I’ve made kites since I was a kid – mostly Eddy type (two stick, cross shaped) kites from bamboo, newspaper and glue and string from my paper route rolling!
Sort of like ham radio, there are few periods of years in my life when I haven’t been active to some extent.
With kites, I find myself mostly settling on making soft kites, and especially smaller soft kites that I can fold up and put in my pocket.
And something I learned with Marcus, a long time ago – if the kite is well-designed and built, it shouldn’t need to have a tail. While watchers will be dazzled by tails, me? I feel I can get more kites into the sky at the same time, tied to logs and signs, if the kites don’t have tails to tangle it all together.
Three designs predominate my kite work (not that I’ve been all that active recently) – parasled, pan flute and parafoil.
I’ll try to write a few paragraphs about my experiences with each at another time.