Giant Kites

Three Amazing Examples!

Perhaps you have seen some truly giant kites at a festival. Whether it's a super-long dragon kite or a huge inflatable show kite, they certainly are attention grabbers!

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It's all pretty relative. I started making a range of tiny kites from bamboo BBQ skewers, quite some years ago. Then I doubled the spans by using two skewers butted together, for another series of kites. These had spans of 58 cm (11 1/2 in.)

Later, I doubled the spans yet again, to 1.2 meters (4 feet) using 5 mm Tasmanian-oak dowels. By now I felt the kites were quite impressive in size!

Finally, the time seemed right to come out with ... you guessed it ... Multi-Dowel kites with the spans doubled yet again to 2.4 meters (8 feet). This is closer to most people's idea of a "big" single-liner for personal recreation.

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The Peter Lynn Mega-Kites

There were three of these in existence in 2009, as far as I know. Undoubtedly, some multi-millionaires somewhere have put several more on order since then!

All these giant kites are identical, apart from the decorative work. All have flown at least once at an international kite festival. The first picture down there is of the Mega-Moon, which was made for a Japanese owner.

Airborne, one of these kites appears much like a giant mattress, sedately floating at a modest height off the ground. The construction concept does not look complex from a distance, with the kite looking similar to a flat parafoil with all the internal cell divisions missing. Instead, the bridle lines go right through and anchor the upper surface to the lower surface. The reason for this arrangement is that the flying kite can shift around while the internal air tends to stay stationary. This improves stability since that big volume of air does have a significant mass.

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So, have Peter Lynn Kites just been satisfied with those three mega-kites? Heck no! Guess what the latest is...

An even larger flag kite was tested in France in 2018. Called The Hope, this 1,250-square-meter monster has a massive ribbon tail from the trailing edge and is capable of true single-line flying. You see, the other small :-) flag kites required side-lines with active handling to keep the kite on an even keel. OK, it's keelless, but you know what I mean!

As you can imagine, it's quite a job to put together, transport, and operate these amazing kites. Construction takes months, and many people are involved in unpacking and launching during flying attempts.

Just how far will this company push the limits? Time will tell.

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Chinese Kite Trains

Previously, the honor of being "the world's longest kite" probably went to one of the many massive dragon kites which have been made in China for centuries.

However, since June 2008, another incredible kite has taken out the title—Zhang Tengyun's Bee kite!

The Chinese specialize in the centipede style, where a large number of smaller kites are strung together to form a long tail. This Bee kite might just as easily fall into the "kite train" category though, since from the pictures I saw, the kites are connected with just the one flying line.

See how this amazing creation floats away into the distance, in that photo! The individual small kites each represent a bee, being a somewhat stylized design with yellow body and two green "wings."

Anyway, those details aside, this flying creation is immensely long, at no less than 3,500 meters! That's 3.5 kilometers (about 2 miles). That's probably further than some people travel in their car to the local shops haha!

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The Giant Kites of Sagami, Japan

To me, the most interesting thing about these kites is that the entire huge sail is made from hand-made Japanese paper! For one thing, that would seem to be a pretty delicate material for such a huge kite. Mind you, for its thickness, this type of paper is supposed to be very strong.

Also, can you imagine the hours required to just make enough paper for one of these massive bowed kites! On the topic of "massive," is it any wonder they weigh as much as they do. See the list of figures further down.

Traditionally, a large kite is flown each year at the Sagami Giant Kite Festival. This event is held on May 4th and 5th in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

Do you think that your local kite festival has a fairly long history? It probably pales in comparison to the Sagami festival. This event is a tradition that has been held since the Tenpou period (around 1830!) in the Edo era. I wonder if anyone has added up the total number of square meters of paper used in the sails of these giant kites over those years.

 

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