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.