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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| My EL wire kite |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Gerty's White Flotail |
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| 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.
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| Okay who had green lights on their kite? |
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| 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.
