High altitude flying

[R Moore]

Hello Kitelife readers,

Some may be familiar with my attempts on the world single kite altitude record attempts that began in 2004 in Australia.

Just to outline earlier attempts; the current record was set in August 2000 by Richard Synergy near Kincardine, Canada and stands at 13,609 ft. He used a 270 sq ft delta on 21,000 ft of Kevlar line.

In 2004 I flew a 120 sq ft Dunton/Taylor Conyne Delta to over 7,500 ft. A break away kite took a 3 day ground search to locate. The winch used was the first in a series of trailer mounted electric winches. It has since been modified and refined several times, is more powerful and has variable speed, forward and reverse. The line was 10,000 meters of 200 lb Spectra. All the kites I use are full cell variants of the Dunton/Taylor Conyne Deltas.

The zone I fly in is allocated by our government air safety authority and provides a defined area for a set period to protect my record attempts and aircraft.

The region is remote and the winds are variable at ground level which makes it sometimes difficult to launch big kites. There is a weather station 30 miles away that provides wind data to high altitude via daily Radio Sonde balloon flights.

In April 2005 conditions were very hot but we managed several flights over 4,000 ft culminating in a 6,500 ft flight by a 165 sq ft . All heights quoted are in ft above the launch point. We again used on board GPS to record flights plus 2 theodolites include a unit with Laser distance measurement. A local geological surveyor fixed 5 observation points within 2 centimeters to give sub 99.9% accuracy for position and altitude.

In October 2005 the week long attempts were full of kite flying drama with several days battling hot and variable winds that died over 4,000 ft. On day 4 a low level jet stream (50knots) took the kite to 7,200 ft and the winch motor burned out struggling to retrieve it. The kite suffered minimal damage. For this series we intruduced some further enhancements with onboard GPS telemetry in real time

April 2007 gave us near perfect winds but we failed to capitalise on the conditions by launching too late on day 1. We flew to 10,466 ft, 9,493ft, 8,093ft and 4,200ft on 4 consecutive days.

September 2008 we spent the day on Lake George a dry lake 180 km to the south of Sydney. We strength tested 11,000 meters of 300 lb Dyneema by stringing out over the dry lake bed, through an anchored pulley and back to the trailer in 3 km lengths. We stretched the line by pulling with a car. It took about 6 hours to setup and test. Some nearby parafoil fliers were very interested in my line and almost couldn't believe I had 11,000 meters on a single reel.

April 2009 and we returned to Cable Downs with 4 enthusiasts, further refinements to the winch and more backup equipment. We camped at the site to avoid launching too late like we did in 2007. Atmospheric c onditions were very unstable and we ended up cutting the attempt due to rain and storms. We did manage to fly to 9,107 ft on day 2 and on day 3 I was able to capture some images from 2,000 above the launch point. A very muddy experience but welcome rain for farmers.

The equipment is well refined and reliable. I have some sponsorship from Universal Instruments and Lewis Pulleys. I have also had some unofficial suport from GPSFlight in the USA.

Prior to the recent series of attempts I contacted DSM in Holland and they have responded with offers of sponsorship in kind for the absolute record (kite train). DSM is the parent company holding the patent on the high strength fibres that make up Dyneema and Spectra. The absolute kite altitude is a record which I think may be technically easier than the single line record but of course this is all relative. In absolute terms flying kites to 35,000 ft above the groundt will be a very hard and expensive thing to do. I can't use the current winch and their will need to be modifications to the electronics to cater for temperatures as low as -45 deg C. Spar material and cloth may need to be different. I will be happy to hear from anyone who has experience flying kites in extremely low temperatures. I know that glass fibre probably can't tolerate temps below -10 deg C.

I will update my website soon with all the latest news and lots of images. http://www.kitesite.com.au/kiterecord/index.htm

Regards,

Bob Moore

[Baloo]

Best of luck with this Bob.

Thanks for the updates.

[Jeepster]

Best of luck with this Bob.

Thanks for the updates.

Bob,

Let me echo the Bear ... your updates are appreciated and read with interest. Please do continue.

Cheers,

Tom

[tonycarl60]

Gives new meaning to the old saying: "Higher than a kite"

[jahbell]

So far my attempts have reached just over 5780 feet with 7000 feet of #9 nylon, i was affraid of airline low altitude flying so i did not extend additional line. This summer i am going to attempt to break my own personal record.

[Baloo]

Interesting how much bow you get in the line.

Do you have a special huge drum of the stuff or do you have to link a number of lengths of line together?

Oh and good luck with you PB attempt.

[ant man]

best of luck bob .. this will be a great thing .. im sure youll pull it off with no problems

[R Moore]

So far my attempts have reached just over 5780 feet with 7000 feet of #9 nylon, i was affraid of airline low altitude flying so i did not extend additional line. This summer i am going to attempt to break my own personal record.

Hello,

Welcome to the high altitude club but be careful with the Aviation Authority when you go over 500 ft. How did you measure altitude? Did you use a big winder or a small winch? What type and size of kite? With 9 lb line I guess the kite wasn't big and must have been very small if not invisible to the naked eye.

Good luck!

Bob Moore

[JoneZ]

That is amazing. I hope to fly a kite that high some day (when I can afford a 120ft delta. hehe). Bookmarked that site as well. Thanks for that.

So far my record is with our 7ft wingspan bird kite. We flew her 500ft with 200# dacron (would have flew her higher, but we only had 500ft.). The winds were blowing about 15-20Mph so it was no problem getting her that high.

Heres a closeup of her in flight on that day (quick link to my photo gallery).

http://kitelife.com/forum/index.php?autoco...si&img=2907

I think thats the most fun my Fiance has had flying a kite.

[Michael Leuchtenburg]

Sounds like an interesting endeavor! I'd like to read more of your site, but the navigation links on the left side don't work at all in Firefox.

[R Moore]

Sounds like an interesting endeavor! I'd like to read more of your site, but the navigation links on the left side don't work at all in Firefox.

Firefox may have problems with default settings and sites, such as mine, created with MS Publisher. This may be a fix: In firefox, Go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck "rely on

vml..." (Pub 2003) and "allow png...".

Bob Moore

[Michael Leuchtenburg]

Sounds like an interesting endeavor! I'd like to read more of your site, but the navigation links on the left side don't work at all in Firefox.

Firefox may have problems with default settings and sites, such as mine, created with MS Publisher. This may be a fix: In firefox, Go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck "rely on

vml..." (Pub 2003) and "allow png...".

Bob Moore

Are you sure you're thinking of Firefox? I don't have a Tools -> Options menu, but rather Edit -> Preferences. And in preferences there is no Web tab. And in about:config, there's nothing that references vml. Plus, I don't think I have to check anything to make PNG work; they've just worked by default for years now. Those sound like they may be Internet Explorer settings.

The VML used by MS Publisher 2002 and later doesn't work in browsers other than IE. It sounds like there may be a "Publish to the web" option in Publisher which generates a page without the VML, which would presumably then be usable in Firefox, Opera, etc.

[R Moore]

I looked up and quoted possible reasons for Firefox not opening pages made with MS Publisher as I don't have any experience with Firefox. Everyone else, as far as I know, who has visited my site has been able to open and view pages. I don't know if these people are using IE or Firefox. Perhaps its a security setting on your anti virus software or firewall blocking my site. So if others can see my pages then that leaves some setting on your computer or in Firefox that is preventing downloading a site created with MS Publisher. It's seems crazy that Microsoft would create an application that creates Web sites that can't be read by a significant proportion of viewers. The other possibility is the host server was down at the time you tried.

Regards,

Bob Moore

[R Moore]

I downloaded the latest version of Firefox. After reading about it I decided to use it. Ialso couldn't use the menu on my Website. I fixed it by downloading a Firefox module, IE Tab. Now if I right click on my site menu, then on the pop-up menu, click IE tab. Clicking it emulates IE and I'm able to select pages on the menu as if I were using IE. It seems that MS doesn't care too much about pages coded with their products in reference to them working with other browsers. So much for standardisation. Anyway I hope this fixes your problem.

Regards,

Bob Moore

[jahbell]

So far my attempts have reached just over 5780 feet with 7000 feet of #9 nylon, i was affraid of airline low altitude flying so i did not extend additional line. This summer i am going to attempt to break my own personal record.

Not much bow at all, the kite i use was 5 feet tall by 4.5 feet wide made out of bamboo...the #9 nylon is test at 250lb.

[R Moore]

So far my attempts have reached just over 5780 feet with 7000 feet of #9 nylon, i was affraid of airline low altitude flying so i did not extend additional line. This summer i am going to attempt to break my own personal record.

Not much bow at all, the kite i use was 5 feet tall by 4.5 feet wide made out of bamboo...the #9 nylon is test at 250lb.

What is #9 Nylon? Is it just a product code? Kite flyers usually quote line as lb or kg breaking strain. Is this Dacron, Polyester, Polyethylene? Braided twisted or monofilament Nylon line?

If you have micrometer, what is the diameter? Don't worry about the questions. I'm just a line junky!

The maximum length of nylon that will support its own weight before breaking is 7.05 km. Spectra is 369 km, Kevlar 250+ km.

250 lb Nylon line would be about 1.6 mm diameter, more than 2.5 time the diameter of Dyneema/Spectra for the same strength. That creates big drag. That is just 2 of the reasons why I don't use nylon for high altitude flight. It also has up to 30% stretch. That could be a benefit as you are getting 30% more line length before it breaks!

Bob Moore

[R Moore]

Jahbell,

How did you measure altitude? With 7000 ft of line and an altitude of 5750 ft the kite's flying angle would have been 55 deg.

With line that is half the weight, less than half the diameter and a 6 times bigger kite I was able to achieve 46 degrees at 6,500 ft. Looks like I am using the wrong method!

Bob Moore