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Do you remember your very first kite?


stev123
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This topic brings back memories! It was late spring of 1957 on my 6th birthday. I just blew out the candles on the cake then I started opening my presents. You always gotta save the biggest presents for last and open the soft ones first, soft ones are usually socks or underwear. I finally got to the long present and started ripping open the gift wrap paper. How was I to know the pretty gift wrap paper wasn't gift wrap? The kite wasn't gift wrapped!

After the ol' man ripped me a new one, I think I wished I would have blown out the candles after I opened my presents! I still got to fly it but it was now a newspaper kite.

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  • 1 year later...

Love this thread, great stories.

My first kite was a homemade diamond. Made from newspaper, suitable twigs, sticky tape and knitting wool. Man I used to run around with those till something broke.

My wife bought the good ol' occy that was at the start of this journey.

The first kite I bought was my Rev EXP. Bit of a jump but I slid right down the rabbit hole.

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My wife and I took a trip to Cannon Beach Oregon after I passed my graduate oral exams. I bought a Cheetah, which was a small dual line kite that was popular as an impulse buy for beach goers at the time (1990)

i couldn't get over its rigid frame and swept leading edges. it seemed so serious, so professional. I spent the day flying it to the edge and holding it still in the smooth beach winds. To this day I think I measure all other kites by the feeling I got flying that first sport kite.

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  • 1 year later...

My very first kite was a HQ symphony 2.1 after flying a friends blade 4 meter I was hooked. Being a bit stupid and not fully understanding just how dangerous power kites can be on the 4th time out with my HQ I took it out in a wind that was way way too strong for the kite and myself and boy did I find that out fast !!! After being dragged up the beach just about managing to stay on my feet and heading to a busy road I did the only thing I could and let go of one of the two lines , that was a big lesson learned and an escaped trip to a&e with a lesson in untangling lines to boot , yes at the time I was in my early 40's well your never too old to be a kid !!!


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  • 5 months later...

My dad made me a traditional diamond shaped kite.  Being a joiner, he used square section spars and I think he even did a "halving joint".  The sail was greaseproof paper - just plain grey.  As I remember it, the kite was huge: nearly as tall as I was at the time.  We flew it briefly on a local field and it pulled so hard that the line snapped and the kite landed on a house roof and was lost.  A few weeks ago, I was flying kites on the same field and I'm pretty sure I still know which house it was!

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Funny you should mention a Puffer Kite... That was my first kite. When I was 5 or 6 years old I lived in Brunswick ME and we had a huge field behind our house that I flew my Puffer in until somehow I let go of the line and it flew away...

I recently found this pic online.
IMG_1751.JPG


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Gayla Sky Spy or possibly the Bat, was the first one I remember, back in the late 60's or early 70's, in Orlando, Fla. I mainly remember the eyes, not sure of the color, but I think it was the white one.  Such a LOOOOOOOONG time ago!

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Gayla Sky Spy or possibly the Bat, was the first one I remember, back in the late 60's or early 70's, in Orlando, Fla. I mainly remember the eyes, not sure of the color, but I think it was the white one.  Such a LOOOOOOOONG time ago!

 

Speaking of Sky Spy. What the heck is this?

Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/322513819685

 

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  • 1 month later...

I flew my first kite when I was 7. It was a basic homemade diamond kite which I flew with my brother from the rooftop of our house when it was windy. There was once a local kite festival where I lived but I didn't enroll because I thought my kite was too basic and lacked aesthetics   :( I still went to the festival and from that day I was hooked.

kitchenlola | Headphone pit site

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Hi, netred, and welcome to the forum. On this forum we like anything and everything that flies, no matter how simple or complicated. There's a bunch of good folks here with some serious skills.

I look forward to sharing the sky with you some day.

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I have replied to this thread before about a paper diamond my dad made for me, so logically one of the two was not my very first kite.

The first shop bought kite I can remember was a type that was very common in the 1970s but has (thankfully?) died out.  It was a square about 16" or so across.  It flew with the straight edge to the ground, like a diamond.

The bridle was 3 legged, with one leg to each of the two top corners and one to the centre where the spars crossed.

Such a design was very unstable and the manufacturers dealt with this by adding a multi-streamer tail, hanging from a 2 legged yoke - one leg to each of the two bottom corners of the square.

As a kid with no idea of aerodynamics, but a crude idea of physics, I tried to stop the kite doing the death spiral by adding heavier and heavier weights to the end of the tail.  This reached the stage of tying huge bunches of grass stalks and quite heavy sticks to the tail, but it still spiralled and crashed.  I cannot remember the kite ever flying for a sustained period.

I remember two of these kites, one with a multicoloured geometric pattern, and one with a Welsh flag (white and green with a  red dragon) and the words "Cymru am byth" which I was told meant "Wales forever" but which I now suspect means "Make this fly, you English b***ard."

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  • 3 weeks later...

Howdy all. New to the forum. Great topic.

The first kite I remember was a Burger King kite I got with a Kid's meal. Maybe the early 80's. Dad used an old sheet or pillowcase to make a tail. I must have flown the tail off the kite, because I remember needing more tail. I don't recall what happened to that kite.

Fast forward to 1993, bought a Cheetah and a 5' delta conyne. They must have mated or something, because now I have kites everywhere. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

As a kid, I went through countless paper and plastic diamond kites. $.19 for paper and $.29 for plastic. We would tear up an old pillow case to make tails for the kites. My first stunt kite was a Go Fly a Kite diamond with a 50' tail. It flew OK, but not like the deltas today, and you needed a second person to launch it. 

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  • 8 months later...
  • 1 year later...

My first kite was a red/white and blue diamond that came with a Hi-Flyer winder.. was a really cool winder for its day 50 years ago.  A favorite that stands out was a white delta with big eyes on it.  Then there was time I put a thread on the legs of a cicada named Max...

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Around 1964 - 1965 age 3 to 4 years old, a Jolly Green Giant diamond kite. that we got from a tin cup label.  We flew the kite so high and that lost the kite in a canyon, behind are old house in San Diego.    . 

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Peter Powell Stunt Kite in 1987 or 88. It had a plastic sail. I bought in at Kitty Hawk Kites In Nags Head, NC. I think it was $35 big money for an 11 year old. Loved that kite. I flew it until it just disintegrated.


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