October Fly Cancelled :(

Well, the October "Halloween Fun Fly" was canceled due to the forecast of rain and high winds. The day was bright, but overcast with the threat of rain coming at any time. The winds were very high and gusty. I checked the Fort Erie weather and they were reporting gusts to 50 km/hr. We did get a rain storm in the afternoon in Stoney Creek, but we also had sunshine for part of it. Oh well, maybe next year.

Instead of the usual kite flying pictures of the kite fly (because there isn't any) I thought I would share pictures of the making of my Crossdeck that I built over the Christmas holiday last year.

I found the design in the summer/fall 1993 issue Kitelines. It is a kite originally designed by Carl Crowell. The article gave the dimensions and materials list, so I set out to acquire the necessary spars and materials to get going. I ordered the parts and material from Kitebuilder.com. They have a sample pack of ripstop for $50, their choice of colours, a real bargain for the price. After I got my materials, I decided to make the kite out of 9 different colours. If you ever want to make a project 9 times harder, this is the way to do it.

Being an engineer, I have access to AutoCad and I drew out the kite there to get the radius of the arcs and fabric dimensions needed in the design. I used a cardboard template to cut out the body of the kite.

Above is the fabric sewn together and laid out on the kitchen floor ready to be cut, and the result below. I had to cut out the other panel with the diagonals running the opposite way to get the pattern I wanted. I had to make sure all the colours would match up in the middle.

Below is the project and quality control manager...Tigger, keeping an eye on what I was doing.

I used 1/2" black edging folded in half for all the edges. I bought 1" material and slit it into 2 halves, folded it over and ironed it to keep it 1/4" strips.

Above the front, below the back.

Below is the back of the main sail sewn together with the spine pocket in the middle.

The back all finished.

The front all finished.

Using the same colours in the same order, I made a 50 ft tail.

Front and back with spars in the spare room.

With some of the cuttings I made a colourful bag.

Here it is flying high over Lake Erie.

Altogether it took about 40 hours to complete, but well worth it. Every time it flies, I always have someone tell me how beautiful it looks up in the sky.

Well, I know it's the end of the good flying weather, but we are planning for next years' activities. The directors are meeting in November to plan the year ahead. Hopefully we will get great weather and wind for the 2009 season. See you next season.