Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/951

 Popular Science Monthly

��923

���FIGURE 9

��FIGURE 10

��FIGURE IL

��bring all the slack in the center. This reel was used for this wire, with multiply- forms a pocket under pressure, making ing attachment, and smaller steel wires.

��the head-sail which keeps the kite from pitching. Turn over all the edges and sew them firmly and evenly. You will now have a cover with rings in each corner and re-enforced edge. Turn the raw edges in. Remember it is windy where this kite goes. To bridle the kite, get a piece of wire and bend it as shown in Fig. 12. Solder it into an endless loop. This must be slipped on as the sticks are put together, so that the loops marked A pro- ject through the i-in. hole in the sail, while those marked B pass behind the up- right stick. The bridle string is

fastened by means of an S-link — as shown, at each end. One link is hooked into the loops marked A, and the other into the ring at the bottom of the kite. You now have a kite

��No. 22 gage being used for each individ- ual kite.

The method of flying is this: A kite is set up, bridled, and hooked to one of the small wires, this wire paid out from an auxiliary reel, until 200 ft. are alott. The main flying wire is then attached. When 400 ft. are aloft, the reel is checked. A second kite is flown with 200 ft. of lead wire and hooked into the main wire. Both kites are then paid out on the reel, till another 200 ft. is aloft when a third kite is flown and attached. 13 This process is

continued till all kites in the battery are aloft. The reel used contains one mile of wire. The method of attaching the kites to the main line may seem to the novice a means of inviting trouble but in practice which when knocked down and the each kite flies higher than the main line, sail wrapped around the sticks, forms a and invariably some slight difi^ercnce in package 6 ft. long and about 2>^ ins. in balance or variation in direction of the

���j'J

��FIGURE the

��diameter. You can carry six of them easily. You can get on a trolley car or boat with them without trouble, while, if not made as above you could not handle one. After a little practice, they can be put together in a few seconds, and they will carry a boat along in good shape at an amazing speed when properly flown.

The flying cord used by the writer was a steel wire No. 18 gage, in ^-mile coils, tested to 750 pounds. A special

��wind at difl'erent heights sets them out from the main line at diflerent angles, so that they do not interfere. Four of these kites in a lo-pound wind will give two-thirds the pull of six, as a matter of course. So if you had a 15-pound wind, four would be about all you could handle, while in a 30-pound wind, one would be fully capable (^f keeping you busy even if it did not breaic its back, for a 30-pound wind, blowing 80 miles an hour would give a total loading on

�� �