Skewer Kite Posts—Sled

MBK 3-Skewer Sled

A photo was taken with the kite on only a few meters of line, brightly lit by the sun. Letting out line to over 30 meters (100 feet) was easy, although lulls sent the sled back toward the grass from time to time.

More photos were taken this time, and a few videos. So far, so good! Due to the ample width of the skewers and hence a bit more weight, this kite didn't soar on the very lightest puffs of wind. Who cares, most of my 2-Skewer kites are good for that, with their 3 mm or even 2.5 mm width skewers!

The 3-Skewer tailless sled kite waggles slowly left/right under low air pressure, but settles down to steady flight as the wind speed comes up further. This kite seems to sit at around 50 or perhaps 55 degrees from the horizontal when wind strength is ideal.

Soon I had the line out to just over 100 meters (300 feet) and the 3-Skewer Sled proved very reliable compared to most 2-stickers I have flown. There wasn't one collapse and not even much billowing in and out, despite some roughness in the air. It does seem to pull a little to the right, but a small bridle adjustment should fix that. 

Despite the cold late afternoon setting, the bright-orange sled briefly floated right up to 70 degrees or more in a patch of rising air. Nice!

This kite is a perfect match for 20-pound Dacron line, pulling it almost straight much of the time yet without a risky amount of tension.

Measured near the ground, the wind meter showed an average of 3.4 kph and a maximum gust of 12 kph. A thought crossed my mind—why bother with 2-stick sleds at all. The three-spar Allison Sled with its sloped side-spars was really an inspired concept!

MBK 2-Skewer Sled

The kite was a 2-stick sled of all things :-) A slightly modified MBK 2-Skewer Sled to be precise. A strip of wide but light packing tape along the leading edge helped to prevent it curling under and causing collapses.

The first brief flight was up and over the overgrown rose bushes at the side of our small property. It was all over in less than half a minute. However, the kite managed to find some smoother air just above the height of our peach tree in the corner. The sled recovered from a small collapse but inevitably succumbed to a short pause in breeze strength.

Next, after moving to the rear lawn, a few swishes on just a meter or two of line enabled the kite to catch a ride to gutter height. From there, some fancy line-handling and footwork got the small sled hovering just above the roof tiles—but not for long. Once again, the inconsistent breeze at that height soon shot the kite down.

And then, after a few more judicious swishes, I managed to get quite a few meters of line out. Now the kite was out over the roof tiles as previously, in gentle-strength gusts. The orange sail floated up, brightly lit by sunshine and it spent a minute or two over the roof. The bamboo-and-plastic craft was several meters clear of the tiles this time. Perhaps it was high enough for a few neighbors up and down the street to catch a glimpse!

Once again, low wind-speed spelled the end of the flight. But this wasn't without a fight. There was plenty of line-working going on through every little gust and swirl through our yard.

Sometimes you don't need a large field to have some fun!

2-Skewer Sled Sails High

With local winds in the gentle range, it was an ideal time to take out the 58 cm (23 in.) tall 2-Skewer Sled kite.

Last week I had been flying the kite on polyester thread in cool light conditions. But that would be far too much of a risk today! So the thread was swapped out for a 20-pound Dacron line.

At the reserve, in the car park, I had a bit of fun attempting to launch the kite near the trees. It was a challenge in the sporadic breeze filtering through between the trunks and lower branches. The real problem though, was the dead band at around the height where there was most foliage.

Eventually, by floating the kite out, it avoided the dead zone by being far enough downwind. And then, when well above the treetops, the kite really bit into the prevailing breeze.

After flying for a while on 30 meters (100 feet) of line, I let the kite pull more line off the simple block winder. The 2-Skewer Sled was just strong enough to tumble the winder in the dirt, as line steadily came off through my hands. This also had the effect of keeping a nice even tension on the line as the kite climbed away. A fairly low line angle was maintained as the kite moved out and up.

On 60 meters (200 feet) of line, the kite had a tendency to hang left most of the time. So I brought the sled down to adjust the sliding knot on the bridle. With a shift of several millimeters to the left, the kite climbed away again on a straighter tack. The improvement was confirmed minutes later, when the kite held a higher angle in the cloudless blue sky than before.

The air was warm and active, which troubled the kite occasionally with turbulence. Finally, the sled folded right up and down it went, nearly all the way to the grass. However, with a few flicks of the wrist, I managed to pop the sail open again—just a meter (3 feet) or so off the ground! The climb back up was steady, although not particularly fast.

Then it was decided to go all the way out to 90 meters (300 feet). At that length, the small bright-orange sled was unable to pull the line straight, even during gusts. The weight of 20-pound Dacron line adds up over 100s of feet.

What followed was a huge flight, the 2-Skewer Sled pulling hard at times and riding thermals almost overhead. It could have done with another millimeter or two of bridle knot adjustment but still made more than 250 feet altitude easily. From that great height, it took a few minutes to wind all the thin Dacron back on! Finally, the little sled flopped down in the car park, having flown for more than 20 minutes since the last launch.

2-Skewer Sled Found and Flown

So, what other Skewer Series kite was there, that hadn't been flown this month?

Hiding behind the 2-Skewer Sode on top of the book case was the 2-Skewer Sled, all rolled up. And surprise, surprise, also the little and very faded 1-Skewer Sled! Taking both kites, Aren and I headed out to fly. Correction, only I headed out to fly—Aren had his scooter ;-)

Winds had been very light for most of the day and this seemed to continue into the late afternoon. However, puffs of light wind kept wafting through every few minutes, which provided ample pressure for the bigger sled to launch on its polyester embroidery-thread line.

Despite the frequent lulls, the 2-Skewer Sled managed to gain some height and flit around on over 30 meters of line. Without tails, the kite tended to weave strongly and even loop around as the wind speed pushed over double figures in kph. This kite really should be flown with a tail from the bottom of each vertical spar! Not just for stability, but this would slow down its fierce forward acceleration which can occasionally collapse the leading edge.

With the kite on the grass after sinking out, I spent some time flying the tiny 1-Skewer Sled. Ah the memories!

Today the little kite was being flown on 20-pound Dacron which was quite heavy for it to support. This kite does better in gentle-to-moderate winds. However, it gamely hung up there for a minute or two at a time in the fitful light breeze.

And that was about it for today. Next time I might try the 1-Skewer Sled on the embroidery thread instead.

Speedy Sled Parts Polyester

That's what happened, bringing the flying session to an abbreviated end. The 2-Skewer Sled had been zipping around on at least 30 meters (100 feet) of polyester sewing thread, when the line broke.

Fiddling with the camera, I looked back up only to see a far away fluttering, a flashing of orange plastic, as the hapless kite drifted downwind and disappeared behind a very large tree. Was it lost forever in the upper branches? Keep reading this post to find out.

Aren and I had been down at the local small reserve, each doing our own thing. The lad kicking a soccer ball and the grown man flying a small kite. Wrong way round? Some may think so, but they won't be reading this.

The breeze was light but gusting to almost moderate strength from time to time. To begin with, the kite was flown low over the green winter grass. Getting sewing thread off the square cardboard winder was taking a while. At least the small kite was getting some air time, weaving around and climbing a few meters every now and then. Down low though, it kept sinking out during lulls in the breeze's strength.

Eventually, a decent amount of thread was off the winder and the trusty bamboo-sparred sled flew high above the treetops. The kite was now being subjected to rather more air pressure than it could handle comfortably.

Forced into frontal collapses, the kite started to show off its ability to reinflate by itself. This was happening every few seconds with each collapse being brought on by excessive forward kite speed. POP—there it goes again. And each time, with no intervention by me, the two angled spars would feed air back into the sail and reinflate it after a second or two of free fall.

And then we lost the kite in the tree, a very common kite tale. But had we? Walking back home, the kite came into view, lying on the road near a corner. A car approached and straddled the kite. Whew. Before the next car could arrive, I rushed over and did the rescue. No harm was done; this kite will fly again!

2-Skewer Sled Capable of Thermaling

The online weather report had the wind measured at 16 kph gusting to 22 kph. Great, it's time to try the 2-Skewer Sled again, in somewhat smoother winds than before.

However, at the reserve, things had really calmed down. It had all the appearances of a "zero wind and thermals" day. For quite some minutes, all I could do was loft the kite a few meters at a time on little puffs of air that came through.

Eventually the kite got high enough, with a little careful working of the line, to get carried away and up on a gentle thermal. The air was relatively smooth, although the little sled did tend to collapse occasionally when sitting face down, with the flying line dangling vertically below it. The kite never went overhead though, since there was an enormous bow in the line. The winds were barely strong enough to keep the kite airborne.

This kite will collapse if it accelerates too fast, but I've never had any sled recover so well on its own. Numerous times, I was able to resume a flight without needing to land the kite or bring it in. Still, it would be helpful to make sure this kite collapses less often than the original tailed 2-Skewer Sled. It was supposed to be an improvement! The next mod will be to remove even more sail from along the centerline. Just a centimeter or two will do, keeping the angle of the side spars the same. 

Never-the-less, I managed to get a couple of high thermal climbs out of the kite. Once, this happened all the way from launch. The sled went from 2 meters to over 120 meters (400 feet) of line out in just a few minutes. This's a nice thing to happen with any small light-wind kite.

On checking the wind meter afterward, it had registered an average of 2.2 kph, gusting to 9.6 kph. That's light!

2-Skewer Sled on Thread

It was time to fly another bright-orange 2-Skewer kite. I've been chastised for posting too much blue-kite-in-blue-sky you see, mainly on Facebook. I admit that it was a bit boring, visually. Hence the skewer kites have been the first choice for a little while now!

Today's flights were combined with a walk with Aren, who kept up on his scooter. Rolled up, the kite and its square cardboard winder were effortless to carry. Aren continued to scoot at the reserve while the sled did its thing in the cool winter air.

Large banks of cloud were everywhere, one of which fortuitously hid the sun while I took video. Yes, the wind direction had once again placed the kite directly in line with the sun.

The breeze seemed to be gusting close to moderate speeds, that is, around 20 kph. This was a little dicey for the sled, which initially flew straight up on 10 meters (30 feet) of polyester thread. The kite stayed up long enough to get some video, however.

On a second flight, with more thread let out, there was some tendency for the sail to collapse due to excessive wind speed during the gusts. Again and again, the bright-orange sled flopped shut, but just as regularly the sail would reinflate with a pop. This would happen every few seconds during long gusts.

Finally, as half expected due to the age of the kite, a taped tip came loose. This quickly brought the kite back to the damp green grass. This was easily fixed of course, with some electrical tape that I had stowed in a pocket.

Finally, after about 30 meters (100 feet) of thread was taken off the winder, the kite found less chaotic air.

The breeze now being just below the kite's upper limit, the small sled flew smoothly at around at 60 degrees of line angle. The dark thread remained in an almost straight line to the kite for minutes at a time.

It was good flying indeed, with the equipment being used worth a sum total of probably less than $2!

2-Skewer Sled Near Sunset

Due to family commitments over the last week or two, there haven't been many opportunities to fly the big kites, do KAP and so on. But sometimes a small-kite fly can be worked into the schedule.

Today we went down to the beach with the priority being the construction of a sandcastle. Everyone was to be involved. After completing all due diligence at this task, my own agenda came to the fore. Yep, out I came with a kite of course ;-)

The breeze was just off the ocean and very smooth. It wasn't perfectly constant though, as the average speed would peak from time to time. Read that again; it does make sense!

Anyway, the wind was quite ideal for the small light sled, which had its spars angled slightly closer together toward the lower end. At least once while I was taking video, the kite collapsed low down when swirling about in a gust. But it promptly reinflated and stayed in the air, thanks to those angled spars.

While the little orange kite was parked on the end of 20 meters (65 feet) of polyester embroidery thread, anchored to a tent pole, I took a wind-meter reading. It showed 6 kph gusting to 8.2 kph, just above shoulder height. Perfect!

Eventually it was time to pack up. But this was not before capturing a few stills of the sunset lighting up the dappled cloudy sky over Brighton beach.

Two Skewer Sleds Tested to the Limit

It was blowing quite a bit outside, but I thought it might be instructive to take out both the 2-Skewer and 3-Skewer Sleds and see how they handled it.

Down at a nearby school oval, the 2-Skewer Sled went up first. Some days ago I had removed some area along the centerline of the kite, bringing the spars slightly closer together. To cut a long story short, the kite behaved similarly as before. However, this time it seemed almost immune to leading-edge collapses through sheer speed, when gusts would force it to fly very fast in the direction it happened to be pointing. That was good!

Unfortunately, it still had a strong tendency to collapse when it reached high line angles while under high line tension. Perhaps that's not too much of a problem since it is supposed to be a fairly light-wind kite after all. It just needed to be flown in more suitable conditions.

So, it was out with the 3-Skewer Sled. Within seconds of getting it to around 50 feet, an almighty gust caused one side spar to bow alarmingly out to one side. The spar caps at each end managed to hold. I've never seen that before, but it was a clear indication that taping the middle of each sled spar to the sail is a very good idea! That's been done now, and I'll be updating all the relevant instructions.

Near ground level (and in a somewhat sheltered position) the wind meter had recorded an average of 6.6 kph with gusts to 22 kph. But perhaps that was closer to 30 kph at around 200 feet. With such hairy flying going on, there hadn't been an opportunity to let out much more line than that! I must be nice to these sleds from now on.

Prototyping Fun With New 2-Skewer Sled

Well, it was fun when the kite started behaving itself! The aim this time around was to create a 2-skewer sized sled that would be stable enough to do away with the two long tails of the original.

Firstly, the side flaps were drastically down-sized to similar proportions to my other sleds. I also tried slanting the spars so the leading edge was wider than the trailing edge. Finally, the leading edge cutout was done with four straight lines rather than two. Hence it was more like a curve than a shallow V. To compensate for the extra missing sail area, the towing points were shifted upward a little.

This version launched OK, but was very prone to a leading-edge collapse. It never got above 20 degrees of line angle! Back to the drawing board. Actually, it was just back to the car seat where I slit the kite up its centerline and removed about 3 cm (1 inch) of sail width. The narrower kite behaved better but still had trouble when accelerating fast or when it reached high line angles.

Back home, I decided to add a little sail area back onto the leading edge. At the same time I simplified it back to the tried and true shallow-V shape. The extra area would force the kite to fly at slightly greater angles of attack to the breeze most of the time. Back out at the flying field, the sled immediately flew much better. The kite was super stable and only suffered a leading-edge collapse in the strongest gusts, which might have been over 15 kph in strength.

Despite the gusty air, it was fairly straightforward to get 60 meters (200 feet) of line out, with the kite surging up to high line angles from time to time. Still there was the occasional collapse, but the air was really rough up there! With heavier sail plastic and less gusty conditions, I think this 2-Skewer Sled will be a real delight to fly—with or without tails, a nice beach kite.

Wind meter readings? During the second outing, the breeze at ground level averaged 3.6 kph, with the strongest gust at 12.3 kph.

MBK 1-Skewer Sled

1-Skewer Sled Surprises

I went out earlier today for a spot of flight testing, which came to a premature end when the wind speed dropped off.

However, I also had the little 1-Skewer Sled in the car. The intention was to fly it to get some video, taking advantage of its good tolerance for moderate-strength breezes. Of course, now the question was—would it fly at all, in much lighter wind?

Unwrapping the little sled, I noticed that the plastic had become distinctly 2-tone due to the effects of UV in sunlight. Never mind, everything seemed to be holding together, and there were no splits in the sail. With the next light gust that came across the field, up it went! The increased wind speed would last for a minute or two at a time, so it was easy to get a few short videos.

Although even 20-pound line is a touch heavy for kites of this size, the 29 cm (11 1/2 in.) 1-Skewer Sled willingly rose up when more line was let out. Perhaps it was about 20 meters (65 feet) in the end.

Thermals had started lifting off, and the tiny sled made it to rather high line-angles a few times before it was decided to wind the kite in and go home. It's a very simple and very reliable little kite.