Size? It's twice as tall as the 2-Skewer version, so that's four times the sail area. Compared to the 1-Skewer version, the Dowel Barn Door has 16 times as much area!

 

 


Multi-Dowel Barn Door

The MBK Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite in flight.MBK Multi-Dowel Barn Door

The big daddy of MBK Barn Door kites, is the Multi-Dowel Barn Door. Or, depending on your culture, perhaps the mother of them all!

Like the Dowel Barn Door, this design is a reliable flyer in light and moderate breezes. Due to its sheer size and also its predictable flying characteristics, the Multi-Dowel version does very well hoisting a camera for aerial photos.

Again, like most barn-door kites, the flying line angles are modest. However, this kite can go directly overhead if rising air is encountered in summer weather. That's one aspect that isn't so good if you have a camera dangling from the line!

Size? It's twice as tall as the Dowel version, so that's four times the sail area. Compared to the 1-Skewer version, the Multi-Dowel Barn Door has 64 times as much area!

In the video below, the big kite is wallowing down near the bottom of its wind range. For aerial photography it would need a little more breeze to fly steadier and higher.

 


That's about it for this page on barn-door kites—in four convenient sizes! I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the info.

 


 


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.