Duncan's kites

Kites



I've been kite flying since the 1996 British Juggling Convention in Edinburgh where I bought an Aircraft Giro for Ł15. Since then I've been hooked on both flying and making my own kites. These days I tend not to get too much time flying as I've developed some form of RSI which is, not surprisingly, aggravated by having my arm pulled by kite line.

Home made kites	Bought kites
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Kites I've made
The Kite	What I think of it
Shuttle	from SK1. Basic 2 line stunter. Made to learn the ropes and get the hang of using a sewing machine. Easy to fly but can be a pain to launch on your own. A good one for beginners - very slow and relaxing to fly.
Kwat	from SK1. Basic 4 line kite. The one in the book is made up of 2 hexagons but I used 2 diamonds so I didn't have to bother with seams and only had hems to contend with. Very easy to make (all straight line stitching). You could probably use any flat shape you wanted in place of the hexagons. The original had a bridle but after experimenting I decided to remove it and connect flying lines directly to the frame. The image will be of my second version which looks like a box kite in flight but is in fact flat - very confusing. Flying is very straight forward and is good training for REVS and other quads.
Gizmo	My first real stunt kite. Also from SK1. Good for precision and will axle and 540 flat spin (see tricks) and probably more but haven't flown it since I learnt other tricks. Also will fly in ~1mph on trick length lines.
El Hembra	from SK2. A lot of work for what you get, but maybe my construction / tuning isn't as good as it could be. It's a complex kite with a cambered sail, battened wing tips and battens in the sail to give it a 3D shape without standoffs, although these can be used. Due to all the battens it's quite a heavy kite so if you make one try to use Icarex rather than nylon like me. I may have got the bridle slightly out on this one so my opinions on it's flight might differ from yours. It isn't really that precise but will do a few tricks. Axels are very flat and, as when tricking in general, the lines tend to get caught on the fitting for the sail battens. I'm still experimenting with it though so my opinion may change Has anyone found differently?
Proton- small speedwing super	from SK2. Built for a friend but on testing it I thought it wasn't appropriate for a learner. Flies ok but took a while to tune. I managed to axel it a few times but it really isn't designed for it! It's small, fast and I guess it should be suitable for winds to strong for anything else. I wondered about putting standoffs on it to make launching easier but didn't get round to it as it doesn't get flown enough.
Zipp	from SK2. Made for the same friend as the Proton. A much better beginners kite and it was much easier for me to bridle for her. Very easy to build and fly. Sparred in 4mm solid carbon fibre so is durable. I added a standoff to each wing where the 2 panels meet to keep the sail tensioned and to stop it flapping. They also aid self launching as the kite doesn't fall flat onto it's back. A success the friend is very happy with it.
Raaseri	from Simo Salanne's excellent plan. I opted for an ultra light version to fill a gap in my collection. The kite performs excellently and is one of the most pleasing home mades I have. The sail is second quality dark blue polyester (bought from Ground Control Kites and less than half the price of Icarex!) with fluorescent yellow ripstop nylon leading edges, the nose is standard dacron and seatbelt webbing and there are strengthening patches of dacron at the T piece and wing tips. The leading edges are Skyshark IIIp and the rest of the frame is Exel Ultra 6mm. (not Excel - thanks for pointing that out Mike!) It flies excellently in low / zero wind conditions but prefers a light breeze, though I have flown it indoors once. It will do a few tricks - I learnt to 540 flat spin on it due to its very slow speed, but it's better at precision. I'm considering making a vented version for high winds and perhaps a scaled down version for indoors.
Trick Tac	from Ronald Krueger's plan. Uses the same sail materials as the Raaseri but sparred with 2mm and 1.5mm. It does fly indoors as intended but I don't like it's flight characteristics so I don't fly it too often. It's very fast and needs a very, very light touch. It turns very quickly and it's axels are lightingly fast. I thought about changing it's bridle to slow it down but haven't got round to it. It has a very shallow sail too, which I guess also gives it speed.
Rev 1.5 copy	Flys very well, although I've no idea how it compares to a standard Rev as I've never flown a 1.5. I've removed the bridle and attatch my lines to the down spars as I occasionally do some 3D flying. Sail is built from nylon with the traditional gauze strip between that and the dacron tunnel. Sparred in 8mm carbon tube for the cross spar and 6mm for the down spars. Not light weight at all but I have managed a few 360s with it in low wind. I'd build another without hesitation but either a light weight version or /and a high wind vented version.
Quad Bat	My own design at last!! Based very loosely on Rev proportions but scaled up to a +3m wingspan. There are battens in the wingtips and centre of the body to retain shape in the air. The pattern is laid on top of the basic sail and layers underneath were left on so the kite is quite heavy. Spars are a mix of 10mm carbon tube, 8mm carbon tube and 3mm fibreglass rod. Originally the spars were 8mm and 6mm but the 8 bent too much for my liking. With this size of sail it flys ok in low wind. I intend to build a body for it to act as a tail and I'd like to expeiment flying it on a single line.
Nasa Parawing 5	Excellent kite which pulls like a monster but packs into a small bag to be taken anywhere. I built a 1.5 suqare metre one and on a good day itt'l drag me along the grass if I let it. It can be flown on 2 or 4 lines but I never use 2 anymore as it's impossible to park safely and pulls even when at the top of the window so I can't take a rest! With 4 lines it turns within it's own shape so is very manouverable. I'll probably build a very small one for flying on days when there's too much wind for anything else. Contruction is very easy and the plans are good. There are a lot of bridle lines to tie but luckily mine seemed about perfect first time.
2/3 Raaseri	Built for indoors. Performs well. I choose 2/3 scaling so the leading edge was 1m long. All the spars are 2mm carbon rod so the kite is definitely light enough for indoors but I think the leading edges should perhaps be 3mm. The kite performed very well on the few times I've had it indoors but it needs a little tweaking. The bridle is a standard 3 point as I doubt the cross bridle will make much difference on this size of kite. The sail is from cheap blue ripstop polyester again with spar pockets and strengthening in flourescent yellow - so it looks great flown in complete darkness under flourescent lights. Also try fastening UV reactive ribbons to the wing tips.
Tim	http://www.win.tue.nl/~pp/kites/plans/tim/tim_e.html for the plans. Brilliant trick kite. Very similar to the Psycho (see below) but much easier to trick. Maybe I was just lucky but it double axles easily, flik flaks superbly without losing much height, yo-yos, coin tosses, fades, rising fades, fade take-offs. I built this as a high wind kite so put in a gauze panel. I thought I'd try putting a flap behind this which would be blown back in high wind so just the gauze would be used and pulled into place by elastic in low wind so the gauze was closed. I put the flap on the back of the kite and it doesn't work at all - high wind blows in against the gauze and stops the venting effect. I don't know if this would happen if the flap was on the front. I think I'll remove the flap and make it attachable with velcro. It's spared in 6mm exel ultra and it's hard to judge but I guess it flies in upwards of 25mph.

Kites I've bought (in order)
The Kite	What I think of it
Aircraft Giro	the one that started it all. Easy to learn on, pretty indestructible as spars come out of joints on crashing rather than remaining rigid - fasten the standoffs to the sail with thread or thin line as they tend to pop out and get lost. This kite makes a lot of noise!
Flexifoil Psycho	Not actually my second kite as I had some home made ones between this and the Giro. A great kite for those days of strong wind and when you just want to throw something around the sky. It'll stand up to reasonable treatment but I have broken most of the spars on it. Very fast, very radical. See the review of Tim above
Joystick kite	Yawn. Waste of money.
KiteEd Neutrino	Lovely mini indoor and light wind kite. Eddie Stockins (KiteEd) is really helpful when you order one over the phone and makes each one to order - choose a colour for each wing and you'll have it soon after. I haven't flown much else indoors for long but I prefer this to the Hot Pepper. It flew much more slowly and took a lot less effort. Axels were very slow and graceful and successive axels were pretty easy.
Tim Benson Phantom Elite Ultra Lite	Great low wind kite. I can't trick it as much as I like but that's probably due more to me than the kite. Good precision. Will 360 on shortish lines. I'm currently eperimenting changing the bridle to a trubo one to improve tricking but the winds here have been high so I haven't had chance to try it yet.
Spirit of Air Shuriken Omega	Our team kite. Bought because we got a deal on buying 4 at once. We also got to choose our own colour scheme (you wouldn't believe how long that took!). Haven't had much air time with this yet since I did my back in 3 weeks after getting it and since then the weather's been awful. Pulls hard but with so many teams using them they must be ok!
Flexifoil Stranger Level 7	Weird! Took a while to get used to. Best advice I can give is don't have your line to long or too short to start. Also don't fly where the ground is too hard as you're likely to crash a fair bit when you're starting out. Fly as much as you can whilst you still have your 1 month guarantee just in case something does break - my lower spine snapped somehow (on the kite you fool, not the one in my back!) so I sent the kite back and they fixed the spine, modified the leading edge tunnel as on current models, replaced the lower bridle and sent me back a spare lower bridle all for the cost of postage. At first I wasn't too impressed by this kite but I've stuck with it and it's growing on me. It has too small wind window for my liking so I can't fly it as much as I'd like.
Shanti Box	At last, a single line kite. True, but you fly it like an Indian fighter so it's stearable. I've only flown it once but it was great fun. Tug the line then give lots of slack and it tumbles and falls in the sky. Pull line in and the kite travels in the direction of the top of the box. Simple but brilliant! Much more fun than a standard fighter.
Prism Ozone	My new toy. I didn't really have a medium to large indoor kite and this fitted the bill. I was won over by the large wind range because I don't have much chance to fly indoors and didn't want a kite that would sit in it's bag for most of the year. Finally got to fly it indoors 6 months after I bought it and although I didn't get very long at it the results were pretty encouraging. Flight was pretty effortless, axles were easy to achieve and very flat and graceful. My attempts to flat spin were terrible but I can't do them with this kite outside so I should have expected this. I'd like to try it on longer lines. I just need somewhere to fly it regularly indoors now.

References:

Stunt kites to make and fly - by Servaas van der Horst and Nop Velthuizen
Stunt kites 2: buggies and boats - by Servaas van der Horst and Nop Velthuizen

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