KiteJan

This was a small event in the Chapletown Park, organised by the friends of the local parks to encourage more people to use the parks. They were going to be running kite making workshops for the children and had asked Sheffield Kite Fliers along to simply fly to provide 'interest'. The day was dry and rather windy - so it was that we found ourselves waiting in the small car park for the rest of our fliers to turn up. Eventually Jon turned up in his wonderful 'new' car - something that looked like it was held together with sellotape (and not much else). So we put the equipment into a couple of cars to take to the flying area and the rest of use walked up through the wood.

Although the park was tree lined it was on a hill (isn't everywhere in Sheffield?) and pretty exposed and a good wind was blowing. Most of the others got out the traction kites and attempted some boarding and buggying. As usual I got out the trusty Revolution, and after a while the new kite in my bag, a Skydancer. This is a lovely quad line kite made all the more special because of the long tubular tails that are attached to the verticals. It certainly was fun flying it - the only problem being with the length of the lines plus the length of the tails I was taking up rather a lot of the park for myself. Over the course of the morning I swapped between the two and a little bit of flying of the Freevol LX. 

As the wind increased so the size of the kites decreased until Paul and Simon were formation flying with 1.5m Flexifoil Bullets (all the large stuff was left on the ground). It was around this time that I managed to tangle the lines of the Revolution with them - bringing all the kites to the ground. A good number of the local children were flying their newly made kites and one or two had brought their own (including a chap with some lovely Chinese single line kites).

All too soon it was time to pack away and head back home, leaving Jon to enjoy the park  with his Peter Lynn Venom all by himself. We could see him (and the kite) for quite a long time afterwards from the car.