Lately, I’ve been more interested in a previous pseudo-hobby of mine — kite flying. Specifically, I was spurred on by O’Reilly’s new MAKE Magazine which I recently subscribed to. In their premier issue, they had a good spread on kite-aerial-photography (KAP for short). I have already done some aerial videography with my RC camera so I already had half of the rig.

Back in the day, Art Black and I used to fly kites during the summer, and I had nice old 6-foot rip-stop delta kite from Go Fly A Kite. Recently, Target was selling some decent rip-stop nylon kites for under $10, so I picked up a nice little parafoil kite. Parafoils are neat because they are A) very stable and B) have no hard parts to them. They just fill up with wind and won’t shatter into a billion pieces if you cram it into the ground.

Last Sunday, Charlie and Dalton joined me out at Charlie Vettiner Park (after the wind-cancelled LASS soaring contest) to fly some kites. Much fun! Charlie and Dalton brought along a cool little stunt kite made from rip-stop and carbon fiber tubes. You could crash that little bastard into the ground all day long and it wouldn’t break! Not bad for less that $10!

Anyway, I’m planning on making a rig for my wireless video camera soon. More on this later. In the meantime, check out the NASA Interactive Kite Modeler. Your tax dollars at work!