Adelaide Kite Festival 2016
The View From Above
Two out of three wasn't bad, at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2016. That is, the Saturday and Monday provided some great weather in the afternoons and hence some awesome aerial spectacles for the crowd...
This year, invited guests from interstate and overseas had reserved plots of sand close to the jetty. The rest of us registered flyers arranged ourselves further north along the beach. Although it was harder for people on the jetty to see every kite well, I must say that there seemed to be fewer line tangles and other dramas than in previous years!
Kite trains and line laundry were in abundance this year. My own train of Multi-Fly Diamonds was also on display. This consisted of six carbon and Tyvek diamonds with long black tails, spaced closely and not moving much in the smooth sea air.
As during last year's event, the public flying area to the south of the jetty was alive with smaller kites. And once again, the smooth southerly would very occasionally drift a small escaped kite across the jetty into the realm of Serious Kite Flyers. Or, the kites went into the bush-covered dunes—also known as the "snake pit"! This is Australia remember.
Monday was a similar story, and more aerial photos were taken. Also, many short movies were taken, some of which were destined to help illustrate other pages on this website.
HINT: Make sure you view the clickable images on this page on a decent-sized monitor. Tiny screens won't do the images justice!
On this site, there's more kite-making info than you can poke a stick at :-)
Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
Every kite in every MBK series.
Three More Aerial Views
With the Pentax Optio camera set for 20 images at 15-second intervals, I took a few walks up and down the dunes. All the while, I was hanging onto the 100-pound line from which the camera cradle was suspended. Also, a 3-minute initial delay gave time to launch the kite.
It took more time than expected to complete each walk before returning to our little tent on the sand. So, 30 or 40 exposures would have been better! Or perhaps a 30-second time interval could have been used. But some good results were obtained anyway.
Shown below are three perspectives: toward the jetty, away from the jetty, and out to sea.
Click on an image to enlarge it. Make sure your browser window is full-screen! Try the image at the top of this page as well.
Photos From Below
My wife and I both walked around with the camera at different times, snapping whatever seemed interesting. Here are some selected photos, which are also clickable to fill your screen:
Like to see a video clip? Just scroll down to near the end of this page.
Saturday at the
Adelaide Kite Festival 2016
Secondary to the real meaning of Easter,
there is another one here in Adelaide... The Adelaide International
Kite Festival, which has always been held over the long weekend. Once
again, we headed off in the family car to Semaphore Beach.
Winds
were light and variable, to quote a well-used phrase in meteorology.
Seasoned kite-flyers on the beach were apt to use less polite language,
since the intermittent offshore breeze kept dumping the largest of the
show kites in wet sand!
MBK Multi-Dowel Barn DoorTo cope with light winds we had brought
the Multi-Dowel Barn Door. It's actually not a real light-wind kite, but
it's useful over a fairly wide wind range. The 2.4-m (7-ft.) -span kite managed
to stay airborne in all but the deepest lulls, while flying tailless.
During
a slightly more breezy period an attempt at kite aerial
photography (KAP) was made with the Fresh Wind Sled, a cut-down version of
the much bigger Multi-Dowel Sled. This was way too optimistic, with the
camera clicking away while sitting on the sand, to begin with. Then
it was hovering just meters over the dunes while pointed at the action to the
south.
So, it was back to the big barn door. The 200-pound line
was replaced with the 100-pound line already set up with the KAP cradle
and camera. The twin drogues were swapped over too, just to keep the
kite steadier. This was much better!
In no time, the camera was
taking shots at 10-second intervals down the beach to the south. After
bringing the cradle in and initiating another photo-taking sequence,
photos were taken to the north, since quite a few kites were up in that
direction as well.
Finally, we left the barn door up without the
KAP rig dangling from the line. Also, a train of colorful Multi-Fly
Diamonds was put up, which my wife seems to appreciate more than any of
my larger kites on their own.
In the end, with smoother winds
from the south, the festival was putting on a picture-perfect display
with kites of many varieties floating about in the sunshine.
Monday at the
Adelaide Kite Festival 2016
After trudging through the sand for various reasons through the day on
Saturday, it was good to have a complete break on Sunday. Monday dawned,
and the weather seemed set for a repeat performance of Saturday. Just
in case the breeze strength really picked up later, we had the Multi-Dowel Box with us.
Before
long we had the 2-m (7-ft.) -tall Carbon Diamond in the air. This kite
stays up in fairly light air and tends to fly very efficiently right up
to its wind-speed limit around 28 kph. Today, it behaved like a yo-yo,
doing touch-and-goes on the damp sand as the offshore breeze came on
and off. Perhaps the kite would have stayed off the sand on 300 or more
feet of line, but the lapping sea water was closer than that, from the
sand anchor.
I was busy getting ready to take some aerial photos so couldn't keep a constant eye on the big diamond.
Finally,
well after lunch, the breeze turned and blew from the south. It was smooth and
moderate in strength. All the registered flyers wasted no time in
lofting their kites, and within a few minutes the seashore north of the
jetty was transformed into the spectacle all had come to see.
I
also wasted no time getting my camera in the air and did three separate
passes, slowly walking up and down the dunes. Each time, photos were
being taken at a different viewing angle, at 15-second intervals. The
lifter was my Fresh Wind Sled, a cut-down version of the big 2.4-m-tall
Multi-Dowel Sled.
Being the first time I have actually walked
around with the KAP rig in flight, it was discovered that having only 20
exposures was a mistake. I might try at least 30 next time!
All up, it was another great day at the Adelaide International Kite Festival.
As mentioned earlier, there's more kite-making on this site than you can poke a stick at :-)
Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
Every kite in every MBK series.
