Not for the feeble!
With all this talk of wind there has been much mention of kites, mostly related to myself and the possibility that the kite would in fact fly me.
I have been there, I promise you!
Many moons ago, well I can't do the math to tell you exactly how many moons but something in the region of 12 years in any case, my then husband got 'into' flying power kites. These were most definitely not the kites you might buy for £20 and fly gently on a hill somewhere with children in tow, these where 'grown up' kites, power kites, flexifoils, stunt kites and fighting kites.
It was an eye opener for me at the time, this kind of kite flying I think was in relative infancy at the time though still quite technically advanced. We trailed all over the country attending 'kite festivals' and to the few outlets from where we could purchase the damn things.
As time went on we learnt to build our own, I doubt many households purchased an expensive sewing machine purely to build kites or had cupboards full if carbon fibre spars and 'ripstop' parachute fabric!
The majority of these things were beyond my physical capacity, without a doubt most would fly me, many of them required two men to hang onto them in any strength of breeze, could pull a buggy at relatively high speeds along a suitable open space and the line would easily remove ones fingers in an instant without heavy leather handwear as protection.
The specifics of the type of wind required were beyond me but one things was for sure, in wind of strengths such as we have here right now it was a 'no go', a grown up kite can be flown in remarkably little breeze and still have the ability to drag a grown man uncontrollably. The greatest fear of course was being in the position of losing control, these things cost hundreds of pounds and to 'let go' was not an option!
I for my part, unable to fly with the 'big boys' for much of the time, produced my own more novelty version which drew much attention at the various flying meetings we joined...... a black cat with 4 kittens hanging off the line below it,( a cat? no surprise there then!). This game was a damn good way of building upper body strength! Even that, with its 2 metre diameter 'mother cat' and .75 metre kittens was a handful that my 7.5 stone frame struggled with and often had to be anchored or rescued by a kindly and more suitably macho counterpart!
Even kite flying has it's attractions! ;o)
4 Comments:
The array of kites available these days is almost astonishing as the prices!
I thought about getting my 'junior' power kite out after a year gathering dust, but the thought of me paragliding across the park and probably into the nearest tree put me off ..lol..
Paul
Me and my mate once built a massive kite out of an old tent. We got it to fly really high over the beach at Weston Super Mare, so high I'm sure it was a danger to passing aircraft. But hey we were kids and that sort of thing was fun who cared if we downed an airliner or two!
YaaaY see, i tolda it was kite weather. You lucky duck, its quite sad you know, no one takes advantage of flying kites on the beach here, although when "A" was real little we used to if the wind was up on a sunday arvo.
Snowbabies: Lol....choose somehwere tree-less man! :o)
Lisa: No, I don't have the kites anymore sadly. When my ex chose to shoot thru and I found myself without a roof over my head I kinda forgot about them as I packed my stuff! hehe. I may have a photo somewhere, I'll try and look it out :o)
Menina: The wind is far to strong right now even if i still owned a kite!
Rob: Hell man, what's the odd airliner!
Michelle: Kite flying seems to be quite big here still, suitable beches and open spaces in suitable conditions usually play host to a few flyers.
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