Kite Designs

Kite flying has been a pass time for many people for hundreds of years and it is still very popular today. If you go to the beach in the summer you will see many people flying kites and the kite designs can vary immensely.

For most people the classic kite design consists of two skewers or poles fixed together at right angles with the horizontal pole shorter than the vertical one. This is then covered with cloth or plastic and is flown with a single line and sometimes comes with a tail. This is the very basic kite design and is very easy to make. Many children start out flying this type of kite as it is easy to fly and can fly in a slight breeze.

Stunt kites started to become popular in the seventies and are still one of the most popular kite designs bought today.

The stunt kite can look very much like the single line kite but comes with two lines with which you can control the kite in the air. One line is connected to the right side of the kite and the other is connected to the left. You hold one of the lines in each hand and when the kite is flying you can control how it turns in the air by pulling on the lines. Pull the left line and it turns to the left and pull the right line and it turns to the right. If you pull on both lines together the kite will gain altitude in the right wind.

You can perform many tricks and stunts with these kites and that is why they are very popular. They do need a slightly higher wind than the single line kite does and you will need more space when flying as you don't want to hit any body that may stray beneath your flying area.

Due to their nature stunt kite designs can vary quite a lot form the single line kites. Because you have control over the flying of the stunt kite in the air the designs can be more unconventional and extreme.

Another variation of the stunt kite is the traction kite. This kite design uses a very large surface area which produces a huge amount of power or pull. These kites are for more experienced kite flyers as they can literally lift you off your feet because their huge surface area can capture so much of the power of the wind.