Kites for Scouts

[Joespickles]

Howdy everyone, We have one last pack meeting in the month of April , NKM, I have found a bunch

of plans on line, especially at Drachen, Looking for input from everyone that has actually built one, which one and how did it fly. I have only made a mini delta with skewers so far, materials must be simple and easy to get, hopefully inexpensive , we have almost 50 scouts

Thanks

g

[SteveA]

My suggestion would be a sled kite. My cub scout den made sled kites one year & we took them to the local kite festival. I bought the kits (with string included) from a store, but for 50 scouts you might want to look into a roll or sheets of tyvek - assuming you have the time to cut it & assemble the kits. If so, make a durable template so you can cut the kite shapes out quickly. Ideally you want a material they can decorate / paint etc. to make their own. For tails, I picked up a roll of the plastic tape used to mark off construction sites for maybe $5 at the hardware store - and it was probably 500 feet of the stuff. You might want to get a couple rolls so each kid can have a couple 10 foot tails to stabilize the sled kites. Don't forget - you'll need 50 rolls of line as well . . . .

[Joespickles]

So here is the delta we tried to build, Checking balance, flight, Going to try a build a sled this week

[SunriseKites]

Hi, sounds like i may be a little late. but if you still need help with kites for scouts, I'd be glad to help out. I have built 1'000's with help form friends. We usually use a Sled type kite because the are pretty much fool proof. They can be easily built in large numbers. If you would like I can email you the instructions and mail you a sample kite to follow as a plan. if we are building 20-50 we try to get the local hospital or Dr office to donate a few colorfull pastic bags that they all use. One bage makes about 8 kites. It seems most of the parts are easy to come by, Kite line is the most expensive item. I can help you with that if you like. I have about 2000 rolls that are 300' long, I usually roll them onto 1/2 poly pipe at about 50-75' each. that is about all that is needed per kite. so one roll give you line for about 5-6 kites. I sell them for 25 cents each, the postage is usually about the same cost for 10 rolls or so. LOL you can email me at sunrisekites@outlook.com I'm not sure I could find you on this spott again.

Good luck Dean

[Joespickles]

Hi Dean Never to late, plans would be awesome, Joespickles AT gmail DOT com Thanks, And yes I could use help with line, Seems inexpensive enough, so once I figure out how many kites I can talk line later g

[SunriseKites]

Email me your address to sunrisekites AT outlook DOT com and I'll mail you one that you can use for a pattern and see how they are built.

[Joespickles]

Howdy Dean

Email sent, Thanks

g

[Joespickles]

Hi Dean

The package arrived today, Looks very cool , one scout is already very excited(our son). Keep tuned. Thank you

g

[SunriseKites]

So what is happening with the scouts? Did everything work out good? hopefully things went great. Maybe some other scout troops will want to build kites for their kids. It is surpising how inexpensively you can help kids build kites.usually under a buck!

[Joespickles]

hey Dean,

Sadly , still in the planning stage, The samples you sent are the kite we are going to use, planning mayhem

Gavin

[SunriseKites]

Oh well keep it cooking and serve it up soon as you can, the kids will love it. We did a scout camparee here a while back and 6 of us helped make 500 kites in about 6 hours time. It was a lot of work but there were 500 scouts beaming with their own new kite! it was a lot of fun. This year they asked us back to set up and make kites for 10000-12000 scouts! When we told them what it would take to do that over a 3 day camp they graciously backed down and just let us up come and fly some really big kites and teach some kids how to fly a rev, even that was a challange with that many kids around! But it was well worth it!
Dean