Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 18:46:03 -1000 From: chubbard@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (Charles William Hubbard) Message-Id: <1993Jun22.044603.14737@serval.net.wsu.edu> Organization: Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject: Flying Multiple Kites on One Line The begining of this article was originally in response to a post of Anne's on how to fasten a ring to a kite line using a lark's head. I accidentally sent my reply to Anne as e-mail rather than posting it here as I intended. Sorry it is no longer attached to the proper thread. In article Anne writes: > >To fasten the ring to the primary kite line, make a u-shape with the >line. Pull the u-shape up through the ring (with the lines extending >off to the right, for example), and to the left over the left side >of the ring. Open up the u-shape, and slide/pull it back *under* the >ring all the way to the right side of the ring and a little beyond. >Pull the two "ends" of line to tighten. I wasn't sure if I should reply to this through e-mail or in the newsgroup. I decided that it might be useful to other begining kite people so I decided to put it here. Please don't hesitate to stomp on me. Anyway, I read through Anne's instructions above about a dozen times. I was trying to visualize the string and ring in my mind but I just couldn't see how following the above steps were going to do anything more than put a loop through the ring that would slip out as soon as you pulled on it. Anyway, I finally broke out a ring and some line and tried it. It's like magic or something. I still don't really get how it works but it works very well. Even better, the knot is only tight when there is tension on the line so removing the ring is a snap!!! If there are any of you who don't already know this little lark's head trick then definitely give it a try. Anne mentioned that this stops you >From having to pull the kite and reel through the loop. Up until this morning I would have bet that was the only way to do it. Thanks to Anne, and everyone else who has responded to my question about tying on secondary kites to my primary kite line. I've really learned a lot. ------ Anyway, a day or so after the above post I had the opportunity to use this lark's head trick to attach two secondary kites to my primary line. It's so easy to just slip those rings on anywhere you want them and slip them right off again when you are done. I mean it works great!! So well in fact I now want to go to five secondary kites. I've been using those $1.99 el-Cheapo plastic deltas you pick up at the five and dime. They're cheap, they fly well, and do a good job at supporting the line. They also have more pull than I was expecting. I think I'm going to have to switch to heavier line for the primary tow line before I go to more secondary kites. Currently I'm using 50 pound line on a 6 foot delta. I'm thinking of switching to 80 or 100. With any kind of wind at all the pull is considerable. Initially I was using 60 foot secondary lines but I want to try to switch to 30 footers. I made up a couple of 30 footers tonight, complete with ball swivels, and headed out to the field for a test fly in case they were too short. Unfortunately a storm system is passing through and the winds were just too strong. Maybe tomorrow. While flying my three deltas as described I thought it was intersting to see how much the wind direction varied at different altitudes. I started flying late in the afternoon and flew until sunset. As is typical for this area, as the evening progressed the wind began to shift direction. Initially the primary was flying due south with the middle kite tending toward the west a little and the lowest kite pulling quite definitely to the west. Over the space of about two hours the whole train gradually crept to the right always with the lower kites leading the primary kite buy varying degrees. Eventually, with the primary kite flying nearly due north(!) the lower kites aligned themselves with the primary kite line. The primary kite line was 1000 feet and the kite itself couldn't have been more than about 700 feet up I'd say. I was really surprised to see that much variation over such a short distance. Charlie chubbard@beta.tricity.wsu.edu = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =