
Kite Plans - erdosjr
http://www.kiteplans.org/
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hvs
Due to the HN hug-of-death:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190522135029/http://www.kitepl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190522135029/http://www.kiteplans.org/)

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slacka
What's the deal with the sketchy "PDF viewer" that they tried to force Chrome
users to install? This is an example where a site actually worked better in
Firefox and Edge.

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groovybits
Chrome, Firefox and Edge all come with PDF viewers by default. You do not need
to install anything.

Rule of the internet: don't install things that you didn't ask for.

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Xunxi
NASA's exhaustive Kite index which covers the physics and Math of Kites. There
is even a KiteModeler and interactive simulations for anyone who is interested

[https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/shortk.html](https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/shortk.html)

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minikites
Before drones were widely available, I attached an inexpensive camera to a
kite to take some aerial photographs. I'm a little surprised that wasn't more
common, given how popular drones are now.

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kijin
Perhaps the limiting factor was the lack of inexpensive cameras, not the lack
of drones. There was only a short window of time between when remotely
controllable lightweight cameras became cheap enough for people to not worry
about crashing them into rocks, on the one hand, and when drones became widely
available, on the other.

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shaftway
Not that narrow. I remember in the late 80's / early 90's Estes had a model
rocket that would pop a picture (onto film) from the nosecone when the chute
charge went off. I have no idea what the quality was like (my parents refused
to buy me one).

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fotbr
I spent a bunch of allowance money on one of those. It used 110 film
cartridges, and had a pretty cheap plastic lens. Quality wasn't really that
good (and wasn't helped by the cheap film I had to use), but it didn't matter
to a 10 year old -- I had a rocket that took pictures!

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shaftway
10 year old me is super jealous.

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TACIXAT
I was thinking recently that kites could make great signaling mechanisms for
backpackers. It would be relatively light in your pack and can get a location
noticed if you got lost. I'll have to dig through this site for simple designs
that are easy to keep up in the air.

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TremendousJudge
Sounds useful but in limited situations -- open fields (so no forests) and
windy but not too windy

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fouc
When I think of kites, I always think of my dream of a kiteboat for long term
cruising around the world.. purely kite powered, with maybe a small stabilizer
sail if necessary.

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losvedir
That's interesting. What would be the advantages of that over an ordinary
sailboat?

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pacaro
My understanding is that there are a variety of advantages: the kite flies in
cleaner air; the thrust from the kite is applied at one point, with less
heeling moment than from a sail; the design of the boat is not constrained by
the structural requirement of a mast

IIRC A kite powered boat called Jacobs Ladder held various sailing speed
records at one point

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trillic
I’ve a feeling that upwind performance would be lackluster. A modern Bermuda
rig can be highly performant at all points of sail in a variety of conditions.

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simonebrunozzi
Can you elaborate a bit more on the Bermuda rig? Curious.

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mikepurvis
"The rig consists of a triangular sail set aft of the mast with its head
raised to the top of the mast; its luff runs down the mast and is normally
attached to it for its entire length; its tack is attached at the base of the
mast; its foot (in modern versions of the rig) controlled by a boom; and its
clew attached to the aft end of the boom, which is controlled by its sheet."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_rig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_rig)

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timmaah
[https://archive.org/details/softkiteswindsoc00rowl](https://archive.org/details/softkiteswindsoc00rowl)

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mirimir
I love kites. Just seeing the word, I remember the boy-as-a-kite-on-ice-skates
from _The American Boy 's Handy Book_[0]

0) [https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/I/81LstaapceL...](https://images-na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/I/81LstaapceL._AC_UL320_SR226,320_.jpg)

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SamPatt
Kite building is actually fairly easy, and can be very inexpensive. With just
wooden dowels, fabric, simple sewing and simple rope & knots you can have
something flying in a few hours.

Takes a while to get the hang of troubleshooting the problems of flying, but
the basics aren't complicated. Good cheap fun.

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hahamrfunnyguy
Kite building is a hobby I've always wanted to get into.A buddy of mine has
build a few of the NASA-style Regallo kites. He uses them with his icebuggys.
Apparently, they're not too difficult to make and icebuggys are a blast to
pilot.

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monk_e_boy
Henry Hulk, wow, haven't heard that name in years. Nice designs.

No kitesurf kites though, probably the most popular kites on the market now?
Maybe in the west, not sure about the east.

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TimTheTinker
Don’t forget the middle. There are many excellent spots for flying kites away
from the coast.

One of my favorite kite shops is out of Boulder, Colorado: Into The Wind[0]

I’ve only bought from them once or twice, but I used to spend hours paging
through their paper catalog as a kid. I also visited their shop in Boulder as
a teen — that was really fun.

[0] [https://intothewind.com](https://intothewind.com)

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seraphsf
When I was 10, the Into the Wind catalog lit my imagination in so many ways.
It was a fantasy novel crossed with a science book.

A couple years ago I wandered past their store in Boulder and was floored that
there was a real, physical incarnation of that magical catalog. I took my
little kids there this winter and it was like passing a spark between
generations.

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ElijahLynn
Site is DDoSing right now because of this.

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conroydave
i always feel slightly bad for websites like this that HN brings hugs to
death, even though ad supported, its normal users are unable to access their
content

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paulie_a
Why? It's not like this will be permanent, a few hours probably. And many
sites exist without ads. What's there to support? A few dollars a month in
fees?

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kingnothing
The large effort to actually build and curate the content.

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pushpop
For personal sites like that, curators often do it for the love of the subject
rather than a financial reward. Hence why some personal sites are hosted
without any adverts.

Edit: I see I’m getting downvoted a lot for this comment. I appreciate
creating content for the love of it might seem like an alien concept to many
HNers but not everyone is driven by the motivation of turning every hobby into
a start up. In fact once upon a time, in an era before Facebook and Google,
the majority of an average persons surfing time was spent on non-commercial
personal web sites.

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TaylorAlexander
That’s how my sites are run. No ads, no tracking. I put free 3D printed robot
designs up as well as my personal writing. I do all of that stuff because I
want to and I want others to have it. Ads are gross.

So I don’t know why you’ve gotten downvoted, but your comment rings true for
me.

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Toadsoup
Edit: I can accept that kite plans can be on topic for HN. I also don't mean
to stifle anyone's curiosity about kites or kite building.

I suppose I expected something more akin to "Kite Plans, Experiments,
Observations, and Results that SoAndSo ran" or "Specific Kite Plan and Notes"
to be linked on HN.

If you're new to kites, good news, it's a lot more fun than it should be.

\--- Original Post: I am confused, why this link is on HN?

I enjoy kites and have used this site before, but what makes it worth the
front page of HN? It's nothing new, their site hasn't really changed in years,
and it is somewhat off topic.

Was the poster just fired up about kites? Am I missing something?

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jfoutz
It's neat!

> Am I missing something?

Yeah. you've been around here for a while, so i suspect you know the answer.
But hey, maybe this will help. The first part is the boring answer

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
> answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. [1]

So anyhow, given you'd actively used the kite site it the past, you should be
able to see how it satisfied your own intellectual curiosity in the past.
Clearly, it's not relevant to you today, but perhaps you can see how it's
relevant to others. Also, your experience can help drive some conversation
with new kite makers.

the second part is some gentle advice - please don't take this as a criticism,
just an observation. Try to take joy in other people being one of the 10,000
[2].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
[2] [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

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Toadsoup
Thanks, This was a super useful reply.

