Bright, white, dry, high. That’s how Eric Muhs of Seattle characterizes the South Pole, which he visited for two weeks late last year. A teacher in Seattle, Muhs was there doing cosmic ray research under the National Science Foundation’s ongoing Teachers Experiencing Antarctic program. When he wasn’t doing research, Muhs flew kites. He was sponsored in this latter activity by the Drachen Foundation.

Arriving at Curt Asker’s house in the south of France at night, in the dark and rain, a visitor sees a small, white kite flying over the town. “The kite bids you welcome,” says Asker. It is the nicest possible touch. Later, he says, “I’ll bring the kite down now. It needs to sleep.” More charm.

After 24 hours of travel and just two hours rest at the my hotel in Bombay, my friend Mital and I are away to meet Dilip Kapadia of the Golden Kite Club. Sound, smell, and chaos—the real India. The kiteworld closes in and for the rest of the day I am in Indian kite heaven. A “professionals” cutting competition is taking place and we arrive in the middle of dusty scrubland to be greeted by seriously serious fliers.

A group of imaginative kite enthusiasts in France has for some years banded together as an association known as Au fil des Vents. The group is based in Pierrefeu, Reillanne, home of the group’s organizer, Philippe Cottenceau, well known for the strikingly beautiful kites he makes and flies at festivals around the world..

Living in Japan:

A member of the British Midlands Kite Fliers took up the matter of public reaction to kite flying in an Internet news group posting on the rec.kites site. “Can I have a go with that?” was the most often asked question, according to Jim Cronin. He recounts a conversation with a 12-year-old: Can I have a go with the kite? Sorry, no.

Paul Garber, late curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, was perhaps best known in the kite world as the inventor of the highly successful World War II Target kite, used to train military antiaircraft gunners.

By the late l950s, Domina Jalbert had involved himself in just about everything possessing the possibility of getting up off the ground into the sky. His professional life was devoted to flight: balloons, kites, airplanes, parachutes, and kite-balloons (an early invention, the Kytoon, was developed first as a barrage balloon flown to impede raids by wartime aircraft and was later employed for a variety of purposes).

As part of its role in increasing and diffusing knowledge about kites worldwide, the Drachen Foundation maintains a study collection of kites, kite artifacts, and publications related to the sport. A recent and welcome addition to that collection came from the family of Seattle kitemaker Harold Writer, who died last year, aged 88.

Reza Ragheb, of Aurora, Colorado, died last April after a brief illness. He was 67. Ragheb won worldwide renown for his beautiful kites and was the mentor of many Southwestern kitefliers, including Scott Skinner, president of the Drachen Foundation, who lived near him. Born in Tehran, Ragheb moved to the U.S. as a teenager, but returned to Iran in l969 to establish a construction machinery business. When the Islamic Revolution occurred 10 years later, he and his family left Iran for good, first to London, then to the U.S.