Kite (aircraft)

“ The basket is attached to the rigid kite cable by runners. After the gear is tried, another large kite, which is harnessed to his prosaic-looking chariot, is thrown into the air. Making one or two ineffectual dives, it catches the wind and begins to pull. Slowly at first the observer rises, then faster as the great wings above him catch more of the breeze. Now they feel it, and up he sails like a pantomime stormfiend, to the accompanying moan of the wire vibrating in the wind. ”

“ One of the very first heavier-than-air flights ever recorded is said to have been made by a Japanese who dropped bombs from an immense man-carrying kite during the Satsuma rebellion of 1869. The kite as a flying machine has, however, two drawbacks: it needs the wind—it cannot fly in a calm—and it stands still. One early effort to improve on this situation was made in 1856, when a man was towed in a sort of kite which was hauled by a vehicle moving on the ground. ”

“ The proper form for a kite is that of a hemisphere with the convex side to the wind: no wings and a light tail. The string should be fastened a little above the centre. A kite thus constructed will, as is stated by Dr Joule of Manchester, 'stand in the air with almost absolute steadiness. He found that by pulling strings fastened to the right and left sides of the horizontal bow, the kite could be made to fly thirty degrees or more from the direction of the wind, and hence that it would be possible to use it in bringing a vessel to windward. ”

“ There is no property, indeed, so hard to prove and recover as a runaway kite. For one thing, there is absolutely no telling how far a runaway kite will sail before landing. Mr. Eddy estimates that when the main line breaks, a kite well up in a twenty-five mile breeze will travel, before alighting, a distance equal to twelve times its height from the ground. This means that a kite straight over the Battery, in New York City, and a mile in the air, driven by a stiff south wind, might land in Yonkers if the cord broke. ”

“ This form of kite, consisting of two superposed surfaces connected at each end by a vertical panel or curtain of fabric, had proved extremely successful for man-carrying purposes, and, therefore, it was little wonder that several minds conceived the idea of attempting to fly by fitting a series of box-kites with an engine. ”

“ If it glides well some interesting things will develop. There will be swoops and glides, and loop the loops and all sorts of gyrations before it reaches the ground. If one is going to make a model just to fly in the air without the maneuvering, but to look like an aeroplane in the air, it should have the bridle placed so as to cause the kite to stay as near the horizontal as possible. In order to do this, the upper loop of the bridle should be shortened or the lower one lengthened as on a tailless or any other kite. ”

“ Every well-constructed kite has a fixed capacity for ascending to a certain height—not more than a few hundred feet usually, because of the increase in the weight of the line and the wind's pressure on it; therefore, in order to reach a greater altitude, it became necessary to connect another kite to aid in the lifting. Still higher flights required a further addition of kites, until sometimes a dozen, ranging in size from five to twelve feet, were up in the same tandem, requiring a small rope to hold them. ”

“ At a given signal the assistant lets the kite go, and if all circumstances be favourable it will soar upwards with great rapidity. With a well-constructed kite, in a good breeze [55] the flyer need not trouble himself to run very fast nor very far, as his kite will soon find its balance, and float quite steadily on the wind. The kite-flyer should be careful not to let out string too fast. When a kite pitches, it is a sign that it is built lop-side, or that its tail is not long enough. ”

“ The kite flying side will not help so much as the gliding. When the aeroplane kite is well up, if the string is allowed considerable slack, the model will glide if well balanced and if the planes are tilted properly. Balance will be necessary both to right and left and fore and aft. It is very interesting to get such a model pulled well up in the air and have a release that will cut the kite line. The punk method is good, only that we would like to have better control of just the time for cutting loose. ”

“ Perhaps the first person to soar aloft on a kite was a lady, who, more than fifty years ago, was lifted some hundred feet by a great kite constructed by George Pocock, an Englishman, to serve as an aërial observatory in warfare, and also to drag carriages along the ground. It was proposed afterwards to make use of kites in shipwrecks to take persons or life-lines ashore, and in 1865 Sir George Nares invented a storm-kite, so called, with a tail made up of hollow cones. ”

“ The making of kites has now reached a high pitch of perfection, and by their means self-recording scientific instruments can be raised to vast heights in the air, and even men carried aloft with safety. A kite which latterly has excited much attention is the Cody kite. With this, during the autumn of 1903, its inventor, a Mexican, hazarded a bold venture.124 Harnessing it to a light boat, and waiting for a favourable wind, he started from Calais at eight o’clock one November evening, and was safely towed all night across the Channel, reaching Dover at five the next morning. ”

“ Men may often be seen on calm still days flying their kites from boats as they pass up and down the river. Kite contests are of frequent occurrence during the windy months. One kite is called the male and the other the female. The object of the contest is the capturing of the female by the male. [Pg 153] When they are both at a considerable height from the ground, one flyer so jerks the string of the male kite as to cause it to swoop downwards with great velocity. If the apex of the falling star strikes the body of the soaring female, it effectually wounds her and brings her to earth. ”

“ When the kites have reached the greatest altitude permitted by the circumstances, the paying out of the wire is stopped, and, either by increasing the speed of the ship, or by heaving in the wire as quickly as possible, a little final augmentation of height is obtained. The recovery of kites, although somewhat delicate, presents less difficulty than their dispatch. As at the launching of the kite, a subsidiary line is used, which is run alongside of the bridle as soon as this is got hold of, so as to limit the motions of the kite. ”

“ The sizes most in use have from 30 to 80 sq. ft. of sail area. There is no difficulty about raising a kite to a vertical height of one or even two miles on suitable days, but heights exceeding three miles are seldom reached. On the 29th of November 1905 at Lindenberg, the Prussian Aeronautical Observatory, the upper one of a train of six kites attained an altitude of just four miles. The total lifting surface of these six kites was nearly 300 sq. ft., and the length of wire a little over nine miles. ”

“ We cannot, however, as we watch, say, a hawk, hovering in the air with motionless wing, help being struck by its resemblance to the schoolboy’s kite, kept afloat high in the sky by the action of the wind properly applied to its surface, and we can at once see that the bird makes use of the same principle as the kite in its soaring or hovering flight. Indeed, just as a kite sinks to earth when the wind drops, so in a dead calm even an albatross has to flap its wings to keep afloat.
It is to the principle of the kite, therefore, that the inventor of the flying machine must turn. ”

“ Anybody can fly this kite. It goes up straight from the hand like a bird. Will fly in a moderate breeze, and yet no wind short of a gale is too strong for it. It is made of strong, selected wood, and the finest cotton, in red. ”

“ In a calm a kite rises when it is pulled by a man or horse, because of its motion through the air; there is no reason to believe that it would not also rise when urged through the air by propellers. A kite then can be changed to a flying machine by hanging a motor and propellers to it and dropping the string which attaches the kite to the ground. ”

“ It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up indefinitely as long as the flyer is willing to run with the cord at the rate of about five miles an hour.
In flying kites tandem there is always to be guarded against the danger of a breaking of the cord. Few people realize how hard a pull is exerted by a series of kites well up in the air. A strain of twenty-five or thirty pounds on the cord is not uncommon ”

“ One interesting outcome of his numerous experiments was the Hargrave Kite, now more familiarly191 known as the box kite. A good example of his kites is the type shown in Fig. 35. This consists of two arched biplanes mounted tandem on a backbone, or connecting framework. The kite floats steadily, and was thought suitable for the body of a flying machine to be driven by an engine and propeller. Thus meteorology is indebted to aëronautics for its most useful kite. ”

“ Fig. 51. Kite details
Mr. H. H. Clayton, of the Blue Hill Observatory, has patented one form of this kite known as the "Blue Hill Naval Box Kite," so the amateur must confine his use of it to experimenting. Other forms of cells which have been used are shown at 2 3 4 5. These all possess the advantage—that each plane is a lifting surface, whereas in the rectangular form the vertical planes have only a rudder action, tending to hold the kite parallel with the wind. ”

“ A good pulling kite is necessary, as in the excitement of pulling up the car, more strain is put on the kite than one would realize. If a race is on, a fishing reel would be an advantage. This last messenger is not limited to the street car, but the form might be a locomotive and train, an automobile or an air ship. The latter might have adjustable [Pg 74] wings so as to be open to the breeze on the up trip and so be self propelling as in the yacht, and by releasing that which holds the wings open, they will close up, and the messenger would be ready for the down trip. ”

“ But after that they maybe sent at closer intervals, sometimes with only a few hundred feet between them—say two hundred feet in light winds, and five hundred feet in heavy winds. Each kite in a tandem should have a length of at least one hundred feet of cord from the main line, and great care should be exercised in knotting fast the individual lines. ”

“ Among the recreations most fondly indulged in on the New Year holidays is kite-flying. This is so well known here that I have often been overwhelmed with questions regarding it by little Americans. Our kites are mostly rectangular, with heroes or monsters painted on them in most glaring colors. A wind instrument looking like a bow is sometimes fastened to the kite, and when the kite is in the air the wind strikes the string and makes a humming noise. At a kite fight the combatants bring their flying kites in juxtaposition and strive to cut the string by friction. ”

“ As soon as the wind has fairly caught the kite and carried it up into the air, the boy who holds the string need run no longer, but if the breeze suddenly fails, and the kite begins to drop, he may still keep his toy aloft by running quickly along and dragging the kite after him; the artificial wind he thus creates making up for the lack of the other. ”

“ This clever little fellow observed that his kite sometimes gave him a very strong pull, and it occurred to him that if made large enough it might be able to pull something else. In fact, he at length yoked a pair of large kites to a carriage, and travelled in it from Bristol to London, distancing in grand style every other conveyance on the road. A twelve-foot kite, it appears, in a moderate breeze, has a one-man power of draught, and when the wind is brisker, a force equal to 200 lbs. The force in a rather high wind is as the squares of the lengths ”

“ On none of the kites, whatever may be their shape or size, is "tailing" ever used, and rarely does a native run in order to get the kite to rise. By a peculiar rapid jerking of the string, the kite is made to create its own wind when a natural one is not blowing. ”

“ The original Hargrave kite, the form generally used, has a rectangular section; in Russia a semicircular section with the curved part facing the wind is most in favour; in England the diamond-shaped section is preferred for meteorological purposes owing to its simplicity of construction. Stability depends on a multitude of small details of construction, and long practice and experience are required to make a really good kite. ”

“ This view, from a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy, New York City at the crossing of Frankfort and William Streets.
It is much better for amateurs to begin with a kite designed to fly in strong winds, as it is a long and delicate task to learn to manage the variety with extra wide cross-stick meant for ascension in calms. The two sticks which form the skeleton should be of equal lengths, say six feet; and should cross each other at right angles at a point on the upright stick eighteen per cent. ”

“ The use of the kite as an aeroplane can only be alluded to in this book, and it may be sufficient to say that if a motor attached to a kite can, by wings or screws, propel it against the wind, the sustaining string is unnecessary, and we shall have the flying machine which Professor Langley tells us will soon be realized. ”