A
man-lifting kite is a
kiteA kite is a flying tethered aircraft that depends upon the tension of a tethering system. The necessary lift that makes the kite wing fly is generated when air flows over and under the kite's wing, producing low pressure above the wing and high pressure below it. This deflection also generates...
designed to lift a person from the ground. Historically, man-lifting kites have been used chiefly for reconnaissance and entertainment. Interest in their development declined with the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the 20th century.
Early history
The first records of man-lifting kites come from China. Their use is mentioned in
Sun TzuSun Tzu is traditionally believed to have authored The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy considered to be a prime example of Taoist thinking. Sun has had a significant impact on Chinese and Asian history and culture, both as an author of The Art of War and through...
's
The Art of WarThe Art of War is a Chinese military treatise that was written by Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, during the Spring and Autumn period. Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it is said to be the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time, and...
as a means of viewing the movements of enemy troops. In a story about the Japanese thief
Ishikawa Goemonwas a legendary bandit hero who stole gold and valuables and gave them to the poor. He is notable for being boiled alive after a failed assassination attempt on Toyotomi Hideyoshi...
(1558–1594), he used a man-lifting kite to allow him to steal the golden scales from a pair of ornamental fish images which were mounted on the top of
Nagoya Castleis a restored Japanese castle located in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.-Castle History:Imagawa Ujichika built the original castle at Nagoya around 1525. Oda Nobuhide took it from Imagawa Ujitoyo in 1532, but later abandoned it....
. His men manoeuvered him into the air on a trapeze attached to the tail of a giant kite. He flew to the rooftop where he stole the scales, and was then lowered and escaped. In the 17th century, Japanese architect Kawamura Zuiken used kites to lift his workmen during construction.
George PocockGeorge Pocock was an English schoolteacher and inventor of the "Charvolant", a kite-drawn carriage.Pocock was interested in kites from an early age, and experimented with pulling loads using kite power, gradually progressing from small stones to planks and large loads. He taught at a school in...
, who invented a kite-drawn buggy in 1822, had previously used kites as a method of lifting men to inaccessible cliff tops, but it was not until around the 1880s that there was serious interest in developing man-lifting kites.
Modern development
The first well-documented record of a man lifted by kite was at Pirbight Camp in 1894. In the early 1890s, Captain B.F.S Baden-Powell, brother of the
founder of the scouting movementRobert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB , also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement.After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British...
, had designed the "Levitor" kite, a hexagonal-shaped kite intended to be used by the army in order to lift a man for aerial observation or for lifting large loads such as a wireless antenna. On June 27 1894 he used one of the kites to lift a man 50 feet (15.25 m) off the ground. By the end of that year he was regularly using the kite to lift men above 100 ft (30.5 m).
Baden-Powell's kites were sent to
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
for use in the
Boer WarThe Second Boer War , commonly referred to as The Boer War and also known as the South African War , the Anglo-Boer War and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog , or the Engelse oorlog was fought...
, but by the time they arrived the fighting was over, so they were never put into use.
Lawrence HargraveLawrence Hargrave was an engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer.- Early life :Hargrave was born in Greenwich, England, the second son of John Fletcher Hargrave and was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland...
invented his
box kite
A box kite is a high-performance kite, noted for developing relatively high lift. The typical design has four parallel struts. The box is made rigid with diagonal crossed struts. There are two sails, or ribbons, whose width is about a quarter of the length of the box. The ribbons wrap around...
in 1885, and on 12 November 1894, lifted himself from the beach in
Stanwell Park, New South WalesStanwell Park is a picturesque coastal village and northern suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It is the northernmost point of the Illawarra coastal strip and lies south of Sydney's Royal National Park. It is situated in a small valley between Bald Hill to the north, Stanwell Tops...
using a four box kite rig, attached to the ground by piano wire. Using this rig he lifted himself 16 feet (4.9 m) above the ground, despite the combined weight of his body and the rig weighing 208 lb (94.5 kg).
Samuel CodySamuel Franklin Cowdery was an early pioneer of manned flight, most famous for his work on the large kites known as Cody War-Kites that were used in World War I as a smaller alternative to balloons for artillery spotting. He was also the first man to conduct a powered flight in Britain, on 16...
invented a kite known as the Bat, that he proposed be used for observation of the enemy during war. After a stunt in which he crossed the
English ChannelThe English Channel is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest, to only in the Strait of Dover...
in a boat drawn by a kite, he attracted enough interest from the
War OfficeThe War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
for them to allow him to conduct trials between 1904 and 1905. He lifted a passenger to a new record height of 1,600 ft (488 m) on the end of a 4,000 ft (1,219 m) cable. The War Office officially adopted Cody's design in 1906, and the war kites were used for observation until they were replaced by aircraft. Cody also made flights in an untethered kite powered by a engine.
Water ski kites
- Flat kites - In the late 50's, individuals used the concept of being trailed by a kite above water. (Images:)http://www.lilienthal-museum.de/olma/images/dick4.jpghttp://www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/uploaded_images/HumanKite-716194.jpghttp://www.judnick.com/images/Florida_CypressGardens_HumanKite-100_small.jpg The Australians developed flat kites originally for water ski shows; They were able to marginally control these unstable flat kites by using swing seats that allowed their entire body weight to effect pitch and roll. When a Rogallo wing
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known as the Rogallo Wing and flexible wing...
was fitted with a swing seat by John W. DickensonJohn Wallace Dickenson is an Australian inventor, who developed some liquid flow measuring devices and designed the most successful hang glider format.- The Ski Wing :...
in Grafton, AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
, the flexible wing hang glider was born.
- Rogallo kite - The Rogallo wing
The Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known as the Rogallo Wing and flexible wing...
was invented by aerospace engineer Francis RogalloFrancis Melvin Rogallo was an American aeronautical engineer inventor born in Sanger, California, U.S.A.; he is credited with the invention of the Rogallo wing, or "flexible wing", a precursor to the modern hang glider and paraglider...
and was the first kite to be developed with the assistance of wind tunnelA wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research. It is used to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...
testing, and is an indication of how far kites have come. NASA incorporated the Rogallo wing into man-lifting kites towed by ground and aero vehicles; many of the kited men (eight) were released from the kited format into gliding controlled flight back to ground; the man-lifting kite and glider program of 1961 forward gave a wing that was to be used in popular hang gliding.ParesevThe Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo....
. Australian John Dickenson first flew his version of the Rogallo wing kite in 1963 while towed behing a motorboatAn outboard motor is installed on the rear of a boat and contains the internal combustion engine, the gearbox, and the propeller.An inboard/outboard contains a hybrid of a powerplant and an outboard, where the internal combustion engine is installed inside the boat, and the gearbox and propeller...
. His first water ski kite -which he called Ski Wing - played a significant role in promoting hang glidingHang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider.Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite-framed fabric wing...
into a popular sport starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Dynamic Anchor Manned Kite
When the kite-line attaches to a falling mass, then the kite-line and falling mass are moving through some medium, as the air. The towing forces caused by the falling mass create the relative wind or fluid flow past the kite system's wing. This describes some hang gliders; thus, such qualified hang gliders are a subset of kites where the anchor is dynamically moving or falling; paragliders are of this sort of kite system. The falling mass can be the hang glider pilot or gliding-parachute parachutist (frequently the Domina Jalbert wing, David Barish wing, or Rogallo wing gliding parachutes are used). Thus these systems lift the pilot. Such a definition was used in discussion in
Hang Glider Weekly as discussed in History of hang gliding that published out of Santa Monica, California, together with Low & Slow; editions are now on CD available through the United States Hang Gliding Association. Towing is also achieved for kite systems: boats, airplanes, trucks, cars, animals, ships, etc.; what the towing mechanism does is to force a relative wind or fluid flow through a tensional member (kiteline most frequently, but the tensional member could be a rope, cable, rod, mast, thread, beam, etc.) to the kite's wing. Thus the
Rogallo wingThe Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known as the Rogallo Wing and flexible wing...
hang glider that suspends tensionally the pilot with webbing or ropes or even
ParesevThe Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo....
-like trussed complex from the wing above have the falling pilot's mass be a dynamic towing device that tows the kite wing; that the wing gives a net positive lift wins the system's kite status together with the tensional tow that forces the wing to react with the fluid or air. When a hang glider pilot goes out to fly his or her hang glider, if the hang glider fits the above description, then the application of the word "kite" is appropriate. A hang glider can also be tested as an unmanned kite using either static or dynamic anchors without the person being in the system. In such manned-lifting kites, the most frequent part of the airframe is called
triangle control frame]The triangle control frame , similar to the A-frame, is widely used in hang gliders, powered hang gliders, and ultralight aircraft. TCF is just one of many sorts of control solutions. TCF resolves a means of using weight-shifting attitude control in parasol aircraft...
; the pilot pushes and pulls on that TCF to control the free-flying kite (hang glider of this sort).
A toy kite with a payload or a practical man-carrying kite being statically or dynamically anchored by a tertiary vehicle could subsequently be released by the remote anchor or towing vehicle or system of forces (say a drogue in a river or stream); then upon release within a gravitational field in some atmosphere, the payload hung tensionally (cords in gliding parachute, harness tether line in some hang gliders, etc.) becomes the new dynamic anchor and the system again is a kite system with low or great lift to drag ratio for a glide of some sort. Such releases might be accidental or deliberate; the first stiffened Rogallo wing man-piloted aircraft were in the
ParesevThe Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo....
program and were first towed to high altitude and then released; the system in the first towing instance were kite systems; the system upon release were still kite systems; in the first sector the system was static relative to the towing aircraft; in the second sector the system was dynamic relative to the pilot's mass and the ground..
After powered flight
After the Wright Brothers first flight in 1903, the development of kites designed to lift heavy weights continued, but interest in designs specifically for lifting humans declined.
Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
developed a
tetrahedral kiteA tetrahedral kite is a multicelled rigid box kite composed of tetrahedrally shaped cells. The cells are usually arranged in such a way that the entire kite is also a regular tetrahedron. The kite can be described as a compound dihedral kite as well....
, constructed of sticks arranged in a honeycomb of triangular sections, called cells. From a one cell model at the beginning of the 1890s, Bell advanced to a 3,393 cell "Cygnet" model in the early 1900s. This 40 foot (12.2 m) long, 200 lb (91 kg) kite was towed by a steamer in Baddeck Bay,
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is a Canadian province located on Canada's southeastern coast. It is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. Its capital, Halifax, is a major economic centre of the region. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada with an area of...
on December 6 1907 and carried a man 168 feet (51.2 m) above the sea.
Roald AmundsenRoald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912. He was also the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage...
, the polar explorer, commissioned tests on a man-lifting kite to see whether it would be suitable for use for observation in the Arctic, but the trials were unsatisfactory, and the idea was never developed.
It was not until the development of the
Rogallo kiteThe Rogallo wing is a flexible type of airfoil. In 1948, Gertrude Rogallo, and her husband Francis Rogallo, a NASA engineer, invented a self-inflating flexible wing they called the Parawing, also known as the Rogallo Wing and flexible wing...
in the late 1940s that there was large scale interest in unpowered kite flying once again. The possibility of untethered flight on man-lifting kites led to the development of hang gliders and paragliders, but static-anchored-tethered man-lifting kites have seen little development, chiefly due to the lack of control inherent in the tethered design. Nowadays, most man-lifting is carried out on a dual line system, where the passenger on a single kite ascends a line held under tension by a train of kites. No kites are available commercially for the static-ground-based-anchored tethered flight of people. Note that many hang gliders are kited in various ways to get to an altitude to give the participant desired altitude; sometimes just a short glide is needed; sometimes an altitude is desired that will provide an opportunity for the kited hang glider pilot to seek and find assistive thermals.