Giraffes can't fly..... or can they?

[NojRemmah]

Hey all,

Looking to design my first kite and thought I'd start a thread to chronicle my ideas and get some input.

The idea is a giant Giraffe Kite.
Now i've never designed a kite and hell i've only been flying for a few years now, and intermittently at that, with SE Mi inconsistent winds and some health setbacks, i thought it would be fun to tap my engineering skills and put them to the test by breathing flight into lands most majestic animal.

My first thoughts were to just get/make a large sled, paint it to look like a giant giraffe head and throw a long tube to be it's neck floating in the breeze.

I think this will be a good basic start to learn the proper techniques and slowly hone my ideas in.

Once that is up in the air and i decide I'm not impressed enough (i mean a giant giraffe head peaking over the trees as you drive through the forest to get to the lake sounds pretty sweet to me, but come on we all know the journey won't end there) i'll move into figuring out how to make the monstrosity i have imagined in my head.

Bonus points,
I imagine i'll be working on a few miniaturized versions to figure out the proper internal baffling and how to bridle this, and for that I'm toying with the idea of doing Ostrich ground display's as ground displays that i could eventually turn into line laundry.


With all that, before i dive into my own research I have a few questions.

What is the most economic fabric to use in projects like this.
Just run of the mill ripstop nylon?

Is it smarter to design a giraffe as line laundry under a big lifter sled or do you think incorporating the sled into the giraffe can be accomplished?

I think my biggest hurdles will be, how do i keep 2 separate entities afloat, connected by a long neck that ideally would be allowed to lurch around in the wind.

Wish me luck.
I think the biggest reason i'm writing this is to put my commitment out into the world so that I HAVE to start and stop just thinking about it.
Can't wait to update this thread and get some pictures/builds going!