Gaurav on fighter kites


2006-8-16

Wow. This sounds like a fun tradition, although it also seems to be dying out.

) still fondly remember the summer(autum I spent with two friends and a meadow back when we discoverd you actually could steer a kite very well with just one line. Back then the two lined stunt kites were just beaking into mainstream, and the better ones were beninig to use hightech materials like carbon rods etc. THat of course made them quite expensive for students. Discovering this one-lines concept was a big deal to us then. Here was something that was comparably cheap and low-key. The kits involved in this case were very light and quite small. Basically a rhombic piece of nylon cloth with two bendy eoxy rods, We ordered the minimum oeder of three pieces and were still not near the entry price of half a decent two liner stunt kite. Unpacking these thingies, we were first a little disappointet, and very curious. How would thig work? Houw could one steer a kit on one line?

We luckily had a rough idea of how it might work -remember this was pre-Wikipedia, so we had only books to go by. The basic idea of these kites is this: in normal flight they have a strong tendency to turn in one direction. If the pull on the line gets stronger, the bendy rods give slightly and thereby make the kite far more stable. So by releasing the pull on zhe line, you'd make the kite turn ot even spiral in one direction. By pulling, you can make it go straight into the direction it was facing just then. A lot of fun stunts and manouvers are possible that way. In contrast to the India fighter kites, we nanouvered mainly to avoid each others lines :)

Due to the fact that these little kites would actualy spiral around their lines we had a lot of trouble with tangled lines. That ultimately led to use giving up this fun passtime. But yes, I can very much see Gauravs fondness for this sport. And his sadness that the tradition seems to be declining in the last years.

Similar

<< theming without templating  |  update on the dripfront >>

alles Bild, Text und Tonmaterial ist © Martin Spernau, Verwendung und Reproduktion erfordert die Zustimmung des Authors

Martin Spernau
© 1994-2024


amazon.de Wunschliste

Facebook me!
Google+

Google

powered by Traumtank