Tony Ferrel

NEWS FLASH: “The Old Man” is building kites again.

My favorite pastime was walking the beach in Avalon, NJ flying my various competition pieces and talking to all the people about kites. Due to a decline in my health my beach time has been limited to one spot, flying my 4’ rotator. And then: Pride Mobility came out with a new scooter, “Wrangler”, it has 4 ATV 13” tires and dual motors. Needless to say, I immediately bought one, so now I can scoot all the way to the oceans edge at a speed of up to 10 MPH. Therefore: The new criteria for my new generation of kites will be: As big as possible and still be able to transport fully assembled to the beach on my new scooter.

KITE #1: Tulsa Points? point Five Oh

A Multi-surface dimensional flat and bowed kite that must compete in cellular, per Steven, at AKA competitions.

This kite is exactly 1/2 size of my original Tulsa Points kite, 7’ long and 4.5’ wide. The skin is .75oz nylon ripstop re-enforced with 1.5oz ripstop and dacron. The frame is: color vertical - 10mm LG, White verticals - 2100 LG, color horizontal - 2100 SG, other 3 horizontals - 1960 LG, & white horizontals are 1800 LG.

Lift is a tad less than 35 square feet

KITE #2: Peacock Jr.

A flat and bowed kite that is a tapered noodle. When I proposed it 6 yrs ago, Ron Gibian said it would not fly. I guess I’ll have to find that out for myself.

The main kite is the body of the Peacock, appliquéd to suggest rotation. It is 7’ long and 40” wide at the top. Then there are two tail sections which are the peacocks feathers; the flat part is 13” by 30” along with a 50” tail of multi-colored ripstop strips.

The skin is .75oz nylon ripstop; and the frame is: Vertical - 8mm LG; top horizontal is 1960 LG, 2nd horizontal - 1800 LG, bottom 2 horizontals are 3/16” FG.

Lift is approximately 20 square feet.

Kite #3: Descendants of Woodstock

Currently on the drawing board, but it will be a 5 kite train depicting the 5 races on earth.

Detailed plans for all these kites will be forthcoming as soon as I have time. I am looking forward to Spring when I can head to the beach on my new scooter.

Archived Profile:

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