How to Make Paper Kites

MBK Minimum Sled

1) The MBK Minimum Sled kite requires just a single sheet of A4- or Letter-sized copier paper.

Although it's strictly for fairly light winds, I've had reports of this design floating high for quite some time—on a sewing-thread line. Make one right now then wait for a suitable day to take it out.

Here's a flight report from when I first took out the Minimum Sled to a suitable location.

Does this kite have spars or not? Well, it has vertical folds in the sail that provide some extra stiffness just like separate spars. So perhaps, technically, it does have spars! That's a bit unique, don't you think?

MBK Minimum Tetra

2) The MBK Minimum Tetra kite is a ridiculously minimal tetrahedral featuring a single cell. Not surprisingly, it requires a tail to fly in a reasonable range of wind speeds.

Here's the flight report from when I took out the third and final prototype, featuring a colored paper sail.

If you want to get technical (OK, you don't but I do ;-) ) the cell is not actually a regular tetrahedron, where the faces are equilateral triangles.

With the sail made from a perfect square of paper, only two sides of each triangle are equal in length. You can stop yawning now, I'm done.

Paper Series originals (+ Minimum Tetra, far left)

Specifically, the kite had to do the following:

• reach an altitude of 200 feet above its tether point
• stay in the air unassisted for at least 20 minutes
• remain airworthy for 3 hours of total flight time

These designs are not as quick and simple to make as the Simple Series kites elsewhere on this site. However, they have the considerable advantage of not requiring any rigid spar material.

And yet, these small kites do have spars. But you make them yourself. By carefully following the instructions, the spars end up strong enough yet light enough to do the job for a particular type of kite. I've done all the hard work in tweaking it all to kite-flight perfection.

Don't forget—these are real kites. They fly high and stay up for ages! That's in reasonable weather, of course.

MBK Paper Sled

Construction time: about 2 1/2 hours.

This design was inspired by one of the old Allison Sled designs that used two wooden spars. Of course, the Paper Sled is a different size and uses just copier paper and sticky tape throughout—even for the "sticks"!

Here are free instructions for making the MBK Paper Sled.

The last flight that this kite had for certification was a great one—50 minutes over the sand at a great height and being buzzed by seagulls!

Read about this kite's final certification flight. The photos and video in there were taken on the day. Check them out!

MBK Paper Diamond

Construction time: about 3 hours.

This requires a bit less work on the sail but a bit more on the spars. Being only paper and tape, the spars have to be strong near the middle of the kite and lighter out near the tips.

After some experimentation with spar design, the final prototype was flown successfully for the full 3 hours, over several flights.

There's the colored build over in the photo.

Here are free instructions for making the MBK Paper Diamond.

Read about a sunny photo shoot down at the beach. In a sea breeze of ideal strength, the Paper Diamond posed high and low!

MBK Paper Rokkaku

Construction time: about 4 hours.

There's quite a bit of spar work on this kite. Even the vertical spar has dihedral as you can see in the photo!

This design floats down on its face in a stable fashion whenever the breeze drops below 12 kph or so. At the other end of the spectrum, the rok will stay in the air well into the fresh range of wind speeds. 

Just like the diamond, the final plain-paper prototype was flown successfully for the full 3 hours, over several flights.

There's the colored build over in the photo, on its very first outing down at the beach.

Here are free instructions for making the MBK Paper Rokkaku.

Read about flying the rok in gusty fresh conditions over sand. Despite the beach setting, the wind was in turmoil due to buildings and terrain further along the beach, directly upwind. The kite coped though!

MBK Paper Sode

Construction time: about 5 hours.

This is the most complex kite so far in the series. However, if you have made the Paper Diamond, all the techniques and processes are very much the same. It's just a couple more spars and somewhat more cutting to make the tails.

This design hovers low in about 11 kph of breeze but floats up to a line angle of 50 degrees in ideal wind speeds close to 18 kph.

Up near 30 kph the kite starts to swish around from side to side. Much more than that and the thread will snap! So it's good through the entire gentle to moderate wind speed range.

Apart from the tails, the sode looks like a little model aircraft in flight. This kite climbs and descends smoothly in response to changes in breeze strength.

Here are free instructions for making the MBK Paper Sode.

Read about flying the sode in a very smooth sea breeze. On this day the breeze was as smooth as I have ever measured. There were just a few kph between the average speed and the maximum gust speed.

MBK Paper Delta

Construction time: about 5 hours.

Despite a relatively simple overall appearance, this delta has more layering in the spars than the other kites. It took a lot of refinement to achieve an all-paper delta that ticked all the boxes: light enough, strong enough in all the right spots, and a just-right sail area that won't snap the thread below 30 kph of breeze strength!

This design hovers low in around 12 kph of breeze but floats up to a line angle of 45 degrees with wind low in the moderate range—about 20 kph or a bit above.

Over 25 kph the kite starts to swish around dramatically from side to side. Be careful flying inland where thermal gusts can put a lot of strain on the thread. Smooth onshore winds down at a beach are safer.

Depending on wind strength, this little kite might fly very steadily, or it might really zip around the sky. It looks good in a fast climb!

Here are free instructions for making the MBK Paper Delta.

Read about flying this delta in gusty inland air—as high as I dared! The field was huge, which was a good safety factor in case the thread broke. Of course, you could always choose to fly on polyester embroidery thread, which no Paper Series kite could ever snap.