Kite Thoughts

One of our favorite customers, Jim Nicholls from Christchurch New Zealand passed along his thoughts on kite flying (along with a huge number of pictures from his kite flying adventures) and we thought they deserved to be shared with everyone. Well, everyone who reads our blog anyway.

We always love to hear from our customers. If you have any flying advice, suggestions, tips or general feedback let us know. Sharing what you know helps make kite flying the tops! Who knows, maybe we'll even post your comments on our blog! Now get outside and fly!

Although I am a fairly recent convert to kite-flying, and left it until quite late in life to start (I am 70 years old), I now own a large collection of single line kites, and a couple of two-line ones, and have accumulated many hours of flying experience. I go out every day throughout the year when the weather is even halfway suitable. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and although the winters are cold, I have still managed to fly on average at least three times a week.

Almost all of my many kites have been bought from America, a lot of them from Into the Wind, as it is impossible to buy them here. Although I am no expert, I would like to pass on some thoughts and advice that may be of interest to other adults who are just starting out, or considering doing so, in the field of kite-flying.

First of all, I would say: “Buy quality.” Cheap, unbranded kites don’t usually fly well or last long. And certainly there is no back-up service if things go wrong.

Secondly, my advice would be: “Buy big.” If you start with a small kite and get interested, you will soon want a larger one, so why not start with the large one and save money and time? (I learnt this the hard way!) Flying a large kite is usually no harder, and is often easier, than flying a small one. Sure, a big kite pulls more, but even something like the 12ft Highlighter delta is very manageable for any adult or mature teenager.

Thirdly, in order to enjoy this wonderful hobby from the start, I advise: “Choose a simple style to start with.” Some exotic-looking kites can be attractive, but may be difficult to put together and to fly. If you don’t want to get discouraged, the delta is probably the best type of kite to start with, as it is so easy to assemble and flies reliably in a wide wind-range. Don’t go for anything under 7ft unless you want to quickly become bored; the 7ft Levitation is great value, and there is a 9ft version also. The delta conyne, such as ITW’s Rocky Mountain, is another good choice, but there is not the wide selection that there is in deltas.

If you fly in consistently very light or very strong winds, the Triton and the Elevation box, respectively, will probably meet your requirements better, but are not quite as simple. And when you want something a little different, there are great designs like the various rokkaku, the dragons (the Beast is my favourite, and if you can afford it the Twin-Tail is great), cellular kites such as the Star 7, parafoils including the useful Flowform 16, and special kites like the Sun Sea Sky and many others.

My fourth tip would be: “Have a selection of lines.” For example, ITW recommend 200lb line for the Highlighter, and certainly that is needed in the upper part of its wind range. But if you are trying to fly it in very light breezes, don’t be afraid to use line at half that strength, which will make it much more likely that you will achieve lift-off. Keep an eye on the wind, however, and don’t hesitate to bring the kite down and replace the line if conditions change.

My fifth pearl of wisdom is: “Don’t ignore tails and line art.” Delta kites fly well most of the time without tails, but really they are naked without them. Tails can make such a difference to the appearance of the kite, adding color, design, and movement and increasing the sheer size of the spectacle by taking up more sky. The Highlighter, at 12ft wingspan, is a big kite, but when it’s 200 feet up, it is much less impressive. With tails, it is so much better. My favourite combination is 24ft Transition tails at the wingtips and a 15ft Cube Tube tail in the centre, but it’s good to ring the changes. You wouldn’t wear the same clothes every day, so let your kite have some variety, too. Try the fascinating Helix tail, where two 20ft tubes revolve around a third, or the enormous, but easily lifted, 30ft Bubble Tube tail. All of these are on the ITW website.

Line art, or “line laundry,” is equally attractive, and can be used with any kite that produces sufficient lift, whereas there are many kites for which tails are inappropriate. Some line art is just cute, like the Henry Hound and Skippy dogs, which are very easy to attach to the line a few feet off the ground and attract great interest. Other items are simply beautiful, like the 8ft Peacock Wrasse fish (more expensive, unfortunately) or intriguing, like the Cephalopod, Hydroid and Isopod, any of which can be lifted by a medium-sized kite. Some items are a little heavy, like the Sea Pineapple, which needs quite a strong-pulling kite, so match your laundry to your kite. Some of the tails already mentioned, like the Bubble Tube and Cube Tube, also look great attached on the line. Carabiners are the very best way of attaching any of these to your line, and small ones are quite adequate.

My last piece of advice is the most important: “Just have fun!” Here in New Zealand, kites usually mean the big traction kites used for kite-surfing and kite-buggying; almost no-one flies single-line kites. Even children are not very interested, but maybe that is just part of modern life. However, I care not if I am the only kite-flier on the beach, because to me it is a most enjoyable and relaxing pastime and one that I hope to enjoy for a few years yet, and at all seasons.

Jim Nicholls

Christchurch, New Zealand.

It's hip to be a Square Flyer.

George Peters began making kites when he was living in Hawaii in the '70's. But it wasn't until he moved to Boulder that he linked up with Into The Wind. He says, and George Emmons, Into The Wind's owner, remembers it the same way, that having a kite store in Boulder was "a big incentive to start making kites with a vengeance."

When George's kites appeared on the Into The Wind scene in 1983, they came on with a bang, gracing the cover of that year's catalog. In fact, George designed that cover and used a variation of it for his product brochure for some time afterwards. That first year, the Cloud Bird sold for $185, the same price it is in our 2009 catalog. I guess you could say that making the Cloud Bird in China has taken 26 years off the price of a George Peters' original. George Peters' Dragonfly now sells for $95. In 1983 it was $185. And the $99 Twin Tail Dragon was $150 when George made it himself.

Over the years, we've carried George's products off and on. If it were up to us, we would have sold his entire line every year. Unfortunately, it was all too easy for demand to overwhelm George's one-man production capabilities. The 1984 Into The Wind catalog carried a smattering of his products and introduced George's version of the traditional Japanese Rokkaku. The catalog cover that year featured Into The Wind's co-owner, Jim Glass, flying the custom Into The Wind Rokkaku that George Peters designed for the fledging company. That image became the Into The Wind logo for many years to follow. (It was converted to a drawing that is still on the cover of the Into The Wind Pocket Guides that we include free with kite orders.) In 1993, the graphic made it's way onto a limited edition t-shirt in front of a screened, glowing sunset fade.

Although we did carry other Rokkakus from other kitemakers, George's kites disappeared from the catalog entirely for the next ten years. In 1994, he hired a sewer and we convinced him to let us sell his Flying Fish banners. The following year, the George Peters Indian Fighter made its debut. The Indian Fighter left the catalog in 1996, but was replaced by George's Square Flyer in assorted patterns and colors. (We currently sell not only his Indian Fighter which is still made in the USA, but three different designs of his Square Flyer made in China.)

The 1997 Catalog was full of firsts and many of them lasts: it was the only Into The Wind catalog printed in the Slim Jim format instead of the usual digest size. It also was the only catalog where George Emmons surrendered the layout to a graphics company which resulted in a catalog cover that pictured a conglomeration of 16 kites (hinting at the chaos you'd find inside the covers). And, it was the only catalog where we purchased a couple of "stock" kitefliers (up until then, and since then, all of the catalog photos with models have been taken by George E.). But on the positive side, it was one of the few catalogs with a dedicated designer section which included kites from Italian designer Maurizio Angeletti, Texan Joel Scholz, Jim Rowlands and Martin Lester of the U.K., David Ti's wind creations, one whimsical offering each from Stan Swanson and Peter Lynn and a page devoted to George Peters' Buzz Bee, Dragonfly, Cloud Bird and Square Flyer. After 1998, George took a breather again until 2007 when his Sky Bird once again found its way onto the cover, this time made by Into The Wind in China.

When I told George that I was going to do a little blog about his kites he emailed, "I'm flattered." But I think we're the ones that have always been flattered. From the very beginning, Jim and George were enthusiastic about selling his exotic designs in their new, tiny kite shop on East Pearl. Over the years we've been honored every time we convinced him to let us, once again, include his products in the catalog. And finally, he paid Into The Wind the ultimate compliment when he agreed to let us make his kite designs, in China no less.

Now that he's not making kites himself, George has tons of free time. (That's a joke.) To find out what he's up to check out the Airworks Studio Blog and while you're at it, think about picking up a Square Flyer. We'll make all three designs of the $35 George Peters 2009 Square Flyer $28 until July 15th just to get you in a George Peters frame of mind.

It's that time of year.

Hi everyone! This spring we have been busy receiving and inspecting a ton of ITW kites. This has kept me extremely busy as my primary responsibility here is quality control. Even so, I thought I would take a moment to blog about this to let you know how important quality is to Into The Wind.

The process of making kites begins with George and Mary Ann working hard with designers such as Christoph Fokken, George Peters and Dan Leigh. Prototypes are made, adjustments are requested and the kites are approved for production. We know that we are making excellent kites, but we still take the time to guarantee this even after they are shipped to us.

Here is an example of our process:

• Depending on the quantity of a specific kite received, I will randomly pick 12% or more of them to inspect. We never inspect less than 12% of a shipment and frequently, we inspect 1/4 or more of the kites we receive.
• We have created checklists tailored to each kite design in order to make the review process efficient. I assemble a kite, compare it with the checklist and make sure my random samples are correct. Some of the things we look for are:
  • Proper spreader length
  • The sail and case are perfect with no fabric flaws
  • Stitching is secure and even
  • The pattern/design is correct
  • Bridle measurements are as specified
  • Secure and proper detailing and fittings
• Each kite design has different specifications. Currently, there are 53 different worksheets that list each kite's review points. (We make more than 53 kites but the same worksheet can be used for different diamonds or deltas.)
• Each style of kite has different needs, a delta's spreader should not be too tight, but a box kite's spreaders should be just tight enough. These are small, but very important details I look for when inspecting our shipments from China.
• If the kite is a new design or if we have changed something since the last production run, one of the kites is given to George who personally test flies it. With George's stamp of approval, we know it is a good kite and we can ship it out to our customers. Any kite that has been test flown cannot be sold as new. It then goes into our "Bargain Bin", give us a call and we will let you know what we have in there!

I admit I am biased, but I think quality control is the most important step in our kite making process. It gives us an opportunity to make improvements for future production runs while also guaranteeing that the kites are ready to fly now.

That's about it for me. I have got to get back to some Sweet 16s that aren't going to Q/C themselves! Oh, and that kite that is folded just perfectly in its case... yeah, I looked at that one.

The China Cycle

We received the "sailing advise" today, telling us that our ITW kites are leaving China. "Sailing advise" is the lingo to let us know that the container actually made it on the ship and that the ship has actually left the port in Shanghai. The vessel, Hanjin Phoenix, is sailing to Los Angeles with our kites. Well...some of our kites. Some are still being manufactured. We ordered the 80 boxes of kites that are on their way to us on September 24, 2008. We spent the following month preparing the instructions and tags and updating the worksheets used in production. But since October 21, 2008, we've pretty much just been waiting for it to happen. It's exciting to finally have product on the way to us, especially when we're running so low on inventory of so many kites. But this gives you an idea of how long it takes for us to get product from China. By the time it hits our back door, six months will have elapsed since we placed the order. Once it's here, we'll need to inspect a percentage (usually about 10-15%) to make sure the kites meet our quality standards. If it's a new product, if it doesn't pass the QC inspection with flying colors or if it's a product that we haven't recently ordered, we'll fly it to make sure it's A-OK. (That's George's job ;-) Fortunately, most products whiz through these steps and are ready to be sent to customers within a few days. But with 22 different kites arriving, it could still be 3 or 4 weeks before it's all in stock. Of course, we'll receive the products with the most backorders first and work our way through to the in stock kites, just in time for our next shipment.

I've been emailing our factory in China to see if the rest of our order will be leaving March 10th, which is looking doubtful at this point. To complete the cycle, or more accurately, to begin it again, we're hard at work with Christoph Fokken on new products for 2010. We had a meeting with him in January at the Kite Trade Show and have already exchanged several emails and phone calls as he gets to work on prototypes. Our goal is to accelerate the process (of course, that's been our goal for the last four years, as well) so that we can have kites on the way to us before Chinese New Year, when most factories in China shut down completely. I guess that means we'll be trying to place an order sometime this summer. So if you have any spare crystal balls lying around to help us predict what will happen in 2010, by all means send them our way.

Twenty thousand and counting

The Into The Wind Hata has been made and sold by Into The Wind since 1983 (almost since the very beginning). Inspired by Japan's Nagasaki Hata, it was designed by ITW's owner, George Emmons. It made its debut in the 1983 Catalog of Kites as the "Wind Tracer" for $11.50. At the time, George was cutting and framing the kites at home and Jim Glass (George's partner who passed away in 1997) was sewing them at the store. It's hard to say what color the kite was back then because the 1983 catalog was mostly black and white and there's no mention of the color choices.

In 1985, the color photograph on page 28 of the catalog featured the red solid color (still the most popular variation) Hata for $12.50. Overwhelmed with business (and with too little time to make the kites) the Hata was left out of the next few catalogs. Jim and George were still making a handful to sell in the retail store but not enough to fill mail order demand. In 1988, with the help of a local seamstress, it was once again included in the catalog for $12.90 and a choice of colors: red, hot pink and fluorescent orange. It was the '80's after all.

In 1992, we introduced the first Into The Wind Hata variation, the Windmill Hata, with panels in multiple colors for $16.95 and switched up the colors of the solids, always keeping red but discontinuing the hot pink and fluorescent orange in favor of lime, neon blue and raspberry. Around 1995, with sales of Hatas exceeding 1,000 per year, Stan Swanson, (designer of the Elephant kite) took over production. Over the next ten or 11 years, we introduced limited edition variations including the red, white and blue USA Windmill Hata, the black and white Crystal Hata, and the tie-dyed Rainbow Hata. We added purple and gold to the solid color offerings in 2001.

In 2008, we shook things up again when availability of the spreader that we'd been purchasing for years from Glasforms was essentially discontinued. We'd been buying the spars in three-year quantities but balked when they demanded we purchase a ten year supply. So, the Hata was redesigned for the first time, made just slightly larger to accommodate a stock 3/32" spar instead of the special order spar. We also introduced two new graphics courtesy of Christoph Fokken: the Kensei Hata and Color Wheel Hata.

Unfortunately, Stan Swanson's kite production capabilities proved inadequate for the demand generated by these new designs. He's continuing to make the solid colors for us in 2009 but we've moved production of the Kensei and Color Wheel Hatas, along with two of our fighter kites, the Korean Fighter and George Peters' Indian Fighter to Heads Up in San Diego. Originally employed by Top of the Line Kites (manufacturers of the Hawaiian Team Kite and Spinoff) back in the day, Heads Up is Mike Dennis and Pam Kirk. They've been keeping "Made in the USA" alive and well for kites for the last 15 years. We're thrilled to partner with them and look forward to having our bestselling Hatas in stock all year! Efficiencies in production and materials have helped us to keep the Hata affordable. It's only $19 including line in our 2009 Into The Wind Kites & Wind Art Catalog.

Over the years, we've sold upwards of 20,000 Hatas, multiples to some customers that love it as much as we do. That's just one of the reasons it's our staff favorite. We recommend it all the time and think of it as our "one in a million" kite. And that's not too far off since we're at 20,000 and counting.