Flying Kites

A couple of weekends ago we took the kids and our kite to the park. Our kite is a red triplane called the Red Baron, and it's kind of a touchy kite. It flew, but there was a lot of up and down. 

For a while Aaron was holding the string and I was launching the kite. He would fly it as long as it would stay up, then we'd start over. After three or four times of this, we decided to switch and he launched the kite and I ran with the string trying to get it up high. As I stopped and turned around to fly it, I was stunned to see him walking towards me holding the string of another kite that was flying high. I guess someone had staked their kite in the ground and just left it flying, and it eventually crashed among the weeks. Aaron put it back up in no time. Zeke got a turn to 'fly' too. 

It was one of those simple plastic delta kites like you get at the grocery store, but it went up easily and flew well. Aaron was inspired to try making his own. When it was ready, we went back to the park to test fly.

This one didn't go up as easily or fly as nicely as the one we found in the park, but it worked a whole lot better than the Red Baron. The wind this day was pretty gusty, and our homemade kite hit the ground a lot but it fared better than I expected. No major impact damage.

The fun came to an end when a rather large gust tore the kite off of the string, and we had to chase it down. A few repairs and we'll be good to go again :)