Kite making day dreaming

I got a book on kites! There are lots of books about them out there...



Flipped through it while stretching today, and now my head is all full of neat ideas!
This one covers kites by concept, rather than detail, and that works best for my brain. Covers the different types of structures, and explains that the details (like making it a peacock or dragon) can be done to any structural type. Doesn't give patterns, gives concepts.

And ooooooh what concepts!
I'm back to my ideas about using kites to do work. My property has a slope, and on the other side is kind of on a ridge, and it ALWAYS has at LEAST low wind. I have felt it totally still only once or twice. The idea of using kites to lift and move things, to take things up or down the slope, to do things, just fascinates me. Sewing is easy for me, this is basically quilting things that fly!

My head explodes.

A random explosion: cellular kites, made of cells that catch the air, of which box kites are the most basic, have been used as lifting kites for centuries. They have a rigid structure, and don't collapse on landing. Parafoil kites can lift even more, and can be made as a cellular type, possibly with a more rigid structure, and can lift quite a lot.

I could put those to work!

The book talks of different types of rigid members: carbon fiber, fiberglass, rattan, bamboo... I'm thinking sunroot stalks.

Also talked of using them to make harp or drum sounds, and I know flutes work too, what about flying scarecrows? Kites would make chickens paranoid though....

I'm daydreaming while I'm supposed to be working, but ooooh, what dreams.

Day dreaming more on my lunch break. Prowling the net!! Not getting my lunch eaten quickly.  :D

Found a good picture to illustrate  what I said about any type can be decorated to look like something neat. In the post above I put a parafoil. Nice industrial looking thing, flies well, lifts really really well, but can be made neat looking too, besides just making sections different colors (pretty common) any kite can be made neat. This is for sale commercially.



If you look, it's sections of the parafoil lift cells, then made to look like a dolphin.

This fascinates me.

I'm still thinking of rigid members in a parafoil, so it's more stable. Some of the stunt kites have cords coming off each corner section separately, ending up an a bar, so in each hand you have a bar that tilting it one way makes it lift, the other makes it stall. I might be just day dreaming, but a more rigid parafoil, in constant wind, with controllers like that might easily do things like bring that basket of produce up from the lower slope. (It's not a steep slope, slow, but constant.)

hmmm....

I'd love to see what you come up with!

Are there many kite festivals in the US? There seem to be a few in the UK - I think it might be a really nice idea for a local event. Maybe you could have a day making kites together, and then have a flying exhibition and a communal meal.

Here's a picture of a kite event in England:


St Annes International Kite Festival

I have the very same book, but have never made anything from it. I do carry a parafoil kite under the seat of my car, cause you never know when you might need to take a break.