Wind-Wizard Stake Stops Theft
Hi, I’m working at a kite store, and a fellow flyer stopped by with the following story:
While flying at our favorite park alone the other afternoon, two “bums” approach our hapless flyer> One “bum” strikes up a conversation, (a ploy, as the other is seen out of the corner of my flying friends eye, digging into his gear, where suddenly, he grabs my friends “VAPOR” and starts running!
Dropping the handles of the kite he was flying, my friend takes off in persuit of this robber..and accross the park they ran..
Suddenly, he remembers his “Wind-Wizard Stake” strapped by his side, pulling it out, he is now close enough to render his ((blow)) with the round end, to the back of the thief’s head..Bonk..Bonk….. the thief falls to the ground, surrendering the “VAPOR”
Once on the ground, some nearby “soccer” players, hold the bum thief, to the ground until the Police arrive!
So, the thief was “caught,” the VAPOR saved, and the local “soccer” players assisted……
Boy, those “Wind-Wizard” stakes, work soooooooo good, get yourself one, put it on your belt while you fly, you may need it !! Dave in Az.
The Arch Project won 1st place
Greetings We won 1st. place!! When we first started this cooperative kite project I did not expect to win until the first sails started to arrive. I was amazed by the artistic and craftsmanship of all the contributors. The arch, all 810 feet of it, was awesome in the sky. It could not even fit inside the designated flying field. At first I was somewhat intimated with launching such a large arch, but with the expert help of John Murray and Mike Smathers it went up without a hitch in about 20 minutes. We walked it into the flying field when it was time for the competition. I was at one end and John was at the other about 400 feet away. Although it was easy to launch, taking it down was a different story. For that Andy Tauber, Jerry Houk and several others who were simply to far away for me to identify join in to help bring down this monster. I spent a couple of hours back in my room re-packing it for the auction. I made the arch in five sections for the auction. Richard Dermer out bid everybody for two of the sections. He had the winning bid of $225.00 for section two and $250.00 for section four. Steve LaPorte won section one with a bid of $250.00. Charles Stonestreet won section three for $225.00 and Clay Stille won section five for $225.00. This brings the total to $1175.00 for the AKA! This alone has made the project worth while. On behalf of all the kite makers, I accepted the first place trophy. You may be wondering what I’m going to do with it. First I will have a professional picture taken of it and send a hard copy to all 38 of the kite makers along with a certificate showing that they are a national champion kite maker (this may take awhile). I will also post a picture of it on “The Arch Project” page. Afterwards, I will send it to our sponsor Tom Arbster of Kinetic Kites in hopes that he will proudly display it at his kite shop. There are many people to thank for the success of the project. First of all many thanks goes to Tom Arbster for his sponsorship. Terri Hudnall for making the drawings. John Murray and Graeme Poole for their advice in construction and launching the arch. Alice Hayden for recommending we build an arch. Richard Dermer and Troy Gunn for their support and for writing articles about the Arch Project in KiteLife and Kiting. And many, many thanks to all the kite makers who sent in sails. I have enjoyed this project. The best part was getting to know all the kite makers. I met 14 of them at Ocean Shores. It has also improved my own kite making skills by having such fine examples to examine. We have had so much fun that plans are in the making for next years “Great Cooperative Kite”. I’ll let you know as the plans develop. Below are the names of all the kite makers involved in the project.
1. Leona Clark 2. Ken Lantz 3. Karl Longbottom 4. Larry Mixon 5. John Murray 6. Graeme Poole 7. Terry Sansom 8. Dave Arnold 9. Ed Burnham 10. Jerry Houk 11. Craig Rodgerson 12. Sharon Musto 13. Mike Smathers 14. Carolyn Weir 15. Jim Aune 16. Beth Drake 17. Paul Homan 18. Cindy Thrall 19. Tom Arbster 20. Gary Engvall 21. Elain Genser 22. Cherly Lucas 23. Mike Polifrone 24. Ruth Polifrone 25. Rod Thrall 26. Dan Weinreb 27. John Biggs 28. Alice Haydon 29. Dick Barns South Jersey Kite Flyers 30. Russel Daily 31. Mike Dellmer 32. Betty Hirchmann 33. Mary Mears 34. Pat Mozer 35. Russel Mozer 36. Scott Spencer 37. Anita Petito 38. Mark Siemon
Once again, thank you Terry Sansom. The Arch Project was sponsored by Kinetic Kites http://kinetickites.webs.com/
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What an awsome sight that was up in the sky. I know I couldn’t hardly begin to take enough pictures of it.
Everyone who worked on it should be proud of it and of the way Terry put the finishing touches on the construction. The judges were very impressed by how he took the time to match threads (as much as possible) with the color of the sail. Sometimes it meant rethreading the machine several times just to do one sail. WOW, what a precisionist.
It was thrilling for me to meet Terry and the others who also worked on the kite project and to do my little bit. I think that rec.kites should be very proud of the work which was done to promote our little section of the internet universe. Beth Drake (tigger from oregon – soon to be from oklahoma)
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Wish all of the kitemakers that contributed to the arch could have been in Ocean Shores to see it launched for the first time. To say it was an awesome sight would be an understatement of the highest order. Some of us had the privilege of having a sneak peak the evening before the competition of each of the sails. All I can say is that I was humbled at some of the work that went into the sails and very proud to have been a part of the effort.
A huge thank you to Terry for taking the time and attention to put the arch together. He did an awesome job. What he didn’t tell us all was that he won an individual award with a kite of his own design. It was beautiful! Looking forward to next year…maybe we can put together a 500 kite arch by then.
Thanks again Terry! Rod
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The arch looked fantiastic and well earned that 1st place in Cooperative Kites. But for me, the real icing on the cake was selling it off (in five sections) at the auction. Each contributor was named from the stage. After the dust settled, the arch brought in close to $1200.
Job well done! dg (head auctioneer) *** Gomberg Kite Productions International *** Come visit us at http://www.gombergkites.com/
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Wow! What an awesome feeling to know that you are part of something so beautiful and creative. I just wish I could have been there to see it <waa>. But you can bet that I will be there to help launch it next year! Count on it!
Terry, a great deal of credit should go to you on this award. I’m in awe of the effort it took, you making the time and coordinating the creation was an awesome feat! To watch the arch come into form, piece by piece on your web site, was exciting! You are a wonderful assett to the kiting community! Thanks again for giving us the opportuntiy to be part of this way cool project! Fantastic! Carolyn Weir Humble Contributor
Kite Plagerism
It seems to me that many of the companies that make kites steal ideas from other kite companies and use them in their own designs, so why all the crying about people using plans? Why don’t all the companies pay royalties to the inventors of foils and stunt kites and deltas and diamonds. Didn’t foils start as sky diving vehicles anyways? lets just patent the whole idea of aerodynamics and sell them off to the highest bidder. Kite building is no simple undertaking, at least for some of the more advanced models, so if someone is willing to take a stab at it let em. And anyways who says they are going to straight out copy the design maybe they are simply gonna get some ideas. Maybe they will improve it in some way. It’s not like garage designers have all the resources of a kite company at their finger tips anyways.
I could go on for days with analogies, showing what a stupid argument this is but I will just leave it as that. Agro1
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Let me disagree with you my friend.
Using someone elses ideas is ok but totally copying a kite is not. At least IMHO.
Anything built can be improved upon. Kite companied apend a fair amount of money on R&D. They don’t make all that much. No one get rich in the kite business. I’m all for building your own kites. I do it. I have even used a commercially produced kite as a model, but with some changes.
I especially don’t believe in copying kites that are protected by patent.
And if for no other reason, if everyone copied and made a manufactures product to the point of driving that maufacturer out of business, what would the kite stores sell. And if there were no kite stores, well life just wouldn’t be worth living 🙂
In another senerio I have seen home made copies shown to me as the manufactures. The quality was no where near where the manufactures was. This might cause some people not to buy a kite from that manufacturer because they mistakingly fell the quality is poor.
There are many plans available that are in the public domain, and your design expertise and imagination are your only limits. So why steal someone elses design?
Just my .05 cents (inflation) worth. Who Me? I’m just a KiteFlyingFool http://www.kiteflyers.org/
What happens when
Hi all you want to be kite flyers. A friend of mine was out flying his Griffin Kite last Friday evening. and got too close to the OG&E power line, it only had about 7000 volts, on each leg of a 3 phase system. The Kite got the flying line wrapped around one line…( no sparks yet). then he tried to unfly it and the center spine came in contact with one of the other wires, and that put about 12000 volts from one end of the center spline to the other and then sparks, noise, and flames became visible, for a short length of time, and then the kite fell to the ground.
the good news is no one was hurt, (except for his pride) no power line was cut/burnt into. But the kite is beyond repair, but can be used as a good example of what not to do.
DON”T FLY NEAR POWER LINE (period)
one of the unusual things is all of the carbon fibers that burnt up left a hair like residue, kinda looked like a Black wig..
OK you guys, be careful out there.
JKA web site has opened
The Japan Kite Association web site is running at the URL:
http://www.tako.gr.jp
The contents at present are as follows:
ENGLISH TEXT: 1) KITE EVENTS: 1998 JKA Calendar 2) PICTURE GALLERY 3) KITE MUSEUM: Kite Museum (Tokyo), Huge Kite Museum (SAITAMA), Shirone Kite Museum (NIIGATA)
JAPANESE TEXT: 1) News 2) 1998 JKA CAlendar 3) PICTURE GALLERY 4) KITE MUSEUM: Tokyo, Saitama, Niigata, Shiga, Ehime 5) Kite Link 6) Information
Any suggestions or comments are appreciated, and you are welcome to link our webpage from your site.
Thank you, Kaoru Yamanaka
Kites are ridiculous
Being an older retired guy who was getting along just fine making toys (I say for the grand children) and a few single line kites, I made a huge mistake. I took my delta with a dual line bridle I copied from one I saw at the beach, took the wife and went to last summers World Cup at Long Beach. I spent three days saying they can’t do that. Now, eight kites later, six I made and two I bought, I realize this is a sickness that can only be treated by learning how to fly better and make decent kites.
My last, and only kite made from a plan, is a Tim found on “Peter’s Kite Site”. My newest store bought kite is a Sessions 1.1. I don’t know where the Sessions ranks on the list of kites, but it is pure joy for me. The Tim is made or house wrap Tyvek and fiberglass tubing. It even says Tyvek in pale red on the back of the sail. I’ve flown it once in marginal wind and if the Sessions is joy, my home built Tyvek could replace Viagra. I know the Tim is not the Sessions, but I made it and it flies great..
Two questions.
Is there a good book on dual line kite theory and construction written for a non-engineer. Not just a book of plans, but discusses aspect ratios, materials, consruction, etc.?
Is Tyvek close enough in its weight and performance to give realistic results until I have the nerve to cut up expensive materials?
Thanks PS I tell everybody I make kites for the grand children, don’t give me away.
