The oldest known kite in the world has been added to the Peter Lynn collection. Lynn is the noted kite inventor and aerodynamical theorist living in Ashburton, New Zealand.

An arts academy with two teachers passionate about kites. A kite store staff diligently spreading the word about the sport. Put them together. And what might loosely be called the Vienna School of Art Kites results—-a number of enthusiasts creating and flying kites that are as much esthetic objects as machines for flight. Teacher Anna Rubin (see Page 23) and businessmen-hobbyists Helmut Georgi and Jan Houtermans were unquestionably the catalysts.

“The idea of flying has interested me since I was small,” says Anna Rubin. “I remember dreaming it. I made myself a set of wings. Remembering this when I started teaching many years later, I wondered how I could explain the fascination of flying to kids. Kites, I decided.”

Four important kite collections have been given to the Drachen Foundation in the last few years. The donors made the gifts so their prize troves would be permanently nurtured and made freely available to the public. Acceptance of the collections by the Foundation involves conservation, documentation, and dissemination. The Foundation’s goal is the increase and diffusion of knowledge about kites worldwide.

I’ve recently come to a new direction from which to think of the future of kitesailing. By kitesailing, I don’t mean windsurfing: I’m referring to the use of kites instead of conventional sails for boats—-including large boats.

Sky Sails, a German firm based in Hamburg, has begun oufitting cargo ships with massive kites designed to tug vessels and reduce their fuel consumption. The firm estimates these kites will reduce consumption by about a third. This is a huge saving, given that fuel accounts for about 60 percent of shipping costs.

Laura Hunt: Your age? Tal Streeter: 70 going on 13. Q: How many kiteflying garments do you own?

David Kahn is was one of those natural born collectors, the type who takes to collecting early and never changes his ways. Kahn had his major insight as a nine year old when he discovered a gift shop selling Japanese folk toys, including kites. A New Yorker, the aesthetics of the Orient captivated him. Kahn bought not only a Japanese kite but also a mask and other items. He was on his way.

There are kite challenges in our planning, specifically a) a device that can be induced to stay aloft indefinitely at 700 to 1,000 feet above ground, in all wind and weather conditions, to monitor video and meteorogical and acoustic signals and telemeter the information elsewhere, b) the use of a kite to extract energy from the winds in the atmosphere, the kite moving back and forth crossways to the wind so as to extract extra energy until the wind slows to below half the ordinary stall speed of the kites (at ever slower wind the kite can be kept aloft …

Basant is a spring festival celebrated joyously in Pakistan, and in particular in the city of Lahore. Although originally a Hindu fete (“Basant” means “yellow” in Hindi, a reference to ripening mustard flowers), it has long since lost any religious connotation and become simply a kiteflying free-for-all, with lots of partying and general rejoicing. Muslims join right in, with the exception of fundamentalists, who call Basant a blasphemy.