Fridge Kite

Originally uploaded by nolacat.

Saw this photo on Flickr, it’s painted on a wall in New Orleans. Speaks for itself..

flying tent

Originally uploaded by fdrizo.

Not quite a tent, but it’s Nylon with a fiberglass frame… and it flys.

Apparently a tent took off in a brief gust and hit some power lines causing an outage at the Maker Faire.

See the whole story on the Make Blog

Boondock’s Tables - Fisherman’s Cove Dartmouth, NS

Originally uploaded by wdrwilson.

Fellow KAPper Rob Huntley from Ottawa and I spent Sunday KAPping around the Halifax area. We had good sessions at Fisherman’s Cove in Eastern Passage, NS and Peggy’s Cove. The wind was light at the dock’s but it quite happily lifted my 6 ft Rok with my 1+ pound rig. The winds at Peggy’s Cove were perfect, probably around 15 km/h, and off shore.

This is one of the shots fomr Fisherman’s Cove, it’s the picnic tables, and baord walk at Boondock’s restaurant.

There are more on my photo stream at Flickr, and of course you can see more KAP photos on the Flickr Kite Aerial Photography group.

Cool add featuring kites from Lexus. Not sure if it’s a a Frank S Pyro Delta, or some other brand. Very cool!

TreeHugger.com has an article about the US military hiring the Kite Ship “Beluga SkySails ” to transport Military equipment from Europe.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/us-navy-first-kite-power-ship.php

Basically it saves them a huge amount of money by reducing fuel consumption. Although not the primary motivator, the fact that the ship uses innovations to reduce costs was a factor in the Military’s decision. Cuts costs, it’s better for our enviornment, and it has a huge ass kite! What more could you want.

See the complete press release on Military.com
Cheers,
Bill

IMG_4215

Originally uploaded by dougish1954.

Ha I knew someone had proof. Looks like Doug Isherwood got a pic of me flying at the Buffalo train station.

Thanks Doug!

I attended the Niagara International Kite Festival again this year, what a fantastic time. Meg Albers puts so much into this festival each year, and the kiting community shows up in droves to show their support. This year there were well over a hundred flyers from around the world. you can see the complete list here: http://www.niagarakite.com/flyers.html.

The festival, as usual, was a lot of fun. The wind was up and down on Saturday and Sunday so it made it difficult to keep anything in the air for longer than a few minutes. I managed to fly some smaller single line kites for a while and we did have the fish up for a good part of Sunday. Ted Gaudet of the Dieppe Kite club took delivery of his new mid size custom fish, we managed to get them hooked up to the same line on Sunday so we could see them flying at the same time. However both Ted and I were helping out with the “running of the bols” when they finally had enough wind to get into the air Looked good, even from 900 feet away

I did my first bit of indoor flying at the Saturday night event at the historic Buffalo train station. I was flying my Horvath Long Way Home, which has a wing span of about 2.7 meters (9ft or so), it was a lot of fun/work. I hope somebody ended up with some pictures so I can prove it

Had a great time hanging out with IQuad, these guys really shred the sky with their cool improvised routines. (check out the mega fly from Bristol in the post below). Picked up a couple of new kites this year, A master series Rev Bazzer’s Blue Flames, and a B Series Rev (Yellow). Had a brief chance to fly the the B-Series yesterday, now to practice practice practice

Many people have been posting their photos of this event so with the help of the TKF mailing list and a few other sources here are some photo links.

Carlos Simoes
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/567653426EvpWVm

Christine & Daniel
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57989237@N00/

Doug Isherwood
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougish1954/sets/72157607869271509/

Ted Shaw
http://community.webshots.com/user/dancer2e?action=publicAlbums

Don Brownridge
http://community.webshots.com/user/etbco

MNKiteMan’s photos on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=niagara&w=84853337%40N00

Gary Maynard’s Photos on Flickr
(nothing tagged)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/windjammer/

Ralph Reed’s Photos on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rreed3/sets/72157607800953930/

Wayne has promised to upload a ton of photos from many of the flyers to the NiagaraKite.com website, as soon as they are up I will post a link here.

Cheers,
Bill