Back in the late '60s as cavers at Texas A&I at Kingsville we used to use the roof of the football stadium press box to rig ropes from and practice rappelling and prussiking. The stadium was surrounded by about 40 acres of unobstructed parking lot, mostly just dirt with a smattering of caliche spread upon it. There was a group of physics/engineering?? students who were building large kites and trying to make um fly. They had built a box kite that was the size of a Volkswagon bus--or nearly so--and had a 1/4-inch nylon rope as the kite string. (We were rappelling on 7/16ths Goldline.) Of necessity, the wind needed to be moderately brisk to launch the thing but that gave it significant lift, as well. I remember at least 6 extremely surprised team members rushing to help 2 or 3 launchers (who were being lifted off the ground several feet) hold the thing down and under control and all being dragged along and often jerked from off the ground for literally 2 or 3 hundred feet before stil l more people--including some of us cavers--pitched in and helped them get it steadied up and reeled back down to the ground. If we hadn't been there just by chance they wouldn't have had enough people to get it back and I'm not sure they would have had the wherewithall to just let go of the line. We had gloves and some of them didn't and still the rope cut into my hands so much that they hurt for several days afterwards. I'm sure that some of them had open rope burns as a result of it.
The damned thing flew well--perhaps too well--and pretty much of its own accord. (I think if they'd had a pole to tie it to it might still be airborne.) No one was hurt except maybe a few who fell down and were dragged a short distance and scraped before figgerin out that they could let go. I recall they also had a huge but more traditional T-kite on another occasion, but couldn't get it to fly reliably. They kept adding tail to stabilize it until the tail got so heavy it dragged it down. --Ediger -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Robert E Burnett" <bburne...@austin.rr.com> > > Greetings All, This incident happened over 25 years ago and involved a group > of 5 kites each with a potential lift of a couple of hundred pounds. > Actually no wrists were broken or anything else (except my illusion of > control) for that matter, however, severe sprains of the wrists did occur > when I impacted the ground.. When one flies a kite that generates 1000 > pounds of lift or more one must be very careful lest one be lifted off the > ground. These particular kites, dual line parafoils, are steerable and can > be managed if no gusts or sudden changes in wind direction occurred. Also a > large open area is required. > Similar kites are now used for powering inline skaters with a death wish and > ocean kayakers and even larger boats and ships. Google them. > > Rune > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Don Cooper" <wavyca...@gmail.com> > To: "Ted Samsel" <tbsam...@infionline.net> > Cc: <gi...@att.net>; <texascavers@texascavers.com> > Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 3:57 PM > Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Dangers of golfing > > > > Sure people get killed playing Golf. Hundreds die of heart attacks > > every year out on the fairway. > > Remember the movie 'Falling Down' with Michel Douglas's line: "Now > > you're going to die wearing those stupid clothes! And all I wanted to > > do is walk across your golf course!" > > > > Please Elaborate how Rune broke his wrists flying a kite! I'm > > thinking it from falling down, not from anything a kite did, right? > > > > -WaV > > > > On Nov 2, 2007 5:53 AM, Ted Samsel <tbsam...@infionline.net> wrote: > >> > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> >From: gi...@att.net > >> >Sent: Nov 1, 2007 6:36 PM > >> >To: texascavers@texascavers.com > >> >Subject: [Texascavers] Dangers of golfing > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> >-------------- Original message ---------------------- > >> >From: "Minton, Mark" <mmin...@nmhu.edu> > >> >> Lyndon Tiu said: > >> >> >People get injured or killed playing golf?! > >> >> > >> >> Killed probably not, but injured, sure. > >> >> Mark Minton > >> > > >> >A lot of golfers get killed every year by lightning. I don't know about > >> >kite flyers. > >> > > >> > >> Rune Burnett broke both wrists flying a kite once. This was like 25 years > >> ago.. > >> > >> T. > >> > >> > >> http://home.infionline.net/~tbsamsel/ > >> > >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > >> For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > >> > >> > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com > For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
