Bob Moore's report on breaking the world kite altitude record in 2014. On September 23rd 2014 a group of 4 Australian kite enthusiasts flew a kite to a claimed 16,038 feet above the launch point. The flight took place at an air field on a 50,000 acre sheep farm called Cable Downs, in Western NSW, Australia. This was the venue for all their record attempts over the last 10 years. It is a site remote from their homes 750 km to the east in Sydney. They have made this annual trek to Cable Downs in 7 of the last 10 years. There have been a number of other people involved from time to time but the current gang of four has been together for the last 5 attempts. Mike Richards is well known in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney as the kite man and runs a diverse business selling, building and repairing kites. He is a jack of all trades but from my point of view his expert kite building and flying skills have been an enormous benefit to my high flying aspirations. Mike Jenkins is a nearby resident of Mike Richards. I met him at the Bondi Festival of the Winds. I had an immediate rapport with him and he is a down to earth, intelligent man with great kite designing, building and flying skills. He has won numerous awards with his kites at Festival Of The Winds. He is a competition sailor and it is this experience as a team player under competition conditions that makes him an excellent choice for a high altitude kite flying team. His "no bull" approach keeps me focused and grounded. Roger Martin is a talented kite builder and flyer who also lives close to Mike Richard's kite shop. He is an experienced photographer which has great benefit to our campaign for the world altitude record. His maturity and experience is a great asset to our team. It's not just the tension and reward that is the attraction to our record attempts but it's the camaraderie and mate ship that sees me looking forward to our trips to this remote place. We have fun in our 1 star hotel called a wool shed, a rough iron clad building that is the habitat of tough shearers, clipping the wool off the 1,000's of sheep in an annual ritual. The place has a liberal coating of lanolin from the tons of wool shorn from the sheep's backs over the last 50 or so years. The place has a mild odor of sheep dung but we get use to it. We eat surprisingly well with Mike Jenkins culinary skills appreciated. In the evenings we drink beer and wine, talk rubbish, watch some movies, play cards and laugh a lot. Then we sleep well and I'm dreaming of perfect winds and floating like an eagle thousands of feet about the airstrip. We are a cohesive, happy and effective team and this is an important factor in our record breaking flight this year and all our high flights over the last 10 years. In our flights we have used one kite design. Our 120 square foot DT deltas have been an effective high flying tool. They proved robust, resilient and capable flyers. We were confident of these kites breaking the altitude record but with any kite, the right wind conditions are essential. In the last 2 attempts we noticed that the kite had reached it's wind limit at about 30 knots ground equivalent and the maximum line tension generated was 130 lbs. We discussed how we may increase the wind range of the kite, thereby improving the kite's lift and a simple but effective way may be to fit a second spreader. I had experimented with a double on a larger version of these kites in 2005 but came to no conclusion but I kept the idea in the back of my mind. On Monday September 22nd 2014 we made our first altitude record attempt since late September 2012. I arrived late on the Saturday 2 days before and my team mates arrived late on Sunday. I had done most of the preliminary setup but it took another 2 hours to ready the kite, line and other paraphernalia that makes up our base station and recording equipment. The ground wind was ideal with a steady 10 - 12 knot wind blowing straight down the air strip from the ENE. We launched the kite on 300 metres of line at about 10am and it climbed steadily to 6,000 ft then there were several periods of altitude loss and see-sawing of the kite with winch reversal trying to work the kite up. The Doug La Rock tension gauge is an essential tool for deciding if we release line, let it sit or release line and at what speed. In conjunction with the GPS telemetry information displayed on the computer screen we don't really need to see the kite. Without these things we would be blind. The kite stalls at about 12,500 ft and we spend another hour working the winch to make a little progress with the maximum at 12,778 ft above our launch point. A decent altitude in anyone’s language but is well short of our target of 15,000 ft. We ran out of time to work it any higher as we are limited by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority agreement to have the kite landed before last light. We land the kite about 6pm with about an hour of light left. We pack up and head back to the wool shed. While winching the line in, we analyze the flight and come to the conclusion that there may have been enough wind to reach 15,000 ft if the kite had more lift. We had discussed fitting a double spreader in 2012 and now’s the time to try it. Mike Richards and Mike Jenkins busied themselves at first light the next morning fabricating and fitting the second spreader. We carry spares of everything so it was no problem to make up and fit another 15 mm fiberglass spreader and the rubber sleeves which attach them to the wing spars. For those not familiar with deltas, the spreader is the horizontal spar at the rear of the kite that holds the wings open. With one spreader the wings folded inward at high wind speeds, that was in excess of 20 knots. It is necessary for a delta to have flexible spars but if they are too stiff the kite will be nervous and unstable and even be crash prone. It is a balance between light weight, strength and suppleness. On day 2 we got an earlier start with the kite being airborne by about 9 am. The generator is the 5.5 hp life line to all our electronics, winch and coffee machine. Its fuel was checked and topped up. I had contacted Air Services earlier to open the zone for us and close to air traffic. The GPSFlight telemetry unit with its alkaline battery pack was inserted into its pouch at the back of the kite and it provided enough charge to keep the data transmitting for 54 hours. The Holux data logger was on board as our GPS data backup. It's batteries last 12 hours and this is beyond our flight curfew. The laptop was on with the GPS Dash software indicating valid satellite locks from the onboard GPS receiver and the telltale flashing light on the radio telemetry receiver blinking like a heartbeat monitor. If it stops the flight is virtually dead as without it we are flying blind. A file is opened on the telemetry software to record the data. This is a small but vital step. Without the telemetry log we have only half the evidence that form the primary source of positional and altitude data. The telemetry software is set to ground level so that from now on the GPS sends data via the radio signal for decoding and displays altitude above our launch point. There are 10 other pieces of information that are transmitted including the core data set that forms the NMEA standard for GPS receivers. The 2 Mikes walk the kite out with the winch in reverse paying out line. They carry a walkie-talkie to time the release with winch control. No line reversal is needed as the wind is strong enough to power the kite rapidly to 500 ft With a double spreader and a 12 - 15 knot wind it pulled like a 'bull in spring' rising at a high angle and taking line at a rapid rate. There were about 3/8ths of cumulous cloud cover at an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 ft. There was patch high cloud at about 14,000 ft. We were over the lower cloud in about 40 minutes. From then on the kite was either obscured by cloud or too high to locate easily with binoculars or a powerful telescope. The kite was past 10,000 ft within 1 hr 15 min. This compares to 8 - 10 hours for other flights to this altitude. The line tension was stable and rising from 40 lbs to 80 lbs. The rate of climb slowed a little between 10 and 12,000 ft but all the time we were releasing line under brake control that the kite was pulling out. We didn't have to push line out with the winch motor at all. It was a steady climb past the Synergy record altitude of 14,609 ft and only paused at 15,500 ft. We had run out of line with only about 200 meters left on the reel and 12,620 meters up in the sky. We waited for an hour in which time the kite gradually rose to a maximum of 16,038 ft above the launch point and the tension gauge was hovering between 110 and 120 lbs. We may have been able to go higher with more line but we were happy with what we had achieved. An hour before the kite breached the record altitude the farm owners were summoned to witness our record achievement. They were excited as us because they had been allowing us to use their airstrip and stay in there woolshed for 10 years. They had road the ups and downs with us although I never managed to convert them to the kiting religion. It was also their last day as custodians of Cable Downs and was moving to another farm 800 kms to the south. We all jumped for joy and despite the excitement of breaking the record, the implications had yet to sink in. It was clear that adding a second spreader was the main contributing factor to our outstanding altitude with a big but not huge kite. We cannot discount the contribution of slightly stronger winds but these winds also meant higher line drag. The line angle was at about 15 degrees and the kite angle about 24 degrees. Adding more line may have increased the altitude by 1,000 ft but I suspected I would run out of time or the effort of adding another reel of line would not result in any height gain. 16,038 feet is a fine effort. Jesse Gersensen was the first to know of our record when he phoned by on-field phone from the Czech Republic. He is a high altitude enthusiast with a strong presence on kite builders. He spread the news via this forum. After nearly 4 hours of winching the line in, the kite landed around 5 pm. After the retrieval was started and about a hour in, the GPS telemetry stopped transmitting. Later I saw that the transmitter aerial had worked its way loose, probably from the wing vibration from flapping trailing edge. The trailing edge was tattered from the flogging of winds between 20 and 40 knots over 8 hours. Fortunately the telemetry data was recorded for 2/3 of the flight with the maximum altitude included. The Holux data logger recorded the whole flight. The GPSFlight and Holux data will be sent along with other supporting information to the AKS and Guinness. The GPS devices will be certified by qualified surveyors or engineers. We packed things into the trailer but as we planned to do some onboard photography the following day so we didn’t pack too securely. We debriefed over a few wines that evening and I examined the GPS logs. Both confirmed that the kite had reached over 16,000 feet above ground level. In addition to the GPS data we have 15 minute hand written logs of line out, line angle, altitude and horizontal distance to the kite. The following day the wind had intensified and storms were forecast around midday. We never contemplate upping the record but we wanted to capture some onboard video and other images to add to our collection. Mike had put together a short video of images and still to upload to YouTube on return to Sydney. I would like to thank Mike Richards, Mike Jenkins and Roger Martin for their support skills and work in preparing for our record attempts. I also thank Jesse Gersensen for taking the time to look up the wind predictions for our zone and for being a strong advocate for high altitude flight. Doug La Rock made the tension gauge for us and it is an invaluable tool. All the guys and girls on Kite Builders including Cliff Quinn, Ron Bohart, TBHinPhilly, Aldenmiller, Pumpkin, Jeepster, Kite Guy, Turn 11, Sadsack, Quincy, Old Goat, MotoTrev, my AKS members, Diane AKA area 13 rep and a host of others. Next we may attempt the absolute (kite train) record but I’d like to get the single line verification out of the way before I think seriously about another record campaign. I would be setting a target at about 40,000 ft. Bob Moore/Australia