October 2003

Newsletter, October '03

Late again!, wonder if anyone will notice?- but there's an excuse; Jenny (Cook) and I have just arrived back from the AKA convention at Dayton Ohio, and flying the Mega-Ray at the Mix '96 festival in Sacramento.

The Mega Ray flying was excellent- very surprising considering the tiny field and inland location.  Support from the organiser, Tom McAlister, and other kitefliers there was so good that at times Jenny and I felt that everything would have flown just as well if we hadn't even been there.

The AKA was also excellent- bad wind though, 5 to 35 and shifty to the extent that, except for one day out of five, larger kites would not stay up for more than 5 to 10 minutes on average- reminded me why I don't always go to the AKA, which I'd temporarily forgotten after last year at Ocean City when the wind was uncharacteristically excellent.  But Dayton was still a great event, because the convention is not only about what happens on the flying field.  There are workshops on all manner of kite things, meetings, banquets, markets and auctions- not to mention the socialising, so I wont.  The work that David and Susan Gomberg, numerous other officers, volunteers and supporters put in is what makes the American Kite Association such an outstanding organisation. 

The convention's final night banquet was in the main hall of the Airforce Museum with historic airplanes, Stealth's, a B52's and numerous nukes all around us.  What a location!  I took numerous photo's, but the ones I like the most are of various kite identities snuggling up to various bombs- see attached samples.  Hopefully some of the people featured will stand for political office in years to come, in which case these photo's could bring in reasonable income!

We flew our latest flag kite every day whenever the wind cooperated (see attached).  A 10m X 6.5m Stars and Stripes, it's the prototype for what may be a new worlds largest kite.  Our plan is to make one of 40m x 25m, (about 900sq.m projected area, comfortably larger than the Mega-Bite/Mega-Ray which are each 635sq.m) and to fly it at various (mainly non-kite-world) events around the US next year.  Whether we proceed with this project will depend on the response to proposals that will be sent out within the next month or so.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the bicycle hanging beneath the 10m Flag was there to honour Ohio, the "Wright State"- the Wright's being originally bicycle makers as we all know.  Thank you to Dean Jordan for kindly lending his bicycle for this purpose and to Dave Kennedy for doing the rigging.  Sorry about the damage.

Next year's convention is at Seaside in Oregon, should be good wind again- see you there.

We have now filed applications for two separate patents on the flag style kite; 527454 An improved kite PETER ROBERT LYNN IPC|A63H27/08  and 528497 A kite PETER ROBERT LYNN IPC|B64C31/06.  By the usual system, these initial filings are in our home country (New Zealand) but will proceed to foreign filings as per the required timetable for international coverage.  Actually, while they cover the key original ideas that I believe make kites of this form possible, these application looks to be much wider in scope and are likely to have beneficial consequences for many other soft single line kites. 

Of course we won't know for some years whether or not patents will eventually be granted over the claimed features nor what the coverage of any such grants will be but the applications we have made act to protect any such future rights.  In the meantime, to make the design principles available to amateur kite makers in an orderly manner without opening a door that could eventually prevent our enjoyment of any commercial benefits, we propose to offer consecutively numbered license labels free to kite clubs and associations.  These groups will then be able to offer these labels to their members, on a one at a time basis, relieving us of the administrative nightmare that doing all this from here would entail, and hopefully becoming a minor but useful source of income for the club.  We will not provide plans with the labels but will work with bonafide clubs by offering helpful suggestions in preparing such plans.

Peter Lynn,

Ashburton,

7 October '03