My latest hobby is flying sport kites. Unlike the $5 plastic and dowel rod creations we flew as kids, sport kites are high-tech high-performance kites built with ripstop nylon or polyester on a carbon-graphite frame, and controlled by two or four lines. Learning to fly these creatures can be somewhat challenging given the fitful nature of our midwest winds, but it's great fun, and something I can do with my kids.
More recently, I've been delving into some fancy single line kites, including a 14-foot Delta Conyne, a 6x8 foot Stars & Stripes Parafoil, a 21 foot Octopus, and assorted other toys (pictures below).
Here are some related websites:
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Here's a 14-foot Delta Conyne (a combination delta and box kite). To give you a sense of scale, the center spinsock tails are 8-feet long. (Okay, so it isn't a stunt kite, but it's too pretty a kite to ignore.) Click on the picture for a larger image.
Click here for a 4 second QuickTime video clip (436K) of the Rainbow DC in flight. You'll need the free QuickTime Player 5 to view the clip. If you don't have the QuickTime software, you may download it here.
Here are some pics of me flying a 3-kite stack of Revolution quad-line kites. (Click on the picture for a larger image.)
And here's some "sky-writing" done with an 8-foot Prism Legacy and a 100-foot tube tail. Forgive the blur of the kite; it's traveling mighty quickly in some of these pictures:
Click here for a 4-minute QuickTime video clip (25 Mb) of the above sky-writing flight set to music. You'll need the free QuickTime Player 5 to view the clip. If you don't have the QuickTime software, you may download it here.
And finally, here are some of my other kites. Click on a picture for a larger image.
