Man-lifting kite
Encyclopedia
Kite
A kite is a tethered aircraft. 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 horizontal drag along the direction of the wind...
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 ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The (636) Book of Sui
Book of Sui
The Book of Sui was the official history of the Chinese dynasty Sui Dynasty, and it ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was compiled by a team of historians led by the Tang Dynasty official Wei Zheng and was completed in 636.-External links:* of the Book of Sui,...
records that the tyrant Gao Yang, Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi
Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi
Emperor Wenxuan of Qi , personal name Gao Yang , courtesy name Zijin , was the first emperor of the Chinese dynasty Northern Qi. He was the second son of Eastern Wei's paramount general Gao Huan, and the death of his brother and Gao Huan's designated successor Gao Cheng in 549 became the regent...
(r. 550-559), executed prisoners by making them fly with bird-shaped kite wings (see ornithopter
Ornithopter
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as these flying creatures. Manned ornithopters have also been built, and some...
). For his Buddhist initiation ritual
Buddhist initiation ritual
The Lay Buddhist ordination refers to the public ordination ceremony wherein a lay student of Zen Buddhism receives certain Buddhist precepts, "a rite in which they publicly avow allegiance to 'The Three Refuges' of Buddhist practice: The Buddha, the dharma and the sangha."-Soto School:In the Sōtō...
at the capital Ye
Ye, China
Ye or Yecheng was an ancient Chinese city located in what is now Linzhang County, Hebei and the neighbouring Anyang County, Henan....
, the emperor parodied the Buddhist ceremonial fangsheng 放生 "releasing caged animals (usually birds and fish)".
On one occasion the emperor visited the Tower of the Golden Phoenix to receive Buddhist ordination. He caused many prisoners condemned to death to be brought forward, had them harnessed with great bamboo mats [quchu 籧篨] as wings, and ordered them to fly down to the ground (from the top of the tower). This was called a 'liberation of living creatures'. All the prisoners died, but the emperor contemplated the spectacle with enjoyment and much laughter.
The (1044) Zizhi Tongjian
Zizhi Tongjian
The Zizhi Tongjian was a pioneering reference work in Chinese historiography, published in 1084, under the form of a chronicles. In 1065 CE, Emperor Yingzong of Song ordered the great historian Sima Guang to lead with other scholars such as his chief assistants Liu Shu, Liu Ban and Fan Zuyu, the...
records that in 559, all the condemned kite test pilots died except for Eastern Wei
Eastern Wei
The Eastern Wei Dynasty followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei, and ruled northern China from 534 to 550.In 534 Gao Huan, the potentate of the eastern half of what was Northern Wei territory following the disintegration of the Northern Wei dynasty installed Yuan Shanjian a descendant of...
prince Yuan Huangtou
Yuan Huangtou
Yuan Huangtou was the son of emperor Yuan Lang of Eastern Wei. At that time, Gao Yang took control the court of Eastern Wei and set the emperor as puppet. Finally, Yan Huangtou was imprisoned by Gao Yang and, against his will, flown from the tower of Ye, China. He survived this flight, but was...
.
Gao Yang made Yuan Huangtou [Yuan Huang-Thou] and other prisoners take off from the Tower of the Phoenix attached to paper (kites in the form of) owls. Yuan Huangtou was the only one who succeeded in flying as far as the Purple Way, and there he came to earth.
The Purple Way (紫陌) road was 2.5 kilometres from the approximately 33-metre Golden Phoenix Tower (金凰台). These early manned kite flights presumably "required manhandling on the ground with considerable skill, and with the intention of keeping the kites flying as long and as far as possible."
In a story about the Japanese thief Ishikawa Goemon
Ishikawa Goemon
was a semi-legendary Japanese outlaw hero who stole gold and valuables and gave them to the poor. Goemon is notable for being boiled alive along with his son in public after a failed assassination attempt on the civil war-era warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A large iron kettle-shaped bathtub is now...
(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 Castle
Nagoya Castle
is a Japanese castle located in Nagoya, central Japan. During the Edo period, Nagoya Castle was the center of one of the most important castle towns in Japan—Nagoya-juku— and it included the most important stops along the Minoji, which linked the Tōkaidō with the Nakasendō.-History:In...
. 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 Pocock
George Pocock (inventor)
George 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-PowellBaden Baden-Powell
For the town, see Baden-BadenBaden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell, FS, FRAS, FRMetS was the youngest son of Baden Powell, and the brother of Robert Baden-Powell, Warington Baden-Powell, George Baden-Powell, and Agnes Baden-Powell...
, brother of the founder of the scouting movement
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, Bt, 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....
, 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 Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
for use in the Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
, but by the time they arrived the fighting was over, so they were never put into use.
Lawrence Hargrave
Lawrence Hargrave
Lawrence 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
Box kite
A box kite is a high-performance kite, noted for developing relatively high lift; it is a type within the family of cellular kites. 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...
in 1885, and on 12 November 1894, lifted himself from the beach in Stanwell Park, New South Wales
Stanwell Park, New South Wales
Stanwell 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 Cody
Samuel Cody
Samuel Franklin Cowdery was born in Birdville, Texas, USA. He 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...
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 Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern 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 in the Strait of Dover...
in a boat drawn by a kite, he attracted enough interest from the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, 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. The Kite ascended as a kite but could descend as a glider.Cody also made flights in an untethered kite powered by a 12 hp 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 wingRogallo 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 after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing...
was fitted with a swing seat by John W. DickensonJohn W. DickensonJohn Wallace Dickenson is an Australian inventor, who developed some liquid flow measuring devices and designed the most successful hang glider configuration.- The Ski Wing :...
in Grafton, AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the flexible wing hang glider was born.
- Rogallo kite - The Rogallo wingRogallo 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 after them as the "Rogallo Wing" and flexible wing...
was invented by aerospace engineer Francis RogalloFrancis 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 tunnelWind tunnelA wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research 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.ParesevParesevThe Paresev was an experimental NASA glider aircraft based upon the kite-parachute studies by NASA engineer Francis Rogallo....
. Tony Prentice of UK at age 13 in 1960 made a Rogallo-winged framed hangglider with rope controls. Barry Hill Palmer made several Rogallo-winged hang gliders for free-flight kiting. Mike Burns in 1962 made Rogallo-winged ski-glider kites in Australia as did his countryman later: Australian John Dickenson first flew his version of the Rogallo wing kite in 1963 while towed behind a motorboatMotorboatA motorboat is a boat which is powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit.An inboard/outboard contains a hybrid of a...
. His first water ski kite -which he called Ski Wing - played a significant role in promoting hang glidingHang glidingHang gliding is an air sport in which a pilot flies a light and unmotorized foot-launchable aircraft called a hang glider ....
into a popular sport starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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 Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
developed a tetrahedral kite
Tetrahedral kite
A 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 Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
on December 6, 1907 and carried a man 168 feet (51.2 m) above the sea. Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald 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 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also 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 kite
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 after them 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.