1 inch Freehand Hata kite, cocktail napkin.
Well the locksmith work has been keeping me pretty busy, so today I decided to sit down and make some kites.
I cut this sail a while back, but I wasn’t confident I could make it work, so I waited until I could work on them at home.
The little Hata here barely gets a positive flight angle, but it’s stable enough.
Posted in Hata, Miniature Kites
2 inch Sotich Hata, caterpillar tissue.
Today I have an Hata kite, which was nearly a failure.
I’ve wanted to do something with this cute little graphic, and hadn’t sat down to nail something down until yesterday. However once I had it together, I found that the silly thing didn’t want to fly right.
The tissue this is made from is particularly smooth, which I think has increased the load of the sail. Which is to say that I think the texture of the cocktail napkins takes away from the lift the sail generates.
This increase in efficiency (and another failure with the same material) lead me to try adding more tail strands, after all there is only so much dihedral that can be added. Fortunately the extra tail did the trick, but I’ll be experimenting some more with this in the near future. Stay tuned.
Posted in Hata, Miniature Kites
2 inch Sotich Eddy kite, cocktail napkin.
Yesterday, I had a few minutes between my chores and errands and a couple of meetings, so I knocked this kite out. I’ve wanted to play with a different sail, and this element of a cocktail napkin called to me.
One of my meetings was canceled at the last minute, but that meant I could stay longer at the other meeting, so I learned on the spot when the review of my son Zach was approved by his Eagle Board. We still need to hear back from Oregon Trail Council, but I’m looking forward to being able to say that I’m proud of my Eagle Scout. I’m proud of my son anyway, but it’s a nice feather in the cap to look forward to.
Not completely successful Hata kite.
Since I had a finished kite to share today, I decided to play with the Hata design. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts on the Hata, I’ve framed and tensioned the kites differently than my other kites.
So this one is an attempt to use the same materials as the Eddy and Shield designs, and use a bowline as well. Fortunately all the materials worked the way I had hoped (instead of the way I feared), Unfortunately it’s apparent I need some more practice with the techniques that I applied.
It works, but my OCD won’t let me be done with it. I’ll try again soon and share the results.
1.125 inch Sotich Hata, cocktail napkin.
I’m still playing with the same cocktail napkin from the last few days. One more of the butterflies was calling to me.
This little guy was wedged between a fold and more lettering, but I really wanted to see if I could pull off making it fly.
It isn’t really from a pattern, but I did use one of my Sotich Hata templates to pull it together, so I’m sharing credit with Charlie where it’s due.
The flying line is a bit heavy for this little one, but it does fly. I really enjoyed pushing my boundaries a little further, making the 2 inch kites is a pleasure, but the challenge of making this kite was wonderful.
By the way, I had a great time at the Pinewood Derby for Pack 53 in Waldport. The kids were a lot of fun, a sister entered a car (with horses on it), and they even fed me dinner.
Posted in Hata, Miniature Kites
2 inch Sotich Hata, balloon tissue
This is my second Hata, but the first this size.
It is a bit different than my other miniature kites, so far.
My first Hata was larger than the spars I currently have to work with, so it is framed with monofilament (which is heavier and more flexible than the other spar material).
My spars fit the 2 inch Hata fine, so being lighter, I used them. However, being stiffer the kite was too flat to fly. I hadn’t left room to tie the bowline that I’ve used on my Eddy and Shield kites, so I tried bending the spreader to create a dihedral, as shown below.
Bending spreader to create dihedral in flat kite.
Fortunately the immediate results were perfect, the kite flew great.
I’ll see how the dihedral stands up to my current storage method.
Posted in Hata, Miniature Kites
4 inch Sotich Hata, Snowflake cocktail napkin.
This is my first Sotich Hata kite.
It is framed with mono-filament fishing line.
Posted in Hata, Miniature Kites