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I started flying kites in June of 1997 and have
been bitten by the bug ever since. We had
attended an "Art and Wind" festival in San
Ramon, CA that year and got to see a number of
kites. Most were of the dual line delta type.
We watched as people demonstrated flying them to
music. Some even had teams of 2 to 6 people flying
these kites like they were the Blue Angle's jets.
There was even one really old guy (Ray Bethel of
Vancouver, B.C.) that flew three at once (one in each
hand and one hooked to his hips). My interest was
peaked that day. |
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Fortunate for me my sister-in-law had a couple of
inexpensive dual line kites she had purchased a few years
before. One is what is known as a Trlby
(it is a diamand shape kite with a long tail) and the
other was called The Blaster. Soon after the
festival my wife, her sister and I took the kites to a
local field and did our best to fly these kites in not
the best wind. The Blaster was just too heavy for
the winds that day so it stayed put-away most of the
time. The Trlby flew quite well and we all took
turns at it. We flew for several days straight and
was getting much better at flying. So one night I
got onto the internet and started searching for kite
stuff and my wife became a web-widow. |
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 On the net I found
a lot more than expected. Websites filled with
self-proclaimed "kite nuts" and links to
festivals, kite makers and kite stores. On the
USENET I found rec.kites and spent many hours lurking and
learning. I got to a point of oversaturation when I
decided I needed my own kite and began the arduous task
of determining what my first kite should be:
inexpensive (yeah right), easy/cheap to repair, can fly
in the type of winds where I live. I found out soon
enough that kites are not cheap. These kites are a
far cry from the plastic $2 kites at the local grocery
store. It actually didn't take me that long to
understand that you get what you pay for. In
researching kites I began to see the value of the
materials used, the type of ripstop and the type of
framing used. Believe it or not it was all very
technical. It also occured to me that the Blaster
rarely flew when we took it out so I would need something
that would fly in less wind than what the Blaster was
rated at (6 - 20+ mph). I began to get an idea of
what to look for, but where would I buy it?
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That's where Dan
Whitney comes in. I'm sure I am one of
many kite newbies that Dan has introduced the kite sport
to. He is a friendly and knowledgable guy on many
aspects of kites (all kinds, not just dual lines).
I found his store on-line called Gone With The Wind Kites
(unfortunately forced to close their doors 11/29/01) and I was lucky
enough to have stumbled upon his site just as he began a
new kite auction. Now... you have to understand
that even before kites, I just loved auctions. I
even watched the public station auctions on TV.
Okay enough said, I'm kinda weird that way. I
looked through the items, but I still wasn't sure what I
wanted. One of the items was a cash value toward
any merchandise at the store. I began to make
calculations as to what I could afford and also started
looking at what the prize money could buy. I
submitted a couple bids and within a few days I found
that I was the winner. That is when I bough my
first kite....a Prism Kite Designs' ION.
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 It was the first
of 9 kites I would obtain in the next 6 months.
It rarely ever comes out anymore, but it is defenitely a
nostalgic kite for me. I've become a much better flyer
than those first few months and I've enjoyed every minute
of it.
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