Thursday 14 November 2013

Light up the Sky Walmer/Deal 10th November 2013 (Children in Need)


If only I could claim this as my kite for the night
I have peppered this Blog with photos taken of the event, sadly I started the photography quite late so I missed a few of the earlier kites, this was due to balancing my own kites and trying to sort out focusing and light issues, this took longer than I wished.



Gareth's Kite flashing various colours
Wendy tried the camcorder but that was a bust. I have gone by memory for who flew what so if I am wrong please feel free to correct me.
These are Steve's  2 kites, very slow shutter speed
The Sun was up on a glorious day on Sunday and quite warm out of the chill breeze, however for LUTS we needed to wait until the warming sun had gone and then well wrapped up we were to stand in that cold wind. The venue was Walmer on the coast by the bandstand.

Mike's Passionkite

I had a number of ideas for the nights proceedings however the first was to find a low flying kite (ceiling of 100 feet on night flights) that would be stable in the strong gusting winds. I put up a Flotail which was fairly stable once it had gained some height, I also put up a new purchase for me a Becolino. Sadly as dusk approached the wind dropped and my plans to attach LED’s to the spars of the Becolino rapidly evaporated.

 
Mike's Passionkite at a larger shutter speed ISO 1600

Next I tested a small Delta upon which I had sewn two lengths of El  (Electroluminescent) wire. Plan 1 was to fly the battery pack 4 metres down the line, allowing the Kite to fly free from interference and in a strong wind this may have worked but the weight on the line kept pulling the nose down . Plan 2 of attaching the pack to the keel was no better, so a craft knife helped me with plan 3 a small cut in the sail at the base of the keel allowed me to feed the connecting wire through the sail and attach the battery pack to the centre of the spar with some electrical tape. This proved to be successful in Kite stability but needed a stronger wind for the small sail size.
My EL wire kite
 
Nice effect, but there is only 1 wire each side, next year I will have to bring my tripod.

Darkness was fast approaching and several  lit Kites were in the air already when I tried out another idea that I had been working on and fortunately the lower wind conditions were to my benefit. I chose a large Delta to carry a line upon which I was to hang a number of balloons at intervals, each balloon had a flashing LED inside, in the darkness they looked like a line of multicoloured flashing floating balls. Sadly frozen fingers stopped me tying as many balloons as I had planned and so they were not as attractive from a distance.
LED Balloons as laundry on a line
Once night was upon us the wind freshened slightly and I was able to put up my EL-wire kite as well.
Gerty's White Flotail

Gerty's White Flotail




 

















The night flight did its job of attracting passers-by one of whom phoned a friend to bring her children down – even though they were in their pyjamas.

Okay who had green lights on their kite?
Lunar Eclipse
Apologies to all the other kites that were flown and the ground displays that I have missed, I had quite a few blank shots where either the wind had moved the subject matter, the subject matter was not flashing when the shutter did its bit or I was just aiming badly. However I hope the few poor shots I did get will help create greater interest for next years Children In Need appeal.