For about a year, i suddenly have been much more interested by light single line kites to play indoor or in very light winds in the field, waiting to fly bigger and heavier kites. Those kites are great to watch but they are often even greater to fly.
Here are 3 of my favourite kites at the moment, with lots of innovations, humour, very well design and made by Karl, and at last but not least, quite cheap ! :
The lad’ys knickers, the dove and the amazing pterodactyl i fly this summer in New-York, Bali and so many other places in Indonesia.
Very light mylar stack with light P100 frame for 3 revs – sorry i am not a pro and it seems to work finely with genuine revs – but the aim is to have a great time – March 2009 in Portugal near Lisbon :
I love that kite – The Air-Yo -
We had such a great time with it at the Alcochete festival, Portugal in March 2009 -
Revolution Kites makes also a kite which is quite similar by its concept – that i have not tried yet -
When i went to the Muna Island Kite Festival in August 2009, next to the Sulawesi Island, 4000 km ouest of Jakarta, 300 km est of Borneo, i saw lots of great leaf kites flying high in the sky, but i did not have the chance to see one of the great tradition in flying kites : KITE FISHING.
Back from fishing with kites
As Wikipedia tels us, even if it is sed that some allusions were done about kites in the greek litterature, it was probably invented in south-est asia, chinese people say China, Indonesian people in Indonesia, New Guinea people…
We all know about the use of kites for war, specially to observe the battle field, but one of the first use of kites was for fishing. There are two different uses for Kites :
• They can provide boatless fishermen access to waters that would otherwise be available only to boats.
• Similarly, for boat owners, kites provide a way to fish in areas where it is not safe to navigate such as shallows or coral reefs where fish may be plentiful. Kites can also be used for trolling a lure through the water.
In the traditional kite fishing, suitable kites may be of very simple construction. Those of Tobi Island are a large leaf stiffened by the ribs of the fronds of the coconut palm. The fishing line may be made from coconut fiber and the lure made from spider webs.
The kite itself is often made from a single dried leaf of a local orchid, strengthened by a pair of slender bamboo rods threaded through the leaf near the margins and crossing one another at the top and bottom. It is most often flown from the end of a long pole, and operated by the fisherman in the front of the canoe. A line extending from the bottom of the kite carries tha bait. There is no hook, only a loop of line. The bait can thus be played on the surface of the water, a long distance from the boat. The fish, usually garfish cruising in shallow water, are snared by their tooth jaws and pulled in by the fisherman.
In Lampung, the water near Mutun village where kite fishing is practiced is known as Hurun Bay. Today, most kite fisherman there plastic and bamboo to build their kites.
Modern kite fishing is popular in New Zealand where large delta kites of synthetic materials taking a line and hooks far out past the breakers are used to fish from beaches. Kite fishing is also emerging in Melbourne where sled kites are becoming popular, both off beaches and off boats and in freshwater areas. Members of the disabled community are increasingly using kites for fishing, as the kites allow them to cast the bait further out than they would otherwise be able to do. kites are also used to fishin the USA, but not so much in Europe. This technic helps to fish very big fishes which are far from from the shore (200/500 meters ) – (650-1,650 ft)
Kites may have originally been developed in Indonesia as a device for catching game by a very resourceful people. One of the most remarkable of fishing methods involves the use of a kite, attached to the fishing line, then flown over the water past surf and obstructions. Kite fishing has been practiced throughout the South Seas for centuries, but it appears that it originated in West Java, where it spread to the Malay Peninsula.
Modern kite fiching : pêche au cerf-volant moderne
You all have read about ONE SKY, ONE WORLD which as at first a political proclamation to reunify the EST and the OUEST during the cold war. Today, the aim of that very special day is to Fly kites worldwide for Peace, Culture, Exchange, Tolerance and understanding.
This is the last message of our friend TOM JECKEL :
dear friends, ..and again!
One Sky – One World, worldwide kitefling for peace, will be celebrated this sunday, october 11, 2009. Feel welcome to join the worldwide simultaneous kitefly, undivided by borders – only by timezones , Do not forget to send your individual greetings to the worldwide kite+peace community
• by word and/ or PHOTO.
Your photo/s of your kiteflying, kite culture and cultural landscape, and the people, will be placed in the ONE SKY web and album.
2009 ONE SKY SPECIAL: “crossover travel and exchange” ..
visit other cultural places of osow – and let the world know!
(example: kitefliers from different countries will visit osow
in denver, colorado, usa. webworker tom will visit xiamen, china.
WHERE will you go?)
2009 OSOW VIDEO:
(denver) “we are trying to Skype this year’s OSOW “World Kite Day”.
The time difference is the challenge.
At this point we have four locations in the States that are willing to participate. A suggestion came through to collect shor…t clips/videos which could be pulled together into a master video.”
2009 OSOW WORLD MAP
send the google adress (.kmz) and i will place it in the overview!
My friend Jean APOSTOLIDES and Christophe MAUBOUSSIN are flying their own designed and made Revolution kites as a pair : EPHEMERE
They train in Paris, France, and this was filmed by a cold day at the Berck festival, north of France in April 2009.
I hope you’ll enjoy the precision on a Bobby McFerry song…
Here is a recent movie made by my sweet Daphné in Central Park West, New-York City. I was dreaming about flying there for a long time even if the wind is very bad there like in any other cities because of the ( tall ! ) buildings and trees. It was a brand new kite made for the Jakarta Kite Festival the week after, the same week as the the national indonesian day – (that is why it is red and white like the indonesian flag ). It was made as usual with xmass paper ( mylar) and tape.
When i was a 5, like thouthands of little kids in the 70’s and the 80’s, i received an amazing ROTOR PLANE KITE, a Günther Flugspiele Turboplan 32 Kite (you can now buy through ebay as “old toys”…), with rotating wings, which flyes thanks to the Magnus Effect.
Today, a canadian version (quite similar to the german version) is still made : The areokite. http://www.aerokite.ca/
I guess i was not the only one how loved that kite. It is a part of a larger rotor kite family which is very great as toys but also as energy power supplier.
The toys are commonly caled UFOs Rotor kites, they are not difficult to make and are great in the sunny sky made out of mylar because they move and blinck because they are shinny. (Everything you need to know about Rotor kites is here : http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~anthony/kites/rotor/
Today, MAGENN and his CTO, Fred Ferugson believe in making energy with the wind with a baloon/rotor kite with less problems and costs, and more wind effective than the traditional wind turbines :
http://www.magenn.com/
More than a trend, today, it’s a must to think about new energy sources, especially energy sources from the sun, the wind and the water (aka. underwater turbines and so on…)
The power from aerodynamic airborne wind power systems, airborne wind generators or aerostat-type wind power systems is maybe one of the solutions.
Like Peter Lynn (inventor of the famous Kitecat and lots of other kite devices) tells us that using a kite to pull a boat is not a new idea and still attracts lots of people. he wrote a very interesting article on his personal web site : http://www.peterlynnhimself.com/Kites_For_Yachts.php
The Kitcat at Brighton, England, December 2006
Different projects exist already all aroud the world, but i will start by a sytem to power cargo ships and saving oil by 10 to 35%. – It’s better than nothing, takes less space than regular sails and the most important saves lot’s of money ( 1500 USD a day) so it can be interresting when the price of fuel rises…
Two firms are making kites for boats and are very near to sell their products :
A new video from the Taiwainese kite flyer Deryl Yeh including the Scubadoo :
Here is an amazing project created by Thomas JECKEL (a great artist working with the wind (Kites, Flags and landart installations) – and one of the organizers of the peace organisation : ” ONE SKY, ONE WORLD”.
As a graphic designer and a kite flyer myself i am very sensible about the posters designed to promote festivals. Unfortunatly, i can tell very few are good, even if the kites which are presented are amazing, and if the kite flyers are very sensible to art, paintings, and drawing, because it’s all they do : decorate the sky.
Here is a very interesting collection of them mainly from France, but also Germany or Taiwan :
Kites used to be great flying machines during wars in China, to observe from flying platforms. They were also used for all sorts of things like fishing in north Salawesi (Indonesia) since hundreds years ago, used to pull radio antenas (the Marconi invention or radios antenas used to be saved after a plane crash during the world war II used by english) or pelenty of other inventions with kites : “www.carnetdevol.org”
Today, kites are kids games and for fewer people, adults games.
They are also meant to decorate the sky, as paintings or sculptures in the sky. That’s why Kite designers are often artists, painters and designers. that is one of the reason i love flying kites. Even kite flyers who use very technical stunt kites for freestyle flying want nice kites with great graphic design.
Some people like Michel GRESSIER in France, like to paint on their kites. He, for exemple, proposed a few years ago to some his graphic designers friends to paint on big Edos kites ( 2 x 4m rectangular japanes kites).
In the same idea, the Moscow kite club organised during his may 2009 festival (the 6th festival), a great event : the ZapfGames, a calligraphy projects (GREEK : calli=beauty / graphy=Hand) or the art of drawing nice letters. More than 50 participants painted on 2×2 sqm sheets Japanese Haiku. A jury of graphic designers chose 10 winners and after adding bamboo, flew 20 great rokkakus together. (Thank you for Mike LOSKOV for sharing those informations – www.prokite.ru )
It seems to me that the ZapfGames are named after Hermann ZAPF and his wife Gudrun ZAPF von HESSE ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Zapf ) one of the greatest typographer of the century ( with his great Optima, Palatino and Zapfino (you have them in you computer if you have a Mac)
sorry i dont read russian but it must be explained on zapfgames.ru…
3 stacks of 6 big team kites (12 famous and genuine North Shore Radical kites from Top of the Line – red and Black and 6 Tramonta 2001 Edition – from HQ) They are flown by the french team IMPOSSIBLE at the international kite Festival of Berck in april 2009, in the north of France.
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Trois trains de 6 deltas ( 12 North Shore Radical noir et rouge, des pieces de collection de la marque Top of the Line, et 6 Tramontana, edition 2001, de la marque HQ. L’Equipe française Team Impossible les font voller dans un ballet filmé au festival de Berck sur mer en avril 2009, dans le nord de la France.
The big french team the Four Lines International Club – FLIC – is a flying a new 9 kites routine at the begining of the international kite festival at Berck, France in april 2009.
The kites are unique and genuine kites from Revolution, made by bazzer, member of iquad.
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Voila une belle routine filmée en avril 2009 de l’équipe FLIC – Fout Lines International Club – équipé de leur tout nouveau mais aussi premier cerf-volant venant officielemnt de Revolution, cousu sur le model du cv de Barresi par Bazzer, autre membre d’Iquad (equipe americaine), qui fabrique lui même les revolutions “serie limitée” de la marque REVOLUTION.
The new french team : the RED BULL KITE FORCE, managed by Yasu Numata, presents his pair of flyers, Richard Debray & Mathieu Mayet both multi-champions at the eurepean cup and world cup in ballet and freestyle.
It was filmed at the International Kite Festival of Berck, in France, April 2009
La nouvelle équipe monté par Yasu Numata, après Overdrive, championne du monde 2002 et 2003, est la RED BULL KITE FORCE, sponsorisée bien sûr par Red Bull, présente du freestyle en 2 lignes, une paire, l’equipe avec 4 pilotes, du revo et des monofils (ouf !!!)
voila la paire avec Richard Debray et Mathieu Mayet ayant chacun un fameux palmares.
You can see in the streets of Paris lots of kites… on the advert places ! because of the great exhibition organised by the City of Paris and Gerard Clement, organizer of the RICV, The International Kite Festival of Berck, in France.
The exhibition takes place in a big and very nice house built during the 15th century in the center of Paris, by the river.
It shows 100 kites from Gerard Clement’s collection in 3 different rooms :
1 – The History in France since 1600 as a game, and as a sport today. Thus, you can see an Haiiwain kite from Top of the Line brand new, a kite made of silk skarfs by the very luxurious maker HERMES, and of course, a revolution 1.5 SLE kite. But nothing about powerkiting and kitesurf !!!
2 – History : the kites as a machine for war and weather study.
3 – Kites of the world – China, Japan, Korea, thailand, Guatemala, India, Malaisia….
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Bibliothèque Forney
1, rue du figuier, Paris 4e
Fraiday to Saturday – 13hto 19h
4 / 2 euros
Closed the 14 of July
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Grande exposition de Cerf-volants à Paris
Il y a des cerf-volants sur de nombreux abris-bus de la capitale – Non, Ladole n’a pas encore fait fortune avec ses superbes CV et ne fait pas encore de pub en 4×3 sur les murs de Paris, mais c’est une des dernières expos de la ville de Paris à la mode, à aller voir (j’y suis allé hier et et j’avais très envie de partager mes impressions)
Organisé par la mairie de Paris et Gérard Clément à la Bibliothèque Forney dans l’Hôtel de Sens, un des rares hôtels particuliers du 16e siècle à Paris, dans le même esprit que l’Hôtel de Cluny qui abrite le musée du Moyen-âge près de la Sorbonne.
http://www.sortiraparis.com/bonnes-a…ens-52490.html
http://www.insecula.com/salle/MS01905.html
- La Bibliothèque Forney (tout près d’un autre musée génial, la Maison Européenne de la photographie) est la seule bibliothèque spécialisée dans l’architecture et les arts comme la peinture, sculpture ainsi que tous les arts appliqués comme la ferronnerie ou l’affiche publicitaire… ( allez voir la bibliothèque en face de l’expo – elle a été en travaux pendant 2 ans et vient de rouvrir – elle est très belle avec encore certaines parties gothiques) – Et c’est dans ce cadre là que sont exposés une centaine de cerf-volants de Gérard, qui ont un intérêt historique, utilitaire mais aussi graphique ou ethnologique. Les explications sont bien faites et sont assez poussées pour certains cerf-volants. j’aurai aimé avec plus d’infos sur certains cv – mais cela aurai été trop compliqué, et la présentation, j’imagine, deviendrait assez lourde.
Sur une petite télé (pour 20 place assise on a le droit de voir des images des RICV 2009 tournées par l’office de Tourisme de Berck qui sont belles et qui représentent tous les genres du jardin du vent à l’équipe de revo les FLIC – ) mais là encore pas de commentaires sur la video – je pense qu’on peut la voir sur youtube qq part.
Bref si vous passez à Paris – prenez le temps d’y aller une heure.
Il y figure pas mal de curiosités :
- vous y verrez un cv fabriqué en toute petite série par Hermès il ya une bonne quinzaine d’année avec des carrés de soie (il me semble qu’il a volé à la défense pour un Show – la forme et assez proche de l’hawaiien – Thierry H. en avait un et m’a dit que cela ne volait pas terrible !
- un ‘hawaiien Top of The line comme neuf
- un cv-antenne radio pour appeler au secours pour les équipages de bombardiers tombés en mer (d’actualité avec le 65ème anniv’ du débarquement)
- de grands cerf-volant-feuilles indo et et plus petit guadeloupéen comme ceux du fameux Désiré -
- un très intéressant cv guatémaltèque comme ceux qu’on fait voler au-dessus des cimetière les jours des morts – ou pour les manifs des indiens contre l’état ( j’en avais des photos mais pas en réalité – dans le super livre sortit l’année dernière : Au gré du vent par Hans Silvester aux fameuses editions de livres d’art : Edition La Martinière)
- de superbes cv chinois et japonais (dont 3 japonais en soie peinte incroyables)
- un rappel que les premiers avions ne sont que des cerf-volants à moteur….
… pleins d’autres choses
ce n’est pas une très grande expo mais elle permet de voir déjà un bel ensemble
The french kite team Crazy Drivers fling their ballet at the Internationnal Kite Festival, Berck, France – April 2009.
http://www.revo-solution.com
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L’équipe parisienne CrazyDrivers volant avec des cerf-volants revolution ventilés spécialement, ainsi qu’un bridage particulier que vous pouvez retrouver sur http://www.revo-solution.com
j’ai filmé cette demo lors du beau festival de Berck-sur-Mer, en France, en avril 2009.
My friend Richard just joined the new Red Bull kite Race team managed by Yasu Numanta, and performes here the demo of his ballet he wan the world chamionship in 2008.
I filmed that at the Berck kite fsetival in April 2009
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Le toujours très souriant Richard faisant la démo du ballet qui lui a permis de devenir champion du monde de freestyle en 2008. Il vole aujourd’hui sous les couleurs de la Red Bull Kite Force, coaché par Yasu Numata.
Filmé lors du festival de Berck sur mer, en France, en Avril 2009.
