Original oil painting by: Grandfather’s wife
One day Grandfather made a “Little Kite that Could.”
About a half-century ago, the local Jaycees put on a kite building and flying contest.
On the day of the event there was practically no wind and ordinary kites wouldn’t fly at all.
But Grandfather’s kite was made of light balsa cross members, covered with polyethylene film from a dry cleaner delivery bag, and the kite string was two-pound test monofilament fishing line, almost as thin and light as a spider’s webbing.
It soared almost straight up on thermals above my little boy who was flying it. The kite was only about 16 inches long and 12 inches wide and the polyethylene was almost transparent, so you could hardly see it, way up there. But every now and then, the sun glinted off it and it was like a tiny star.
My boy won a silver dollar, which he still has.
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee is an octogenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
Okay, RD, tell us the rest of the story. How’d you get the wind to stop?
Ordinary omnipotence.
Back in the day when I was a kid, some neighbor teens made their kites out of thin and trimmed bamboo pieces. Some hot glue and newspapers. Some plastic bags for the tail. We used to walk with them near the mountains to fly their kites. They flew very high too! They used to compete to see whose kite flew higher. hehe… Those were happy happy days! Beautiful memories.
I notice you flew your kites “near the mountains”
Mountains produce a standing wave in the air up and over them when the wind blows againist them.
A physician in Roanoke is a sailplane pilot and he reports reaching altitudes requiring breathing from an oxygen bottle in the wintertime when piloting his sailplane in the standing wave over Peters Mountain.
A kite flying up in a standing wave could go out of sight, I guess.
All of us have cherished memories of childhood events, don’t we?
My son, now 59, emailed me this morning: “That is a vivid memory!”
The one I remember earliest and best is crouching by a water-filled ditch alongside railroad tracks after dark, trying to catch a spring peeper frog in my hands.
Eventually one peeped in front of me and his inflated little throat heaved and gleamed in the moonlight.
I plunged my hands down and scooped up as much mud where he was as I could and hurried home with my hands close around the mess.
In the safety of an escape-proof space, I opened my hands …
Eureka! I got him!
I’ve made some tiny 4″ x 5″ diamond kites out of tissue paper and bamboo skewers. They flew pretty good (16 ft or so) with the right conditions.
Ms. L (above) used bamboo, too.
I used balsa for light wind conditions but bamboo would be stronger and hold up better in high winds.
I remember when I was little I would go into the pasture across the road, and put up a box kite. When Mom would call us in for supper, I’d tie it to a fence post, go in and eat … and it would still be hanging out there when I got back. Those were the days.
Bill, I did almost the same thing as you when I was a kid. Every fall the winds would come and all of the neighborhood kids would get their kites and we would have contests to see how high we could get them. Five hundred feet was no problem for us — and often much higher than that! And when we were called in for dinner, we would tie them to a small tree while we were eating. Sometimes we would leave them tied to the tree overnight — although I can’t remember them ever still flying the next morning.
I remember leaving my kites aloft while I did something else, too!
One time , I returned and I didn’t d see the Kite. I thought it had broken loose, or something, but after I looked around a little, I saw it in the opposite direction from where I left it – the wind had reversed direction and the kite naturally followed.
The little kite my son flew was a box kite.
They are more stable in a larger range of wind conditions than the usual cruciform stick kite.
Kites are an art form in china. While I admire their beauty, I guess I was always just looking to get mine built and flying quickly.
Me too, Dave. I tried all different kinds including the box and diamond varieties, but the most popular ones with my friends were the delta kites. They had no tail and could fly in light breezes or heavy winds — it all depended on where you anchored the line (the heavier the wind, the closer to the nose you would anchor it). Best of all, they were ready as soon as you got home and pulled them from the package — all you had to do was insert the cross brace, attach the line to the proper anchor point and it was ready to go!
Yes, Len, I remember those!
Ours had a bridle string tied between a point forward of the CG on the longitudinal, stick and on the rear of the stick.
The heavier the wind, the farther forward we knotted the flying string on the bridle.
Most of our discussion here has been about kites sustained by wind, but “the little kite that could” was sustained by a different phenomenon: thermals, which are rising currents of air produced by the sun beating down on the ground on hot sunny days.
They will appear again in a forthcoming “Grandfather Says” article about free-flight model airplanes.