New World Record Set Flying 48 Kites:
Most Sport Kites Flown while flying Three Stacks Simultaneously
June 26th, 2010; Lincoln City, Oregon
by Gary MacEachern
It was a great day to be in Lincoln City for the 26 Annual Summer Kite Festival; the sun was shinning, the beach was in great shape and the crowd as always was enthusiastic. You could not ask for a better place or a better day to set a new world record for kite flying.
The demo field was busy with fliers performing routines and the only place I could set up without interfering with the flow of performances was the southwestern corner of the field. Early in the day the winds were light and my first two attempts ended in crashes as I tried to wrap two stacks around each other for a sling shot. But later in the day the wind picked up and I was ready to give it another try. As another great Quad line routine finished I popped up the stacks and carefully walked to the center of the demo area while rocking the stacks across the field to check the wind, with introductions complete and music cued I gave the announcer the proverbial shake of the leg signaling "Lets get Going" and off I went flying horizontal figure eights, loops, and vertical passes timed to the music, I parked the waist stack (center stack) high in the center of the window and brought each hand stack to opposite sides performing a loop then bringing them to the center in a horizontal pass then up to the top to catch up with the center stack and off again until the music stopped after which the stacks were landed by a power dive edge landing to make way for the next performance. Total flying time was approximately 6 minutes 20 seconds as measured by Dave Shattuck from Vancouver WA who was also kind enough to provide the photo's shown on this web page.
The Record Breaking stacks shown below are 50 feet in length and contain 16 kites each.
At the end of the 2009 Southern Oregon Kite Festival I flew three stacks of hyper kites that the Bay Area Sundowners were kind enough to let me have a go at, for a total of 39 kites. I had so much fun that I decided to set a new World Record for most sport kites flown while flying three stacks simultaneously. But in order to do that I had to make a sport kite small enough that the pull would not be to hard to handle. The end result is the "Blackbird".
This small kite has a wingspan just under four feet (46") and stands 17 1/2 inches tall. They weigh approx 50 grams, and contain 2.2 sq ft (320 sq in) of 3/4 oz sail material, 20 sq in of 3 oz reinforcement, 110 inches of seam tape, 99 7/8 inches of .125 dia carbon tube, 7 1/4 inches of .08 carbon rod, nocks, fittings and each kite in the stack is connected to the next by four bridle lines that are a bit over 3 feet in length.
If you would like to see more great kite routines this fall from fliers all over the northwest and beyond visit Lincoln City Oregon October 9th & 10th and of course I will be there too.