By Lee Toy
Vol. 6 No. 4- Jul. – Aug. 1983

NOTHIN’ COULD BE FINER THAN TO BE IN NORTHERN CAR-O-LINA IN THE SUM-M-MER
It’s been interesting living in the Shenan¬doah valley this summer, the fickled winds can make one appreciate the simple pleasures of a steady offshore breeze.

It’s when I am struggling to loft a light wind delta in the still of the hot afternoon that I can almost taste the salt air and feel the sand between my toes. Lexington winds tend to be rather choppy and inconsistent as they tumble past the surrounding mountain ranges and then across the valley.

I am not complaining, but I’vet just return after a week’s visit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There the Cape Hatteras National Seashore extends for over 70 miles of narrow islands that stretch from Nags Head to the Ocracoke Inlet. With constant 12 to 15 mph winds, I thought I was in heaven. It was no wonder that Orville and Wilber Wright chose this loca-tion to experiment and eventually fly the first airplane.

On December 17, 1903 Orville had the first taste of a successful powered flight at Kill Devil Hills. Kitty Hawk is where the telegraph office was that sent word to the rest of the Wright family, in Daton, Ohio, that the brothers had met with success.

The Visitor Center and the Wright Memorial_ are located at the site of this historical first flight and truly inspirational to visit. However, I question the validity of the National Park Service in their attempt to “stablize” the 150′ high dune that the granite monument is located on top of.

The dune was one of the largest in the East Coast and was free to roam until the late 20’s when the construction of the monument began. It was from this soft sand dune that the Wright brothers experimented with gliders in order to learn about controlled flight.

The reason that it’s a shame to have the monument on top of the now anchored dune is to compare that with a living dune (one that migrates) such as the one several miles south in Nags Head called Jockey’s Ridge. It’s HUGE,almost 130′ tall and its barren, it is just a big pile of soft sand. I would have thought the Na¬tional Park Service would recognize the value in preserving the dune as it was.

At the bottom of Jockey’s Ridge across the road is the KITTY HAWK KITES sport complex. Here you can learn how to: wind surf, sail, hang glide and even how to fly a kite. yal De le is the string kite manager and has done a great job of displaying and marketing the kites available at the shop. He recently organized the First Annual Rogallo Kite Fes-tival held on Jockey’s Ridge in honor of nearby resident and father of modern hang gliding, Francis Rogallo.

Not far from the Wright Memorial is another kite shop called KITE KINGDOM run by Mary Ames and John Stubbings, who have just opened another branch of their shop in Nor¬folk, VA in a shopping complex called Waterside. Both shops offer a wide variety of kites currently on the market and at the shop in Norfolk have some “one of a kinds” on display.

On July 16, Kite Kingdom will sponsor the WRIGHT KITE FESTIVAL in Kill Devil Hills, this festival has been going on for several years now and is sure to bring a crowd of participants as well as spectators.

Just a hop, skip and a death defying leap across the BYPASS (U.S.185) lives Aylene Goddard. Aylene has been active in kites since 1964 when introduce a kite class to the curriculum at a Kalamazoo, MI Jr. high school.

She’s also published a Kitefliers Shoppers Guide, a source pamplet which is unfortunately out of date as well as out of print. I am sure that it would bf,. as popular today as it was when it was first introduced.

Alyene is still an active member of AKA and has an in¬terest in “KITE ETIQUETTE” and kites and the handicapped. It was a pleasure to spend some time with this wonderful woman. Who else do you know that would make a kite to match her dress?

Sun, surf, sand, seafood, Greenhead flies (ouch), mosquitos, tourists, fast food, sea oats, dunes and a delicious offshore breeze, what more could a kiteflier ask for? With over 70 miles of island to explore you could find the perfect flying spot to suit your dream, be it solitude or amoung the lemmings. If you ever find yourself in need of a perfect kiteflying vacation spot, this is it. But if you plan on camping out be sure you bring a good mosquito net, I can imagine what the Wright brothers had to endure when they were working on their experiments in the summers of the early 1900’s.

WILD BILL’S KITEWAY
With a logo like this who needs advertising? Bill Isenhart’s summer vacation from being a band director at a junior high school is being taken up by making his hardwood reels and rip-stop kites (six varieties) which he will be selling at craft shows. If you would like to see what he’s up to drop him a line and he’ll send you a catalog. He also has a good supply of line.
161 Crestline Rd. S.E., Newark, OH 43055

SECOND ANNUAL WASHINGTON STATE INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL

Deadline for team entries for the 2nd Annual Washington State Kite Festival is July 15, for the competition that will be held on August 25 through the 28th at Long Beach, WA.
$900.00 will be awarded to teams competing in six catagories of contests.
Contact:
Paul Doherty, 20000- 68th Ave. West, Lynnwood, WA 98036, (206)771-1652

SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE, OR MR. ROGALLO MEET MR. WALLGREN.

Who says you can’t teach an old kite new tricks? Francis Rogallo’s corner kite was developed 16 years ago as a flying radar reflector for a Virginia Beach sea captain. The original kite adapted a wire mesh re¬flector by adding lifting surfaces behind the screen and it is this design that was patented (No. 3,296,617) in 1967. In 1977 Carol Rogallo flew the kite for the Smith¬sonian Kite Festival and it took the aero¬dynamics trophy. This year the “Corner” kite again appeared with a few modifications applied by Eric Wallgren, kite maker extrodinare.

Eric has replace the extoskeleton comprised of four wood dowels and replaced them with a hoop of fiberglass. He has also removed the pockets and simply added fixed tie positions on the hoop that are located at four equal spaces to attatch to the vanes of the cells.

Eric is what you might call a kite “enthu¬siast”, he hasn’t missed a Smithsonian Kite Festival since they began.

He says that it also helps now that he’s return to work at the KITE SITE, the kite shop in George¬town D.C. (The KITE SITE by the way is one of the best shops I’ve seen on the East Coast because of its incredible selection of kite making materials as well as kites and accessories. I usually judge a kite shop by the materials it carries, and the KITE SITE gets an A+.)

Eric also made a 100 sq. foot flow form variant called “SKA” and a train of six minature cody kites for this years Smith¬sonian Festival.
The current generation of Snowflake kites got their seed in the original “Corner” kite by Francis Rogallo, I wonder what new generation of kites we’ll be seeing that will evolve from Eric’s ideas.

Eric has offered to share his ideas in this issue of Kite Flyer so you can try your hand at putting a SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE, thanks Eric.

FIRST ANNUAL ANNAPOLIS KITE FLY
Although these aren’t as good as photos, here are a few sketches of some of the kites at the fly:

The first Annual Annapolis Kite Fly was held on June 12, sponsored by Brooks Leffler’s kite shop, KITES AWEIGH. Annapolis is a historical seaport from wayback when and features a “village” surrounding a marina, so if you don’t want to fight traffic on the road you can sail or motor in. The kite shop is located on Fleet St. one of several twisting lanes that leads up to one of the first Court (?) Houses in this Country. Beyond the court house is a university from which we had a perfectly windless day for a Fly. Actually there was a slight breeze and a few kites actually flew quite well.

As always there was lots of friendly kite talk and idea exchanges. George Foes, Felix Cartengena Jewell and Bob Price, Bruce and Carolyn Kennington of Cloud Pleasers, Bill Rutiser, Cliff Bockman and Eric Wallgren were a few of the people on hand to enjoy the day. Greg Marshall stopped by on his way to catch some wind in another way, with a windsurfer.

After the sun had fried most of us to a crisp, we retreated to an open house at Kites Aweigh. Plenty of ice tea, wine, crackers and cheese were on hand for a hungry hard. Brooks was offering a special 15% discount for AKA card carriers.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE RANCH
Thru the magic of the telephone I heard that George Ham will get his TV screen debute on July 11 when CBS Evening Magazine will be doing a segment on the Mayor of The Green. I guess he’ll have to go over to Tom Henry’s to watch it since he doesn’t have a TV set of his own. Carol, get the popcorn out and DON’T spit in it, please.

Ancient history: KITES EAST AND WEST was the title of a exhibition at the Chevron Gallery in downtown S.F. The poster for the show was a photograph of Tom Henry at the Marina Green flying his J-70 “Test Pattern” parafoil with the help of a young boy. Since I didn’t get notice until after the fact, this happened in March and April I can only say that we may have missed a good one.

One of San Francisco’s largest kite festi¬vals has always been held on Father’s Day. This year things were really hopping when the Chinese Cultural Center wanted to get involved. Michael McFadden from Kite-makers and Vivian Chiang coordinated the exhibit as well as the festivities on the Green.

CHINESE KITES: FLIGHTS OF FANCY is a current exhibit of Chinese kites dating from the Quin dynasty to the present. If you hurry (or if I hurry) you can catch it at the Chinese Cultural Center, 750 Kearny Street until July 19. For information call (415) 986-1822.
Ha Yiqi from Peking,China was a guest for this event and was giving demonstrations on kitemaking in the traditional Chinese design. Ha’s kitemaking background goes back to the Quin dynasty and four of the kites on exhibition are believed to be the work of Yiqi’s great-great grandfather.

Yiqi believes the kites were brought to the United States by ethnologist Berthold Laufer at the turn of the century.

On June 19 Ha and kitefliers from the Bay Area and as far as Canada were out on the Green for a colorful day of kite flying. Information concerning this was sent to me by my mother, thanks mom!! It’s always nice to here what’s going on back at the ranch.

NEWS FROM YOU

David Elliott, Boston, MA
I’ve been awarded a grant for a piece of “environmental art” to be on “temporary display” during the Cambridge River Fest¬ival this summer. Of course, it’s a piece of flying sculpture, an EDO kite of 86 sq. feet. The spars will be graphlex, three sections wide by four high making the diag-onal exactly five sections, I don’t like to cut graphlex and design my kites with this in mind. There will be 17 bridle lines about 100 feet long using 50 lb. test dacron. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Suzanne & Ken of Great Winds, Seattle, WA …
So much to tell…The Cherry Blossom Festival brought a group of kite and Neputa (giant paper lantern) builders from Hirosaki in Northern Japan led by G. Fuku¬shi, who does striking folk hero type paintings. (ed. I remember them well when I visited Japan on Dave’s tour in ’80 I had the oppurtunity to travel North and to Hirosaki, I may have even met the man you speak about) Nishi and the Mrs. were here and as usual, were delightful. Dom Jalbert went on Dave Checkley’s tour and he stayed with us in the warehouse (he called it a dream house)

(ed. it is)

THE FABRIC GUY, Doylestown, PA…
New parafoil has been on fire from backdoor of car shorting out on the power window switch.

20″ hole in top but the edges are heat sealed and wont fray. An expensive way to make a flowform, if you could only stop the fire at the right point…Harry “0” made it under lic. from Dom , the original kite was 640 sq. feet but after repairs it will be 860 sq. feet….

Lenny Who, G*D*Ve4K*S, NJ…Yes, I finally received KFN #6-3, via mule train, a few days after Doris (Fithian) received hers, via dog sled…Doris was very impressed with your postcard; wants to know how you have them printed. As for me…who cares?

She also says, “Tell Virginia I’ll show her my New Jersey that I let Dela-ware.” Don’t ask me what it means…The museum exhibition is moving towards opening day s-l-o-w-l-y. This morning I watched SIX MEN HANG ONE KITE FOR TWO HOURS…

The Flip-a-Nickel Weather Service is predicting temperatures in the 90’s all week; hazy, hot and humid. Hello, Summer. Time to get out those short pants and no-wind kites, or is it the other way around?

The Old Curmudgeon told me that you found a warm bed in Lexington. Sounds to me like you found a warm body….Up your kites…Keep your chin up and your nose on the typewriter…
ed. Eddy-tor Conover sent word that the woman at the end of the line with the Bras-well varient at the MKS fly was none other than Louise Heite. Also that the Exhibit mentioned above is the SCULPTURE IN THE SKY, at the Port of History Museum at Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River and will be shown until Sept.11.

In addition there will be two more kiteflys in the Boat Basin Area July 24 and August 28. (215)923-9030. Penn’s Landing is in Philadelpha.
Margaret Greger..Richland, WA (upon return from a trip across the POND)…Have you seen the English Strat-a-scoop? Now that I’m back, there are questions I should have asked…they seem to be a second-genera¬tion parafoil, with a closed leading edge, and sleeve-type fins which are net covered to allow air passage… Andrew Jones is expecting Tal Streeter and Bill Tyrrell some¬time in September for something happening in France.

They have been towing boats with Flexis across the “Channel”, they can be used like sails, to sail across the wind. Colin Jackson mentions that some of the big oil tankers are interested in their use to cut fuel expenses ….

FLIGHT PATTERNS
WVPT is a public television station of the Shenandoah Valley that wanted to do a series on kite making. They contacted several of the participants of the Ash Lawn Kite Fly that was held in Charlottes ville and got my name from the Piney Moun-tain Number One Troll (I am not sure wheth¬er or not to thank him or press charges, actually it all turned out for the best and I can eat for another week), Dale Townsend is the “air traffic controller” of this project and he got in touch with Perry Fitzhugh of Orange, VA to be my co-host and on screen companion.

Neither Perry or I had done this type of thing before and we-learned quite a bit of what goes on be¬hind the “scenes”. One common occurance seemed to be that the materials we were making the kites out of would muck up the camera lens because of their color and we ended up spraying a lot of things with Grey Primer , when was the last time you ever saw a grey styrofoam plate? or meat tray? or Tyvek?

There are several interviews that may ,appear in the program including Paul Garber, Brooks Leffler and Virginia kitemaker Verlon Vrana whose speciality is realistic bird kites and some not so realistic bird kites with humorus over tones.

Unfortunately neither Perry or I saw the history segment before they taped it and although pretty accurate the illustrations are somewhat misleading. Over all I think the programs came out well for an intro¬ductory kite series. It might be nice to continue and get into more complicated designs and various craftsmen/women in the country shooting on location instead of a studio. Maybe next time?

The actual program will include how to make eight different kites: Sled, eddy, delta, rhomboid box, rotary, Folly’s flyer (delta varient), fighter and a “Rocket” (compound). The program guide will describe each of the kites and give general information about each.

If all goes well, Flight Patterns should be aired sometime in August, at least locally. If the major PBS stations buy it you may be seeing us in you living room making kites (Carol, here’s your big chance to TURN me OFF). Who knows perhaps Perry and I may become the JULIA CHILDs of Kite Kooking.


THE FIFTH OF JULY
From an AP article in the Washington Post, Phil Valenti tried to loft the largest American flag on July 5th in Itasca,Ill. The “flag” was to be a banner made of 300,000 red, white and blue helium bal¬loons tied to a grid. High winds and a pre-release of balloons by some of the volunteers (10-12 year olds) amoung some of the 1,200 helpers, defeated the plan to “fly” the 552′ x 338′ flag.

BY WAY OF STANDARD REFERENCE–KITE FLYER NEWS IS AVAILABLE SIX TIMES A YEAR (WEATHER PERMITTING) AT THE MINIMAL COST OF A TRIP TO DOGGIE DINER–FIVE BUCKS A YEAR. SEND ALL MONEY, TRADING STAMPS OR GOLD BARS TO: KITE FLYER, 1883 GRAND VIEW DRIVE, OAKLAND, CA 94618