Some of my kiting philosophies…

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.

First parasled I ever made, maybe middle 1980s? Still have it but don’t fly it too often now.

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.

Tropical shirt kite…

I have more than 100 tropical shirts – but I decided to sacrifice this one to make a kite.  My friend Marcus used to say that you can fly absolutely anything, if you get the bridling right and the wind is strong enough…

Flying at the beach south of Mt. Maunganui.

Bowentown from the air…

I took this photo in April 2017 while we were camping at Anzac Bay, near Bowentown (north of Tauranga).  Our caravan (and awning) are at the bottom left.  I used the purple parafoil to hoist the kite, using a Picovet rig to try to keep it steady.  This is a screenshot from a movie of the flight…