Knox Park

KAP Report

Winds turned out to be almost ideal for doing kite aerial photography (KAP) with the big Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite, which was soon soaring high over South Road in Morphett Vale.

The kite was not directly over the roadway of course, but passing motorists would have had a great view of the kite and bamboo cradle in the air. Most would have been somewhat puzzled as they drove on!

Weather

The panoramic photo below shows an almost cloudless sky over Knox Park in Morphett Vale, from the kite flyer's perspective. It's a large square field which has been leveled and covered with grass.

On arrival, the wind was gusting into the gentle range. That's flyable but not ideal for light-wind kites. However, it was just perfect for the Multi-Dowel Barn Door! Much like the most recent KAP session, there was not much cloud about, and the temperature was pleasantly warm. Also, once again, there was the occasional patch of weak thermal lift.

The wind meter recorded an 8 kph average with a gust to 19.6 kph. This was recorded over a minute or so (at shoulder height), near the middle of the field while the kite was up.

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Equipment

Lifter: The ever-reliable Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite. And this time I remembered to take a few photos, like the one up there.

To make your own big barn door kite, have a look at my e-book for the Dowel Barn Door. The Multi-Dowel version is included.

KAP Rig: Bamboo-skewer tetrahedron with plastic camera-sleeve, suspended from a half-Picavet line. Camera pointing upwind.

Camera: Pentax Optio WG-2 with built-in intervalometer. Some settings optimized for aerial photography, others yet to be tweaked. Focus was fixed on infinity.

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Images

Click on the thumbnail images below to see them much larger:

 

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Flight Report

The long line of trees along the western side of the field provided some handy potential anchor points for the kite—not to mention some shade from which to observe the KAP to follow.

This time I took the line out quite a way toward the middle of the grassed area. This was to get away from the wind shadow of the trees and also to keep the KAP rig clear of some play equipment near the anchor tree.

Three panoramic photos were taken as I experimented with varying the angle between shots. Only one turned out reasonable and that's it near the top of this page.

Despite some turbulence from the line of trees, the big barn door was soon sailing around on 30 meters (100 feet) of line. After taking some photos, it was time to set up the camera for interval shots and insert it into its sleeve. For half a minute or so the rig hovered near the grass as I let out line and the kite struggled a bit in light air.

Once over 100 feet the kite found some more power, and it was easy to climb the camera out to well over 250 feet altitude. A light aircraft buzzed by at around 3000 feet, close to the line of sight with the kite. Where's my camera? Oh yes, a little out of reach right now :-)

After the 5-minute delay, only 5 minutes were spent taking shots, so it was soon time to bring the kite down. This was easily done by slipping the line through a gloved hand while walking slowly out toward the kite. I paused when extra tension came on. I also paused when the kite ended up straight overhead, which can lead to unpredictable antics by the KAP rig!

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Video

Video was taken this time, during a second great flight by the Multi-Dowel Barn Door kite. However, I'll have to suspend the camera differently in future, to make the horizon horizontal rather than vertical! The current arrangement was OK while plan-view photos were being taken. That is, with the camera pointing straight at the ground. Seeing the horizon makes for much more interesting videos though.

 

 

 

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