Check out this video showing off Premier Kites new venuter PremierRC..

They are using brushless motors and interesting gimble assembly to provide this interesting blend between RC flight and the beauty of single line kites..

More here PremierRc.com

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!

We had a great time building Rokkaku kites in Baddeck last month! I met some wonderful people and I learned a lot! The room was full of all skill levels, but I am pretty sure no one had built a kite before, so everyone was being introduced to the strange world of spinnaker nylon, dacron and adhesives. It was a bit of culture shock for some of the quilters I think!

Day one started with everyone cutting the fabric and sewing the main sail together. The rest of the day and most of day 2 was spent on applique. A lot of great unique designs and approaches came out of this process. The latter part of day 2 was spent adding reinforcements, pockets, and framing.

By Saturday morning we had almost all the kites in the air at Beinn Bhreagh. The winds proved a bit too much for us so we decided to pack it in and head up to the “Kite House” for a great spread of meats, cheeses, salads and sweets. Thanks to Jeanne and Hugh Muller for hosting us, it was great way to cap off an excellent few days in Baddeck.

Special thanks to Scott Ferguson for stepping in as an instructor, your help was greatly appreciated! A big thank you to Sharon Morrow for organizing and hosting this event, and of course thanks to Anne Morrell, fabric artist extraordinaire and my partner in this workshop! Hopefully we will put on another workshop next year.

I posted a ton of pictures on Flickr including pics of all of the finished kites flying…

In celebration of Canada’s centennial of flight, this once in 100 years 2 day kite-making workshop is being offered to a limited number of participants on a first come, first served basis. Kite-maker Bill Wilson and fabric artist Anne Morrell will guide this workshop providing the inspiration and expertise required for each participant to design and construct a Rokkaku kite. Rokkaku kites originated in Japan. These 6-sided kites are taller than they are wide and known for their flying ability.

Kite kit included but participants must bring their own basic sewing supplies and sewing machine capable of doing zigzag. Registration Fee: $75.00 A cheque in the amount of $75.00 must accompany your completed registration form (form on opposite side). Supply list to accompany registration confirmation.

Download the brochure and registration form here:
Silver Dart - Rokkaku Workshop registration form

Check out a video from the Cape Breton post.. lot’s of good stuff, a good selection of the flyers are featured.

Cheers,
Bill

Saint Honore 2009 Day1-1

Originally uploaded by wdrwilson.

Saint Honore was fantastic! The people are wonderful and put up with my non existent french skills. Friday was fantastic with near perfect winds. Saturday brought strong winds up to 50 km/h, but that didn’t stop AWITA from flying (and ripping) their PL giant inflatables. Sunday was light wind but was flyable almost all day!

This picture was taken on the road to the B&B we stayed at, a wonderful view of the airport where we were flying. I have never flown kites at a working airport before… we even had a visit from a CF-18, that was pretty incredible. I will post more pictures later, right now we are on the ferry between St. Simeon(sp?) and Riviere-du-loop.

Came across this cool video today. It’s great to see local flyers profiled.

Kite Surfing and Buggying on Conrad Beach - Nova Scotia, Canada - Watch the best video clips here

Barry Ogeltree (whatakite) on the kitebuilder.com forums offered to cut the fabric and prepare a kit for 50, yep fifty 75 sq. ft. John Waters Bulldog flow form style kites (10 ft wide!). Barry has a huge shop in Texas and has the man power and the space to take on a project like this (Thanks Barry!). After a couple of months of discussion, planning, and cutting Barry had all the dogs out to their new owners. I finished mine up last week and took it out for a quick test flight at lunch one day last week.

Dave and Izaak helping with launch…

Bridle adjustments…

BitterJewler signed up for the Fled workshop and built a great looking kite. The Bee drogue is great! ( and it doesn’t spin like I predicted it would LOL)…

I have posted some of Juan’s videos before, (the double start just a few posts ago). This time Juan has built a great Chinese centipede kite with a traditional Dragons head. Juan crafted all the pieces him self and the video walks through a series of photos of the build as well as some great video of the kite flying.

You can check out more at Juan’s blog. solocometas.blogspot.com