Kiteflying in Adirondac, September 16 and 17, 1995

This year, for the first time, a kite-demonstration was organized as part of Adirondac Baloon Festival, New York State. Very active were Jim McLoughlin from the Sport Kiting Yankees (SKY) in Schenectady (as well as other kiters from that area) and Ralf Reed III from KONE, Connectikiters and SKY in preparing the festival.

Short summary: Friday: Arrival of several kiters at Jim's house, welcomed also by lovely wife Eileen. Planing to see the Baloon Start Friday morning - going at 4 am - me NOT. The McLoughlins and Reed's did go at 4 am! They saw the take-off of 100 hot air baloons and could produce a video tape. I slept through it and missed the only start of 100 hot that weekend ......... Maybe next year I will get up .... maybe..... Anyway, I saw the tape later.

Saturday: I arrived at the field at about 9 AM. Everything was prepared well already since a number of people were there since 5 AM. After eating breakfast donated by our sponsor Brugels Bagles we started flying. A large field was reserved for kiteflying seperated by ribbons! Early no wind, later more and more. Numerous kiters from the Fingerlakes region (Bob and Deb Hurd, Judy Johnson, Jim and Susan ???? from Syracuse (the club is called KISS, I guess Kites in Syracuse Sun or so), Family Lindenman, Paul Peters, Phil Dixion, Gary Drinkwine (well, we did....and beer), Raymond Patterson, Gary Sharp and Jim and Eileen McLoughlin from SKY, Dave Lombard and Terry Shines from Connectikiters, and the Reed's and me from KONE were the hard core of the festival. About 25 other kitefliers did show up - some from SKY, some newly interested in kiting by the event.

We all were able to demonstrate kiting to a large amount of spectators. Every hour different things were demonstrated: first dual line, then quad, stacks and single line kites. Symbiotic coexistance of single and stunt kite flyers.

Thanks to the help of all kiters I could fly 6 or 7 of my kites simultaneously (three 8 foot Rokkakus, 2 Patchwork Kimonos, and my Patchwork Delta). I also had my new Arches up! I loved it :-). Susan and Deb loved to fly my Kimono Kites. Paul Lawrance gave us his Arch and Ribbon too! Ralf flew some of his new kites (his bag increased 100% in volume in 4 weeks or so!).

Together with the Conyne of Terry, a big 252 Flowform with a megabig windsock, several smaller box-kites, flowforms and and and we created a really spectacular happening in the sky. In addition a lot of stunters were demonstrated by Terry, Jim, Bob and Deb, Judy and the other people of the gang! Another funny thing was that arches and ribbons really attrackt these quad pilots ;-). Deb had a whole lot of fun doing spectacular things with a Rev. under the arches. I have some really nice photos and will post them on the web soon.

Lots of attention from the spectators there - who were there because of the baloons. Hopefully new people interested in kiting! Later all were flying everything together. The wind was picking up to ca. 20 mph. Problems bringing my 21 foot Conyne down with three people - oops. Ask Dave, he was really getting exhausted, I was simply dead after that. Later: Kiter-Party at the house of the McLoughlin family! Ralf Reed III makes wonderful spaghetti. Raffle (hope the word is written like that....). Jim wins a wonderful stunt kite (so called butterfly edition, also now called The McLoughlin)donated by John Ruggerio. Other prices were a stack of Dyna kites (donated by Dave Young's Forever Young Kites), a kite-bag (donated by John Warden, Fingerlakes), Pins, and so on..... The stack as well as the bag went to the Reed Family. Terry donated the stack back when he was the lucky one. Thanks Terry :-).

Sunday: All sleep longer....the weather looks rainy. Arrival at field at 10 - no baloons that day. No wind that day. Lots of fun anyway! First we were flying some of my fighter kites. Then Bob Syracuse started the Axle workshop (no wind!!). Single line kiter Kai (me) never knew what an Axle is - after advice from Bob - surprize surprize - Kai Axle's (aeh - the kite). After that 5 people learned to axle in no wind! At 3 we were so exhausted from all the running that we did head home.

So, if you have the chance to go there next year - do it! It's really fun, very nice people there. Lots of spectators (100 000 over a typical weekend) and a very good flying field. And a spectacular possibility to see hot air baloons. If you don't sleep too long like me....

Happy Kiting

Kai Griebenow