Kite Festival and Revolution Kites.

[watervole]

I went to Portsmouth Kite Festival this weekend withrockwell_666   Had a fabulous time. I love kites and here there were hundreds.  Everything from box kites flying high, supporting  giant inflatable teddy bears lower down, to tiers of kites flying in line.

Lots of single kites and inflatables and wind socks on kite lines and twirling wind socks, and flying octupusses and fish and birds and kites of every colour, shape and size.

However, my favourite was the kite ballet.  I'd never seen kite ballet before, never even knew it existed.  The clip below isn't from Portsmouth, but gives you a pretty good idea of what the display was like.

I want a revolution kite!  (That's the kind they use for the ballet)  They have four strings and a control handle for each hand.  They can fly up, down, upside-down and sideways with an amazing degree of control.  The only snag is that they cost around £200 new.

I rather fancy this one  - I wonder if I could get my relatives to club together for my next birthday?  (I did take a quick peek on ebay, but there's nothing second-hand there right now)

Comments

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

Had there been one on eBay I'd have got it first because I was checking there whilst you were still on the train home... :-)

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing kite! I want one now too =)

[lucas-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Absolutely amazing - how on earth did they manage some of those moves without getting tangled in each other's lines? I kept thinking of the Ghostbusters and "DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!"

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

The answer is that they *do* cross the lines!

Presumably the line they use is slippery enough that it doesn't prevent them from "unwinding" a pattern (provided nobody gets it wrong and they go the wrong way...)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

They do cross the lines. I recall watching at Portsmouth and the entire team had their lines wound around each other.

The trick is to have good strong line with a low coefficent of friction. And have a good team of flyers as well!