Is This the Earliest? There is no evidence that natives of the Western Hemisphere knew about kites or kite-flying when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. But Columbus had read about Marco Polo’s travels, which included a discussion of kites, and it is possible some of his sailors had been exposed to them on their voyages to the Middle East. However, there is no substantial evidence of any kiting activity in North or Central America until the 1700s. This excludes Hawaii, which is considered Polynesian.

The demise of Kite Lines is the end of an era. For many years, the publication was about the only voice of kiting. It was a window on what was going on worldwide, the only place you could learn about people doing interesting things in kiting. It plumbed a variety of kite customs and kite lore around the globe.

After 24 years and 50 issues, Kite Lines magazine has ceased publication. Publisher and editor Valerie Govig decided to fold the publication because of steadily declining revenues, linked to a fading American market for kites. The death of her longtime magazine aide and husband Mel was a factor as well. “"I enjoyed doing the magazine,”" she says. "“The doing is what I enjoyed."

That the ancient Polynesians in New Zealand and Easter Island, Tahiti and the Cook Islands, and elsewhere were kite makers and kite fliers is well documented. But of particular interest to Americans, perhaps, is the evidence for this skill to be found in the U.S. itself—in the nation’s southernmost state, Hawaii.

There is no more elegant pastime than kiteflying, nor one of wider adaptation. The sport may be pursued in all weathers except violent storms. A kite may be flown from a hilltop, a housetop or a plain, or from any kind of watercraft, as it idly floats or swiftly rushes over the wide seas. The most active of boys does not find kiteflying too tame, for him, neither is it unsuitable for girls, who are quite likely to excel the boys in the skillful construction of the toy; while guiding this creature of the sky is not less elegant than …

I occasionally rant on about those who take the path of least resistance in product development by copying and developing from proven designs rather than blundering about looking for breakthroughs —not that innovation needs to be completely happen chance, not since the systematization of the experimental process anyway. Well, before someone calls me out for hypocrisy I confess that not all development work we do here in Ashburton is of the fundamental type; the incremental approach is important also, and to an increasing extent as kiteflying activities mature.

There’s no organization, no schedule, no events, few spectators. It’s not a festival. It’s just Fano— an annual gathering of many thousands of kite makers and fliers, mostly European, on nine miles of Danish hard sand beach during a week in June. Vehicles can be driven right out onto the sand and there they are used as staging points as fliers fly their kites, meet friends, and party. An island in the North Sea, Fano is well north (on a level with Copenhagen), so the sun doesn’t really set in the summer and flying goes on around the clock.

With financial assistance from the Drachen Foundation, the Royal Aeronautical Society of England is conserving its unique collection of Lawrence Hargrave material. An Anglo-Australian, Hargrave was a l9th century aeronautics pioneer whose fame largely rests on his invention of the box kite in l893.

Open now for almost two years, the Drachen Foundation’s headquarters in Seattle’s charming Queen Anne community of small speciality shops and comfortable houses has fitted right into the neighborhood. It combines a low key presence there with a notable efficiency of operation.

Tiny kites have long been a specialty of Charlie Sotich, of Chicago. “Miniature kites are my passion, ” he says. “They are easy to build, cheap—pennies apiece—and I can give them away. My friends are happy and I’m happy they’re happy. Sail: .00015 Mylar film or thin plastic bag Spars: Vertical—bamboo 1/32 by 1/32 inches or less Cross—1/50 by 1/50 inch bamboo for 9" side; .010- .012 D. cedar for 8" side Glue: Water soluble contact cement to attach spars to sail (try Elmer’s Premium Q Neoprene thinned by about 10%) Flyline: Thin thread