We took our caravan up to the Bowentown Motor Camp for two nights last weekend. Averil spent time fishing, I got to fly some kites.
Finally, a good chance to see the blue parafoil at its best. Friday’s winds were a bit erratic, but I got both the purple and the blue parafoils flying well. Never easy to take good photos of kites in the air, as once you get them up high enough, they are just specks on the photo, anyway. And given it was just a cellphone camera, the kites were generally out of focus (if you click on the image to the right, you will get a better version of it…)
Both kites had substantial amounts of tail, to counteract the gusty wind. First time I’ve flown the blue parafoil with both the long tail but also the drogue at the end of that. It looked pretty good!
When I went down to the beach on Saturday ( a 3 minute walk from the caravan) I forgot to take the bag with the tails – so flew the blue parafoil without any tail. Light but steady wind meant it flew very well, though very sluggish when I raised the camera with it.
The blue parafoil was amazingly responsive – I could let it drop down to not far above the path to the beach. Then, just pulling in a few metres of line, I could get it to climb rapidly up to nearly overhead. I think the shallow aerofoil shape has given it this responsiveness – much more than any of the other parafoils I’ve made.
Though I’ve not referred to it here much, there is a kite day this coming Sunday at Fergusson Park for Matariki. I’m not usually much for kite days, as I’m not overly social (!) at the best of times.
