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View Full Version : Does anyone still do any kite skiing?



onaprwl
10-21-2007, 01:46 PM
I have kite skied since 1974 and I am now building my own kites and still presently skiing every weekend. Here is a link to our kite ski group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WaterSkiKites/
Would love to here from anyone that still or did kite.

HCS
10-22-2007, 07:47 AM
I wanta kite ski.
What's the best type of kite to use?? This is not hang gliding behind a boat right?
It's actually the original type of kite???

onaprwl
10-22-2007, 08:06 PM
It first started off with kites called flat wings. Click on the group link below to view a few pictures. Then in later years they up graded to delta wings. These kites were able to be released from the boat after liftoff and continue to sail as long as you could find enough up draft winds. The flat wings, which are the ones I still build and fly, are only capable of being pulled behind the boat. If you were to release them you are comming straight down!

Trailer Park Casanova
10-23-2007, 09:53 AM
I have kite skied since 1974 and I am now building my own kites and still presently skiing every weekend. Here is a link to our kite ski group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WaterSkiKites/
Would love to here from anyone that still or did kite.
I've always wanted to check it out.

snake321
10-23-2007, 05:52 PM
My father flew kites behind sanger boats in the 60's. I'll try to dig up the pictures.

rrrr
10-23-2007, 06:05 PM
One of my friends went to Florida for vacation in 1972.....His dad bought a flat kite from Bill Bennett at Cypress Gardens. It was a freekin' death trap.:D :D
Hauled it down to Elephant Butte, towed it behind a tri-hull with a Merc 140 IO......had to use a pair of tandem skiis to get going. :rolleyes: :D
We hung from a harness that went around the waist and through the crotch. Uh, a little uncomfortable......:D :D
So it would start oscillating at altitude.......kersplash!!!! :eek:
A couple of years later we were flying hang gliders from Sandia Peak in Albuquerque. So we took someone's glider over to the Electra Flyer factory and put a stronger lower cable set and a .049 control bar with an attachment point on it and had a water glider.
Using a 500' line we would lay out about 100' of rope on the beach and the boat would hit it. When the rope started running out off the beach it was time to run......:D
We would fly around until we found a good thermal and cut loose with the quick connect somebody had machined and installed on the control bar. If everything worked right you could thermal up a couple of thousand feet and then land back at the campsite.
Of course this and other activities like skiing behind my FJ-40 in the irrigation ditch that paralleled the Rio Grande in Corrales are the reason I need a knee replacement......but it was fun. :D :D

Tom Brown
10-24-2007, 06:42 AM
... bought a flat kite from Bill Bennett at Cypress Gardens.
So it would start oscillating at altitude.......kersplash!!!! :eek:
That is exactly what a parachute will do, if it's not modified for service as a parasail.
They can seem stable for a while, but then they will stop flying and do their best to damage whatever payload they are carying.

HCS
10-24-2007, 03:39 PM
Ok, which set up.
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image001.png
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image014.png
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image012.jpg
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image018.jpg

HCS
10-24-2007, 03:42 PM
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image033.jpg
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image027.jpg
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image042.jpg
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image044.jpg
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image059.jpg

HCS
10-24-2007, 04:07 PM
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/images/deltawing_162.t.jpg
http://soaringflight1.tripod.com/images/histor1.gif
http://www.bchpa.org/newsletter/may04/images/bmoyes.jpg
http://www.starsofflorida.com/pics/SlideS_HangGlide.jpg

rrrr
10-24-2007, 07:49 PM
This was what we started with.....
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson_files/image001.png
And this is what we ended up with......
http://www.starsofflorida.com/pics/SlideS_HangGlide.jpg
You can see a bit of advancement between the two. :D :D

onaprwl
10-25-2007, 12:33 AM
Awesome pictures guys!! They bring back plenty memories. This ones mine I am currently flying.

onaprwl
10-25-2007, 12:43 AM
HCS, The first one you have there, red one, is like mine, a flat wing. The rest are delta wings or hang gliders. The flat wing is only for pulling behind a boat and as you can see I have built mine quite large so as not to have to go so fast before lift off. It is quite controlable because of the size and if the boat slows sundenly it desends slowly not like the smaller ones. If you were to slow to fast the smaller ones would fall like a brick. The delta wings are hard to fine and I can't say I have seen one since the early 80s. That is a very good picture of a diagram of one. Maybe I'll try building one from that. I build the flat wing I have from memory of a kite I had back in the early 70s.

HCS
10-25-2007, 02:02 PM
One of my friends went to Florida for vacation in 1972.....His dad bought a flat kite from Bill Bennett at Cypress Gardens. It was a freekin' death trap.:D :D
Hauled it down to Elephant Butte, towed it behind a tri-hull with a Merc 140 IO......had to use a pair of tandem skiis to get going. :rolleyes: :D
We hung from a harness that went around the waist and through the crotch. Uh, a little uncomfortable......:D :D
So it would start oscillating at altitude.......kersplash!!!! :eek:
A couple of years later we were flying hang gliders from Sandia Peak in Albuquerque. So we took someone's glider over to the Electra Flyer factory and put a stronger lower cable set and a .049 control bar with an attachment point on it and had a water glider.
Using a 500' line we would lay out about 100' of rope on the beach and the boat would hit it. When the rope started running out off the beach it was time to run......:D
We would fly around until we found a good thermal and cut loose with the quick connect somebody had machined and installed on the control bar. If everything worked right you could thermal up a couple of thousand feet and then land back at the campsite.
Of course this and other activities like skiing behind my FJ-40 in the irrigation ditch that paralleled the Rio Grande in Corrales are the reason I need a knee replacement......but it was fun. :D :D
I found some pretty good horror stories about kite flying.
Including the death of two kite fliers out of Cypress Gardens.
I'm going to have to get together with onaprwl and figure out how to build a safe and stable kite, I would really like to get one going.
About 15 years ago here in Sacramento CA I had two kite skiers pass me up on the river. They were both behind one boat and their kites looked very stable, they could swerve side to side and change elevation with ease.
I would have to guess they must have been delta style kites.
It looks like ski kites are almost impossible to find, if I knew I would have followed those kite skiers and got some information out of them, I guess you have to build your own but it isn't something I want to do a trial and error with.

HCS
10-26-2007, 03:11 PM
Here's the full story.
http://ozreport.com/data/Dickenson/Dickenson.htm

HCS
10-26-2007, 03:23 PM
I think I'd rather be behind a boat than on the ground like these guys.
http://kite-enterprises.com/photogallery/lvn_tow.jpg
http://kite-enterprises.com/photogallery/RTCB3.jpg
http://kite-enterprises.com/photogallery/RTCB2.jpg

bocco
10-30-2007, 01:47 PM
I do remember around 1970 at Marine world in redwood city they had kite flying in the ski show. They did a Snoopy and red baron style dog fight. Towed them behind outboard Avengers. In those days they did everything in the show behind outboard Avengers.