There are some things you don’t forget. Yesterday I took two young women kite flying. I haven’t flown a kite – it’s gotta be at least three years – but the technique and finesse were still there. It started with locating the best wind – how do you know where it is? You feel it on your face and body, you see trees moving, you notice the surface of the nearby water in the harbour, the flag blowing at the end of the dock. We started by heading down the pier at the Bedford waterfront park, but the temperature was noticeably warmer and no wind (although the flag was limply flying when we entered the park). So we turned around and headed down the boardwalk, until I noticed some aspen with leaves in motion; I could also feel the light wind coming onshore, and there were a couple of sailboats with spinakers hoisted, so we chose a park bench and set up.
The wind was too light to launch the kites from the hand, so we used a walk-back – one of the gals holding the kite at a distance, so I could pull on the line to launch it. We got two kites in the air easily, but with the light wind you needed to keep a careful watch on the amount of bow in the line, and the tug of the line against your finger. We managed to fly both kites for about half an hour before the wind dropped, the water calm, the leaves on nearby trees still. We packed up, but just as I was stowing the kites and reels in the bag, the wind returned, now quite a bit stronger. So we got the kites out again and easily launched them once more.
Now the leaves were dancing (although the boughs weren’t moving a lot), clouds started to build above us, the wind was visible on the basin right up to the shore behind us. And you could now feel a strong tug on the kite line as the kite pulled to be let out. There’s a trade off here – it’s always tempting to pay out all of the line (there’s 1000′ on each spool) but then you have to rewind all of that line afterward – which can take quite a bit of time. We let the kites out about 400′ before settling back to enjoy them for another half an hour.
We reeled the kites in, but before we left we flew one more kite – the wind was strong enough to support my large “snowflake” box kite. The pull on the line was substantial, enough to make the line “sing” – a first for the gals who have never heard it – “Oh, it’s physics,” said one of them.
There’s a lot to know to be able to fly a kite successfully – about wind, about physics, about clouds and weather, about aerodynamics, about how the line should feel in your hand. It was all there, even though I haven’t flown in quite a while.
When I got home I packed away my kites carefully, but I intend taking them out again soon. If the wind is right, I intend to try flying one or more of the stunt kites – two line kites that are capable of doing loops and spins. I haven’t done that for an even longer time!
On Learning 