Let's go fly a kite!

Seriously, let's go fly a kite.

That's what I did this afternoon. My coworker, Marc, told me he and some people went kite flying today during lunch, and I mocked him. Something about how I haven't done that in about 24 years, being something I gave up when I graduated from kindergarten. Anyway, I was wrong.

The kites Marc has are some serious kites! There more like mini parachutes, really. The kite in these pictures is a 4 meter kite, meaning there are four square meters of surface area. Marc started me on the 1 meter kite. The "trainer", he called it. After playing with that one for a few minutes, he let me try the 3 meter kite. That pulled a lot harder, of course, than the 1 meter kite.


In these pictures you can see that this 4 meter kite has four main strings, and the handles are actually strapped on to me! The straps are for safety, believe it or not. If the handles were to slip out of my hands, the straps would pull the strings in such a way that the kite literally collapses and falls gently to the ground.

The handles allow me to control the kite, and I can make the kite turn to the left or right. I'm told this is method of control is very similar to the way parachuters control their chutes.


You can see from this pic that I was doing everything I could to stay in one place. This kite had some serious pull to it. It's hard to stay in one place wearing flip flops. I think next time I should wear cleats. Even then I'm sure I'll get pulled around some. Like I said, this kite is only a 4 meter kite. Marc said his 5 and 10 meter kites have harnesses that you put on, like a climbing harness! I'm thinking I may want to strap that harness to a car or something.


You can view all the pics that we took on my PicasaWeb album.