We are back home after nine days of flying and great hospitality from the organisers of the 31e Rencontres Internationales Cerf Volant Berck-sur-Mer. Apart from a few mornings with little or no wind and an afternoon of fog and rain we had great flying weather. With what basically turned out to be our own private arena most days saw us getting out (and having to pack) away multiples kite and inflatables.
In a break from previous years I chose to display the Polar Bears on the ground tethered to banner poles and with their front paws weighted rather than flying them and as a result they elicited more response from the public and kite flyers alike than they have don for all the years that I have displayed then as line laundry.
As usual Batman was the biggest hit with the children, but Mr Incredible also got a great response from the public. However the response from kite fliers was interest, he received great interest and high praise from those who make inflatable and know him as a character, but others commented that his legs and feet were out of proportion, which they would be if he was a human being but since he is modelled on film images he is how he should be.
The X2 performed reasonably well, in fact it was its low wind performance was almost as good as the X1; the reintroduction of the cross venting means that it can rapidly deflate , but at high winds it suffers the same problem as the X1 in that it has a pronounced lean to one side, hopefully with time I can tune this out
The Peter Lynn stacker was both a surprise and a disappointment, as I suspected the original bridles are too short and the keels are possibly too deep as they can blow in in quite a pronounced fashion, and during the night fly this flapping caused a very pronounced oscillation in the flying line, however that said it flew true and did its job throughout the festival in wide range of winds so it is one to ponder on and possibly worth making a couple more. Where the disappointment occurred was the fact that it won’t stack with the flowforms, thus a probably do need to build another one, and during the night fly though the lack of inner keels meant the whole of the bat signal was visible the large outer keels meant the viewing angle was very limited.
With the disappointment of the Bat signal during the night fly I am going to attempt a circular mattress kite, as the ones produced by the Long Valley Kite Flyers always impress during the Berck night fly, and a pattern is already printed and on my cutting table.