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Tangents and Trivia
by Al Hargus III
 Had a really great time with responses from many of you on Chapter One of
Tangents and Trivia. I really had not realized how many people claim to have had me as
their "Charlie Moore". This is very gratifying to learn. I have always believed
that it is important to share what you enjoy. That’s what Charlie Moore did for me
and I am happy to be able to do it for others. That is really what Tangents and Trivia is
all about, sharing what I have learned in the wonderful and exciting world of kiting.
I received a great e-mail from Jeff Greenwald of Wyoming. He was also
introduced to kiteflying with the help of a sled kite. Jeff has a real cool web site you
should check out and, while you're there, say hello to a fellow kiter. Jeff’s Page
can be found at http://siswww.uwyo.edu/team/jeffery/kite000.htm
CHAPTER TWO - THE TOM AND AL KITE TEAM
The adventure continued and kites became more and more of a pastime for
me. My main flying partner in the 1970’s was my younger brother Tom. Brother Tom and
I had a friendship that went beyond brothers and started well before kites arrived. Tom
and I were rock climbing partners. We dabbled in several other hobbies together. We built
and flew model rockets, we messed with radio controlled cars with several other
people, and even fooled with slot cars. So after Charlie introduced me to kites, the next
logical step was to infect my brother with the bug.
In the 1970’s there were not a lot of people that flew kites and
the technology was not like it is today. Many fliers today don’t realize the level
that kiting has attained in the last 20 years. When Tom and I started we had no one else
to ask for information. There were not many books on the subject, but there was a great
hobby shop in Chicago that sold kites.
Stanton's Hobby shop was the only kite shop listed in the phone book in
Chicago in the 70’s. Tom and I already knew about Stanton's, because that’s
where we bought our radio controlled cars and model rockets. It was the hangout for many
of Chicago’s eccentric hobbyists.
Kite Lines was the only magazine about kiteflying available and at the
time it wasn’t very regular. Tom and I would devoured it from cover to cover.
Stanton’s also had many back issues of Kite Tales, the original magazine of the AKA (and
predecessor of Kite Lines ), written by Bob Ingraham and other kitefliers
across the U.S.
Tom and I never ever got into a hobby half way. Our first kite
purchased together was a Tetrahedral kite originally designed by Alexander Graham Bell.
Ours was a modular one and we bought every module Stanton’s had, to make one almost
five feet tall. Flights were never very successful. We never seemed to have enough wind. (I later learned that Al Bell
abandoned the design as a lifting device for that same problem of lift versus weight.) The major result of the first flights of the Tetra was that it seemed to establish Tom and
I as some kind of "kite authority" among people that we met at the flying field.
Trust me at this point we were the farthest thing from knowledgeable kiters, but we did
have this humongous tetra kite that sat next to our gear on the field. (A large
tetrakite does look great as a ground display)
The only way to learn anything in the beginning of my kiteflying career
was to experiment, and if you're supposed to learn from your mistakes then I should be one
of the most knowledgeable kitefliers in existence. Probably the worst (or maybe the best) story from the TAKT (Tom and Al Kite Team) era is our
first stunt kite train.
Tom and I were sitting at his place one Sunday afternoon and we saw a
Skippy peanut butter commercial on TV. In the background was absolutely the neatest
"bunch" of kites flying in a row . They had tails and looked like a rainbow. (I
later learned that this was Steve Eideken and he was flying Rainbow stunt kites in a
train.)
 Tom and I just had to have some of those "really cool" kites. So
next stop was Stanton’s Hobby shop. We described what we had seen to the clerk. He
said, "Oh, you must mean Trlby’s!" He pointed to the ceiling and sure
enough there was a stack of three of them. The clerk showed us where the kites were
located. We bought three kites which, unbeknown to us, were all leads or singles as Trlby
calls them. WE NEVER READ DIRECTIONS, RIGHT??
When we got them home we realized that we didn’t have any of those
"thingies" that held the kites in a row. No sweat; back to the hobby shop. (Directions?? What directions!) This is where Tom and I really got lost.
The set of three Trlby’s that hung on the ceiling of
Stanton’s were strictly for display purposes. In order to keep the kites in line and
visible inside and on the ceiling, they had placed metal control rods from model air
planes between the kites in place of the train lines. These were rods about 3 feet long
with little adjusting turnbuckles on the ends.
(Directions??? We don’t need no stinkin’ directions!) It all made perfect sense to Tom and I. The rods kept the kites apart and the little turnbuckles were to adjust the spacing between the kites. We bought nine four foot control
rods. (Heck, they even had the right name??) This cost the TAKT $45, and we
rushed back home to complete our "really cool" kite train, complete with train
rods!
I guess that I don’t need to tell anyone what happened to that
infamous first flight of the Iron Trlby three stack. Rods bent, one skin and frame totally
trashed and one very big tangle of tails and about $60 down the drain. The most fortunate
thing was that Tom and I were at the flying field all by ourselves that day and no one saw
us do this incredibly stupid and dangerous stunt. Thus, we maintained our "somewhat
misdirected" status as local kite gurus. Twenty years after that occurrence I can
laugh at it all and I hope that you do too. The main thing I can recommend here is READ
THE DIRECTIONS!!!
Another flying friend that appeared in this era was a guy from
Chicago name of Al Meyer. Al was a matter-of -fact sort of guy that we knew from high
school. Al was one of the first "kitefliers" that I met that NEVER FLEW KITES.
Oh! Al owned kites and flew them occasionally, but he came to the flying field for the fun
and friends. Al was always at any field that Tom and I visited. Al was great ground crew,
and a good friend. He was the first of many people I have met in kite flying that came for
the people first and the kites second. This is a trait of this hobby that I have always
enjoyed. Al was a really strange guy and he fit right into the eccentric group of kiters
that was beginning to form in the Chicago area.
During the 1970’s a radio station in Chicago hosted an annual kite
festival in downtown Chicago. The radio stations call sign was appropriately WIND Radio
and the festival was simply called "The Chicago Kite Festival". The TAKT
attended several of these festivals. For those of you that have never been to Chicago, I
have to tell you what happens in a city of that size when someone announces a free event,
like a kite festival in the heart of downtown. First, WIND Radio spent about a month
talking about the event. They acquired Ronald McDonald to be a judge and had several large
prizes. I mainly remember that about 10,000 people showed up the day of the festival. Just
imagine 3-4,000 eight year olds running around a field the size of a football field and
you'll get an inkling of how big and "out of control" the WIND Kite Festival
was.
Being the "advanced" kitefliers that Tom, Al and I were, we
decided to make kites for the festival competitions. This was not a very sophisticated
competition and had the standard competition categories: Biggest, Smallest, Most Unusual,
etc.
Tom was the kite builder of the team and he decided that he would build
kites to enter the Most Unusual and the Largest kite categories. Al Meyer and I assisted
in the largest kite construction. Tom also created a series of sled kites side by side
that resembled a piano keyboard. He had hands on the keyboard that added stability as
tails. It was quite a creation and we were positive that he would win that category hands
down.
The judge for these competitions was Ronald McDonald. The guy in the suit
was really not interested and my brother didn’t like that. He had worked very hard to
create this Piano sled and Ronald only glanced at it. Ronald didn’t even ask the
entrants to fly their kites. Tom almost caused a scene when he confronted Ronald. Tom
demanded, "What the hell do you know about kiteflying?" Ronald replied,
"Hey, kid lighten up. This is only a kite festival." With that, Tom just
launched his Piano sled. As fate would have it WIND Radio’s on-field P.A. system
began to play Paul McCartney’s "Ebony and Ivory". It was a perfect flight
and a memorable kite built by my brother, that flew with appropriate accompanying music.
No one noticed but Al Meyer and I, and Tom didn’t even win an Honorable Mention.
Next came the Largest Kite competition. I have to tell you that I look
back on this one and am surprised that no one was hurt. The objects that people
called kites were accidents waiting for a place to happen. There were absolutely no safety
considerations by the event coordinators. It was amazing to Tom, Al and me (as reckless
as we were) that we felt the event to be dangerous.
Tom had constructed a 26 foot wide delta out of fiberglass rods and
black plastic drop cloth. The "Black Baron" as he called the kite was a high
aspect ratio delta. (26 feet from wing tip to wing tip, and 9 feet from front to back.) The "Baron" flew very well and had been flight tested before arriving at the
WIND kite fest. When the Largest kite contest started, they announced over the PA system
to bring the kites to the judging area. Ronald McDonald "looked" at the kites
and then told everyone to launch. My brother really lost it at this point. He was being
asked to launch a100 square foot plus kite in the middle of about 200 people in a crowd.
Tom refused to do it their way and we retired to our gear on the other side of the field.
We then saw a large group of guys carrying 2 " X 4" pine boards out to the field
along with a very large roll of plastic. "Are these guys going to build a tent?"
Al asked. No, they were going to assemble a "KITE". I kid you not. These guys
had built a delta out of plastic and 2"X4" lumber. The kite was 60 feet from
wing to wing. It took 6 guys to lift it.
By this time the judges had completely ignored Tom’s delta that
was flying very stable at about 500 feet. All eyes and cameras were focused on these six
guys and their tent disguised as a kite. After they assembled the kite they paid out
plastic coated clothes line that was about an 1/8th of an inch in diameter. Ten people
held up what had to be 40-50 pounds of plastic and lumber and these six guys pulled the
clothes line and began to run across the field. This aerial lumber yard lifted about 30
feet in the air and moved directly over a very large crowd of onlookers. This could have
been a huge disaster if there had been any serious wind. (There was 4-6 MPH that
day) The kite only stayed in the air as long as the crew kept pulling. No one was
hurt, except my brother's feelings. He took second place in the largest kite contest . As
he commented afterwards, "I took second place to a painters' scaffold?"
The strange thing about this Chicago kite festival was that it was
probably the first gathering of the future Chicagoland SkyLiners Kite Club. Many avid and
informed kiters from the Chicago area attended this festival, though none of us knew each
other at the time. The smallest kite contest was won by a strange and studious looking
fellow by the name of Charlie Sotich. Elmer Wharton , Lee and Anita Hoover, Tom Lach, Mike
Steel and many other future SkyLiners were on the field. It would be a few years before
this special group of fliers got together and formed one of the most active and important
kite groups in the Midwest. (See next month's Tangents and Trivia for the beginnings of
the Chicago Land SkyLiners Kite Club)
There are many more stories about the TAKT's adventures in learning
about kiteflying from trial and error (and stupidity). Due to the more sensitive
and innocent readers out there I will NOT tell you about the kite we smothered with
gasoline and burned at 500 feet, or our recreation of the Ben Franklin experiment (We were idiots and were lucky to have survived that one!) What I will include this
month is a list of kite safety rules. Which seems appropriate, after telling you how the
TAKT almost didn’t survive its introduction into kiteflying.
KITE SAFETY RULES
Originally complied by Red Braswell
as Chairman of the AKA safety
committee
San Diego October 1985
RULE #1 Wear gloves to protect the hands from cuts and burns by the
kite line.
RULE #2 Never fly kites in wet or stormy weather.
RULE #3 Never fly a kite where it may fall on a power line of any
type. If a kite should tangle with a power line - DO NOT attempt to free it. Call the
local power company and report the situation.
RULE #4 Do not use metal in the construction of a kite.
RULE #5 Never use wire or metallic line to fly a kite. Keep your
flying line dry.
RULE #6 Do not fly over streets or highways.
Rule #7 Avoid trees; they eat kites. If you do lose a kite in a
tree, loosen the line and let the wind blow it out. Do not climb the tree.
RULE #8 Do not fly near an airport.
RULE #9 Avoid holes in the ground, gullies, declevities, broken
glass, and other debris on the flying field.
RULE #10 Do not allow your kite line or lines, particularly
maneuverable kite lines to touch bystanders.
RULE #11 Use extreme caution in launching and flying large kites.
RULE #12 Do not fasten yourself to your kite line unless you have
an efficient quick release system.
THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON THIS TANGENT, TILL NEXT TIME! AL HARGUS |
