Decades ago, when I first starting getting into indoor free flight, I fell in love with the possibilities of light weight materials. One of the for-fun toys I built was a Rogallo wing kite. The span was about 3 inches, the spars were boron filaments, it was covered in transparent mylar, and the line was "invisible" mono-filament thread. To this day I don't know what the neighbors thought when they saw me, on a clam evening, standing in the street, holding an invisible thread and looking up at an invisible kite...

So, taking a break from more "serious" modeling, I decided to make a stick and tissue indoor kite. It's based on a S. F. Cody design from the early 1900's. More info on Cody can be found at:

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/cody.html

The good news is, It Flies! The air seemed dead calm in the back yard so I test flew it this afternoon. Any puff of wind and up she'd go. It should be fine for a "walk around and it follows" indoor kite.

The wing span is 16". The weight is 2.9 grams. The construction is balsa sticks and Gampi tissue.

Anybody else building indoor micro kites, or rc conversions?

--del

Here and there in NYC I've seen both kids and adults fly tiny kites on a thread, sometimes made of folded paper (usually kids) and once or twice conventional diamond style kites very tiny, maybe 3 or 4 inches across complete with tail. basically a scale model kite. I've thought of trying it but never got around to trying. Lazy I guess.

Pete

thats cool Del!
the japanese have a few indoor kites on youtube that get really tiny.

You can make a really quick indoor kite with a stamp and some thread - suck the end of the thread and stick it to the stamp's adhesive, and fly the kite in the draught from a window or using a hair dryer.

Nice Cody by the way, I've got a book from the '70s somewhere that has plans for a large one.

Thanks y'all,

A few years ago an indoor FF mentor of mine, Charlie Sotich, stopped flying model airplanes and turned his creative skills to kites (both indoor and outdoor). One of my favorite Sotich kites was a long train of tiny tetrahedrons with numbers on them; 3, ., 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2.......

He called it "PI In The Sky"...

It was a lovely thing to behold.
The numbers seeming to disappear into infinity...

--del

There is a user here that goes by the nic microkites. I think he has a business where he used to sell the little kites. He'll prob find this post soon, he lurks everywhere on these forums

Thanks to Bill, AKA RCBilly, there's a video of the kite flying at the PERF meet in Toledo.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...1205582&page=2

--del

I also build miniature kites that fly well. One of my first was a miniature cody kite but I've since made many other Codys. I typically build them with a flying weight of about a gram.

I've made hundreds of other miniature kites. If you'd like to see some, I have a web site here: http://miniatures.kitingusa.com/

I have some photos including two cody kites here: http://art.kitingusa.com/

Thanks,
Glenn