Kite Flying

Kites have been an enchanting motif of history and play throughout the tenure of human life in the world. Whether featured as the subject of an ancient art exhibition, the diary entry of a Japanese Buddhist monk, or a vivid and perhaps embellished schoolchild's account of his or her outdoor exploits, kites have been there.

Kites are popular worldwide, and often emulate flying insects, birds, and other real and mythical creatures.

Whether a science exhibit on the history of flight or documentaries relating the details of extreme sports, religious ceremonies around the world, or unusual military tactics, none would be complete without reference to kites. In forms as simple as sticks, paper, and twine as complex as the calculations required to build a bridge, and as diverse as the many forms taken by nature herself, kites have been a source of joy, discovery, and inspiration for centuries.

Typically, kites, like other aircraft, consist of a frame made of lightweight material such as plastic or wood, covered by a thin layer of paper, plastic, or fabric in order to catch the wind. The most common kite shapes are diamond, delta/triangle, box, or sled. These simple shapes are combined in endless variation around the world to create colorful representations of birds, butterflies, mythical creatures, and ships, bound only by the scientific principal that the kite generate enough lift to overcome its weight. A long line, often on a spool, is attached, which is used to control the kite's movement while taking off, maintaining altitude, or maneuvering in the air, and coming down.

The earliest known evidence of kites in history is credited to the Chinese in 400–500 b.c.e. Kites were also mentioned throughout the b.c.e. period in both Italian and Roman culture as well. Following the travels of Marco Polo in China in the late 1200s, kites and flying spread through Europe. By 1600 they had become commonplace, in part because of the increasing use of Dutch trading routes between the East Indies and Europe. The earliest kites were used for a variety of religious and cultural purposes, such as influencing the weather or harvests or to celebrate significant events, like the birth of a child.

In addition to religious and recreational purposes, kites were employed to explore flight principles by Leonardo Da Vinci and the Wright Bothers. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, a camera hoisted on a kite provided a bird's eye view of the earthquake damage, a technique later duplicated in efforts to gain aerial information for private, scientific, or military purposes. A schoolboy flying a kite in the town of Niagara, Ontario, provided the initial inspiration for engineers trying to establish a line across the gorges of Niagara Falls, inspiring future suspension bridges.

The contemporary recreational use of kites is defined by the categories of sport kite flying, kite fighting, and power kiting. In sport kite competitions, kites, often with additional lines to allow complex maneuvers, are judged according to qualities of artistic and technical merit, in a form of aerial choreography. Kite fighting makes use of smaller, more maneuverable kites on a single line, coated with abrasives for the purpose of bringing opponents' kites to the ground by slashing the line or initiating contact with the competitors' kites in a way that will force them out of the wind and to the ground. Kite fighting is especially popular in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Afghanistan (where a Taliban prohibition on kite flying was recently lifted). Power kiting adapts technology and the energy potential of kites to augment snowboarding, surfboarding, or skateboarding; lightweight “buggy” vehicles; or in actual flight, like hang gliding.

...