September saw me spending some time in Dieppe at the international kite festival. I didn't do any KAP, but I did spend some time with a group of French KAPers whom I met over on Cris Benton's forum. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours together while I helped as they KAPped. We also signed each other's Worldwide KAP weekend book, so it was well worth the trip. I di manage to fly my Fled on the Monday morning before heading back home ;-)
Also, I've been planning a new rig. I've acquired all the bits, including a nice Canon G9 to fit into it. Now all I need to do is build it. But while I'm still playing nursemaid (pictures of me in suspenders and stockings should be rapidly erased from the mind) I'm afradi that might have to wait. Never mind, I still have the trusty Brookes rig.
So my latest effort was at the OSOW weekend in Canterbury. A gloriously sunny October day. Well I had three kites in the sky, and the wind was steady, so I thought I would try a little KAP. It was at this point that the wind dropped and all the kites came down.After trying for a while, I put away all my kites and got out the maxi dopero from Jones Airfoils. This launched cleanly into the air and had ample pull for the rig, so I decided to have a wander round and see who, or what we could Kapture. The Reeves family were sitting in the middle of the field nattering and eating, so I parked over the top of them and got a straight down.
While I was there, I got reasonably close to the BT tower. Not as close, or as high as I would have liked, but not bad.
While taking this shot, I looked up and thought the camera looked a bit odd. I recovered it and noticed that the lens barrel wasn't fully extended. I guess I must have pressed something while fitting the camera into the cradle, so wandered back to base, anchorded the kite and reset the camera. At this point, a family ho had been watching with interest wandered ovr to see what was going on. Their little boy was very interested in how everything worked - a future KAPper perhaps
So I relaunched and wandered off again, gaining more height as I went. I got over by the BT tower again, and the camera was higher. I was taking advantage of the 1500 ft height clearance granted by the CAA. I managed to get a couple of nice pictures of the tree shadows, but now the wind at altitude was getting up and the kite was pulling hard.
Before long it started to lean tot he right and fly towards the ground. This is a known "feature of rollers and doperos. It happens when the kite gets overpowered. Without corrective ation, the kite will fly down to the ground level. But I couldn't afford for this to happen as this would hae parked the camera in the tree line! Time to rapidly give some line. No I wasn't wearing gloves! But I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the kite responded to crrective action. One loop of line and the kite was gaining height again. I walked it up wind, having to stop a couple of times to correct dives. Eventually I got to a point where I had enough space to anchor the kite and start walking it down. It took a while but eventually we got back to the ground safe and sound. One of the problems of letting out about 1,000 ft of line, is you have to wind it all in again.
So ended a successful day. A little scare to keep the blood flowing, but other than that, a very pleasant experience.
