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Looking for stunt kite plans




In article <1992May28.105733.24127@ohm.york.ac.uk>, jkn@ohm.york.ac.uk (John Nicoll) writes:
|>I have done very little flying with it, due to other
|>pressures, but I guess I have to agree with those
|>who express ... disappointment with it. This may be

I've run into this with my kites, which is the reason that I designed
the Katana. My other kites are slow, turn slowly, have no oversteer
and don't do the tricks that are popular these days. These are the
traits that make it an almost ideal beginner's kite and a pretty good
team kite.

The Katana flys fast, turns fast, and can be set up with plenty of
oversteer. It does all of the tricks fairly easily. For now, the
Katana fits into what people are looking for in a ballet kite or an
all around fun kite. Things will probably be different next year.

On the way back from Wildwood I did a quick sketch of a new design for
a new team kite. The MDM-4 was an almost ideal team kite last year,
but with what teams are now doing in competition, it just doesn't hold
up. The new kite will have a slightly curved leading edge, and a
little more sail area for light wind flying. It will, hopefully, turn
faster with just a bit of oversteer to make stops/stalls easier and
steadier to do.

|>Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig's book is available in the UK, at least.
|>It's called `Making & flying Kites' (pub. Hamlyn). The Kite
|>Store has copies at UK L3-95. It seems a very good book to me,
|>with lots of constructional ideas, clearly proven in action.
|>Nice pictures too!

This is a nice kite book, but it's not the one that I was talking
about. The one that I was talking about is exclusively about stunt
kites, and is, as Jeff mentioned in his note, available from the Kite
Lines Book store.

|>Now I've started making kites, I too hope to get hold of
|>a Benson Phantom to copy - I can't afford the real thing
|>just yet. If anyone out there has any sketches etc., I'd
|>be happy to turn them into a PostScript file for the net! :-)

I know you have a smiley face on this, but please be careful about
this. I'm sure that I would not want one of my designs distributed on
the net. When I gave a workshop on building kites I made it a point to
distribute plans for one of my kites even though I had plans for a
North Shore Radical, a Spinoff, and a Fire Dart.
--
Marty Sasaki                            sasaki@tle.enet.dec.com



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