Niagara Falls is certainly no stranger to visitors. The town’s many attractions, including natural wonder of the world Niagara Falls, bring tourists flocking to the border town every weekend. If honeymooners and sight seekers visited the gorge on the weekend of October 6-9, though, they would have had to contend with a giant octopus, a flying scuba diver, and boxes whizzing through the air.
The Niagara International Kite Festival took place once again at both Niagara Falls State Park and the much roomier Reservoir State Park in Lewiston, and drew enthusiasts from around the world to Western New York. The major event of the weekend was the annual contest to fly a kite across the gorge, which drew a University at Buffalo team to the falls. Attendees were also treated to a flight by the world’s largest kite, a string of kites across the gorge and, of course, the opportunity to socialize and show off their favorite compilations of sails, supports, and line in a unique environment.
Kiting isn’t just reserved to grade school boys in rural America. Those with a passion for kiting gather at an increasing number of kite festivals that span the globe—the American Kite Association (AKA) lists dozens each weekend during the fairer months. Festivals allow kite enthusiasts, generally a scattered group, to come together and enjoy their hobby.
“The best thing is the people,” said Richard Dutton, UB engineering professor and advisor to the UB kite team. “It’s kind of like a big get together for kite fliers.” Dutton was serving as de facto coach for a contingent of UB students at the event. Australian born, he has been flying kites for 16 years and holds the unofficial record for the most box kites on a single string: 161.
While Dutton’s emphasis on the social aspect of the event was echoed by all, there was also a degree of rivalry at the falls. On Friday and Monday, teams from around the globe competed in an annual contest to fly a kite across Niagara Falls gorge. The event is a recreation of a historic kite flight by Homan Walsh in 1848, whose kite line was used as a guide for building a suspension bridge.
“It looks easier than it actually is,” said UB kite team captain Tom Leach, who majors in mechanical and aerospace engineering as well as mathematics. The team of engineering students from UB was the group to beat this year at the Walsh competition, according to many attendees. At the 2005 festival, their first year of competition, they clutched a second place finish. “I think now that more people have heard about [our performance], more people want to beat us,” said Ben Richman, a sophomore mechanical and aerospace engineering major.
The kite team consists of only six members of UB’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) club, not including their mentor, Dutton, and their preparation for the two-day fight to cross the gorge starts early. While some of their kites are bought, the team also constructs their own. It is a time-consuming process—this year the team began at the start of classes.
To team members like Richman, the work is worth it for a shot at competition. “There’s the tactical aspect and the competitive aspect of it,” he said. “You try and coordinate everyone while you’re flying…it’s a hectic environment.”
After so much time and effort, things can still turn ugly in an instant. Crossing the Niagara Falls gorge is no easy task—last year, the team lost 16 kites to the currents of the river, although they came within feet of the railing on the opposite side. This year, the team tried some new designs, including a sled kite (which looks sort of like a huge, upside down apron) and a two-line wing kite recently designed by Australian kite aficionado Peter Lynn.
The ram air inflated wing kite, as it is technically known, is unique because it has no braces and keeps its shape due to the air flowing in and around it. It looks like something akin to a flying wing aircraft like the B-2 bomber. “The reason this was so useful for a competition like this,” said Richman, “is the dynamics of a flying wing. It’s basically self-propelled.” Of course, there needs to be some wind to get it moving.
Despite their painstaking planning, the results of the competition proved a point every Western New York resident must grapple with: there’s nothing you can do about Mother Nature. “There’s always that hope aspect because it never really works out if the wind doesn’t do what you want it to do,” said Richman. The team worked the American side of the falls from Terrapin Point on Goat Island all the way over to Prospect Point. There found no good location from which to launch a kite.
The poor wind currents accounted for the decreased number of attempts to cross the gorge this year. That didn’t stop the team from enjoying their efforts and, unlike the previous year, they returned with all kites intact (although the sled kite was treated to a dip in the falls).
The Walsh competition wasn’t the only thing going on during the weekend. Canada and the United States were joined, albeit briefly, by a chain of 1,000 diamond kites. Also gracing the festival was the world’s biggest kite, brought in by a Chinese team, sporting a surface larger than an Olympic swimming pool when unfurled. Leach helped fly the kite with seven others and said that AIAA “helped with the behind-the-scenes issues” (like keeping amateur would-be helpers at bay) at Reservoir Park, where the giant kite flew for about an hour and a half on Sunday.
Outside of the organized events, the festival drew a crowd of kite lovers eager to show off their kites high in the sky over Western New York, and each one had a unique story about meeting their passion. Scott Skinner, who came all the way from Monument, Colorado, got into kiting after his stint in the Air Force. “I like the link to flight,” he said, “and the footnotes in history kites provide.”
Echoing his thoughts was Christopher Ford, a sophomore aerospace engineering major and member of the UB kite team, who enjoyed flying model planes at his Hudson Valley home. He found the winds of Buffalo to be far too strong for his planes, however, and turned to kiting as the natural alternative.
Dean Jordan, who hails from Gainesville, Florida and was flying a 90-foot tall octopus kite Friday, has nursed an affinity for kiting since the second grade. “When my first kite wore out, my mom wouldn’t buy me a new one,” he said. “So I built it.”
Jordan has made kiting the focus of his life for 16 years now. He and other kite enthusiasts are involved in the movement to apply the power of kites to ocean vessels. Jordan’s company, Kiteship, advocates tethering large kites to boats, which has the potential to reduce fuel expenditure by 20 to 30 percent. According to Jordan, the setup is attractive to marine companies because “you can put a kite on a boat without changing the boat’s infrastructure at all.”
“Kiting has taken me across the world many times,” says Jordan. He was recently in San Francisco to accept an award in the California Wind Tech Competition for Kiteship’s work.
Helping Jordan tend his lines this weekend was Blake Pelton, from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Pelton shares Jordan’s zeal for kite powered ships, but he’d rather be riding a smaller and faster vehicle than an ocean liner.
He enjoys kite traction, an “extreme” version of kiting in which the kite’s lift is used to pull a rider on a variety of vehicles such as buggies or surfboards. Pelton has been sewing his own kites since the age of five, and finds that kiting takes him all over as he promotes the high performance kites sold at Peltonwindsports.com. He and Jordan are also planning to set up kiting activities at next year’s Burning Man art festival.
Despite the somewhat disappointing results in the Homan Walsh competition, the festival was still a rousing success. The weather was fair compared to last year’s cold rain, and while they didn’t pull off a successful run, the UB kite team is looking towards the future.
“I feel that we learned something new this year,” said Leach. “I believe if given another attempt, we could do it.” His plans include new custom kite designs and the possibility of multiple teams. Even if the wind doesn’t blow, it doesn’t get the kite fliers down. In Richman’s words, “It’s a lot of fun just to be out there.”
