Parachute Kite

Sea Water Swirls Past Anchor!

It looked ideal for the parachute kite, on my PC screen. The breeze was 24 kph gusting to 31 kph from the west, straight off the sea. That was according to the online weather site.

The MBK Parachute kite in flight.MBK Parachute

It's been on the to-do list for ages—to fill in a gap in the website content for these soft kite designs. It was time to do a long-format report on the MBK Parachute kite in a stiff smooth breeze—photos, video clip, the whole bit. Was today the day?

Approaching the beach it seemed promising since there were whitecaps out across the ocean.

Minutes later, after arriving on the sand, things were not looking so positive. The tide was well up. However, there were signs that the water was receding, so with that I found a spot and checked the breeze. What—only 9 kph gusting to 12 kph?! That was odd, but it was still worth putting the kite up for a while.

Space was very limited. To gain an extra few meters, I placed the bag on very damp sand not far from the water's edge. The line angle of the flying kite was clearly boosted by the steep slope forcing the breeze up and over.

The small MBK Parachute kite waved around happily enough, just clear of the rocky artificial slope. Only 15 meters (50 feet) or so of line was out. The rocks were real, just the slope had been put in place by artificial means ;-)

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.

For some minutes I scampered around getting stills and video from various angles. Despite the winter weather, the sun was finding substantial gaps in the cloud cover and pouring through brightly. At one point, after rescuing the kite from a rock landing, I photographed directly upwards at the kite while standing partway up the rock face. That'll be the closest inflight pic of this kite taken so far, I'm sure.

A seagull soared close by but turned away just as I framed up the shot. Bother.

An even bigger bother was the seawater suddenly washing past the bag on the sand (and my shoes) while video was being taken! A "dodge tide" perhaps.

Within a second or two the bag was taken to safety a couple of meters towards the rocks. The kite kept flying. A glance to the north confirmed that the water had also reached the steps where I had descended to the sand!

Wasting no time, the kite was taken down and stuffed into the bag. Further down the beach to the south it wasn't clear if the other off-ramp would be accessible without getting wet. I was out of there pretty quickly, up the concrete steps.

So, the hardy little 'chute still flies. It's been many many months now since the construction of the MBK Parachute was first documented. There's a lot of taping in the kite's construction but that has the benefit of extra durability it seems.


Parachute Kite Gallery

Click or tap on any photo below to start up the gallery viewer:

MBK Parachute kite 1 - 1.
MBK Parachute kite 1 - 2.
MBK Parachute kite 1 - 3.
MBK Parachute kite 1 - 4.
MBK Parachute kite 1 - 5.
MBK Parachute kite 1 - 6.

 
The video below was taken on another day, inland.

 

The story or stories above document actual flying experiences. My write-ups are definitely "warts and all" since things don't always go totally as planned. However, half the fun of kiting is anticipating the perfect flight. When it happens, it's magic!

 


As mentioned earlier, there's more kite-making info here 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.