The 'Never Say You've Seen It All' Thread

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Above Top Secret makes my brain hurt.....I deleted my account there due to the overt racism & jingoism (as I recall at the time they were permitting posts openly calling for America to 'Do a Nanking' on China and I got a warning from their imbecile admin team for calling them out on it).  All the bulls**t there kinda comes with the territory though, so I can more or less live with it, but I'd really rather not. 

As for your following post, nothing 'unintended' there that I can see. 

[John Kettler]

Today's contribution is both amazing and useful. Vantablack is a carbon nanotube material developed to eliminate stray light from optical systems. Judge for yourselves. It's so black it actually can cause perceptual problems.One person likened it to "staring into the abyss."

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

One of my other hobbies is flying kites, I fly both fixed-bridle & depower power kites (from 2m² to 13m²) static, on a land-board or occasionally in a buggy.  I also fly a four-line stunt kite called a Revolution, it's pretty cool and a lot of fun to play around with.....In the hands of a skilled flier it can do amazing things:

I only wish I were that good with mine! 

Pretty cool huh.....Now check this out:

And now for something that's just damned alien.....The Airbow:

I so want one! 

Or maybe you'd prefer something a little more, extreme:

 

 

Not all kitesurfers are Lewis Crathern however:

Some go even higher:

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[General Jack Ripper]

Gotta be a little bit crazy to do that kitesurfing.
Here is something for your infotainment:
 

TGIF

[John Kettler]

 

 Andy,

Those kite videos were very cool. Had no idea such things existed. "Keep away" with a kite! You could really mess with people with the AirBow, especially if you had different configurations and/or changeable LEDs on it during night flying. Operating a kite in water (would ScotchGard or similar make the process of getting in and out easier?) was amazing--or was that those maniacs flying over piers. Bet the New MythBusters won't be replicating those any time soon. I very nearly got into hang gliders long ago, but my parents found out and diverted me to a much safer alternative, a sidelined '62 Triumph TR4 convertible formerly used by my dad's friend to take him and Dad to work. Not exactly. Turned out both tie rod brackets were cracked clean through at the weld to the frame, needing only one good bump to put the car out of control. We found this well after we had load after load of the neighbors' kids out for a quick run around the area with the top down and siting in and atop the bench seat. That one was fixed after being spotted during spark plug related stuff. More rides ensued, after which we discovered the second was in the same shape while doing a weeks later radiator removal. Grime and grease on the old car's frame hid the potentially fatal defect each time. Really fun car once fixed up!

Getting back to kites, when I was a boy, the kits were balsa wood strips and tissue paper, initially requiring the tissue be glued on, too. We built regular kites using thin strips of torn sheet for the tails and the alien to me box kites. I used to delight in "sending messages" up the string to the kites via a piece of paper sliding up the line while acting as a tiny kite itself. No Ben Franklin experiments in thunderstorms!

Later, after reading an article in NatGeo, we got into building small versions of Alexander Graham Bell's tetrahedral kites from paper soda straws, kite twine, plastic wrap and model airplane glue.

https://www.carnetdevol.org/Bell/kite.html

The biggest we built was a 10-cell like this one.

Image Credit: Gustavo Furtado (Own Work) via

Wikimedia Commons

We also had one night's worth of the birthday candle powered hot air balloons based on dry cleaner bags. Seven kinds of cool, but Dad decided one might set someone's house on fire, so initial enthusiasm became summary interdict.

My contribution for the day would've made prime Monty Python material then, but it is, alas, not funny now--because it's real!

http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/14/woman-with-mental-health-issues-asked-why-havent-you-killed-yourself-in-benefits-assessment-6574438/#mv-b

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited April 14, 2017 by John Kettler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, John Kettler said:

You could really mess with people with the AirBow, especially if you had different configurations and/or changeable LEDs on it during night flying.

It was your post on Vanta that made me think to post it, me and some of my Kite-Monkey buddies joked about getting a kite Vanta-Blacked, and having one of our electronics nutter friends wire it with LEDs so it could 'Cloak & De-Cloak' against a night sky.  I managed to get hold of some old fashioned missile guidance cable with the idea of supplying power via the lines rather than trying to lift batteries, but that was about as far as we went with it.

4 hours ago, SLIM said:

Gotta be a little bit crazy to do that kitesurfing.

Getting it wrong on land usually hurts more......Here's how not to jump with a fixed-bridle kite:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oveLq6j4JUw

Hint.....Once you're up there, letting go of those handles is a really bad idea! 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[John Kettler]

Andy,

You are truly twisted in your thinking. I like that about you! Wonder what Vantablack's properties are vs radar, not that there'd be much to detect anyway, especially were one to use reinforced carbon carbon tubes for the frame?

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited April 14, 2017 by John Kettler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Might be of interest to you that a kite developed (IIRC) as a braking system for the Gemini capsule is very popular with buggyists.....The NPW (NASA Power Wing):

http://straightchuter.com/powered-up-build-your-own-nasa-wing-kite/

Me with my Rev:

& being dragged about by my old 10m Speed:

Scarily powerful old kite that one is (& you are harnessed to it)! 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[John Kettler]

Andy,

Shall have to look at your latest kite stuff. Your kite is enormous relative to anything I ever flew, but when I was little, I had a few occasions on which I thought I was going to be pulled off my feet (dragged not airborne). Meanwhile, this headline sums up much of what's wrong with journalism these days. Are we to conclude that it's okay if a nonrandom, dare I say, already known (who provides the intro?) badger shows up?  Then there's the small matter that the victim was female, while the pic shows a man. Sigh.

Random badger turns up to BBQ uninvited and then bites a man

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/13/random-badger-turns-up-to-bbq-uninvited-and-then-bites-a-man-6573463/#ixzz4eHbpqhho

Regards,

John Kettler

[General Jack Ripper]

16 hours ago, John Kettler said:

Then there's the small matter that the victim was female, while the pic shows a man. Sigh.

The man was the victim.

[John Kettler]

SLIM,

After carefully going over the text, you are right. What threw my brain was that it locked up on the happened to her part while not properly noticing the prior part about a friend being the victim. Given this, my error on the matter was inevitable, and I do apologize.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

BTW John, regarding construction these kites are either ram-air (the power-kites) so with no rigid structure at all, just fancy bridling (depower kites change configuration to increase/decease speed/lift) or in the case of the Revolution, five carbon-fibre tubes and a sheet of nylon.

My other two depower kites are both Arcs (these are ram-air kites, but they need to be pre-inflated as they have minimal bridling):

Peter Lynn Phantoms - Stacking them like that is definitely not normal practice (that's around 60m² of kite in the picture)! 

These are my favourites as they are big gentle giants, they waft you up into the air then gently place you back down again.....If you let go of the control-bar they automatically head for the zenith where they will sit placidly overhead soaking up gusts (that would normally loft you) allowing you to just sit-back in your harness and let the kite support you. 

 

Edited April 16, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[John Kettler]

For when you want the visual results of Vantablack, but not the smell, limitations of use and export license, there's the quite affordable BLACK 2.0

http://www.boredpanda.com/world-mattest-black-art-material-black2-0-stuart-semple/

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

You forgot to mention the price of Vanta, it's horrendous! 

More stuff on 'Power-Kites'.....But these are a bit different:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/kite-power-station-scotland-wind-turbine-plant-electricity-a7348576.html

Massively better idea than ugly turbines, when the wind don't blow, the power-station don't exist.....When it does, well kites doing yo-yos isn't the most objectionable sight in the world and it's a lot better for the wildlife/UFOs. 

Edited April 24, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Michael Emrys]

15 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

...it's a lot better for the wildlife/UFOs,

Had a lot of UFO crashes in your parts?

Michael

[Sgt.Squarehead]

JK would be the expert in that field.....I just like kites. 

[John Kettler]

Here are things I'm not expert in, though I did manage something of the order of a baby crawl equivalent in a few of these. Some pretty extraordinary performances here, in all sorts of pursuits you've seen before and also probably haven't, involving, variously, dexterity, skill, balance, timing, concentration, strength, speed  courage or even something close to/at insanity. Blew my mind in places, took my breath away in others, astounded, confounded, left me in awe and repeatedly put a smile on my face.

Regards,

John Kettler

[BletchleyGeek]

A firefight in Vietnam, 1970

 

http://mashable.com/2017/04/29/trying-to-kill-a-sniper/#4ze8XRp41kqA

 

The light show reminds me a bit to the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, weirdly enough.

Edited May 1, 2017 by BletchleyGeek

[Michael Emrys]

4 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

The light show reminds me a bit to the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, weirdly enough.

I kinda see what you mean.

Michael

[BletchleyGeek]

2 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

I kinda see what you mean.

Michael

I should have added "as it would have been filmed by John Carpenter and/or Walter Hill"

[John Kettler]

This definitely makes the list, for I knew nothing of this incredibly brave WW II fighter pilot and his unplanned one-man war against the Luftwaffe!

http://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/17/one-man-fighter-squadron-30-german-fighters-held-off-by-a-single-p-51-pilot-protecting-a-squadron-of-b-17-bombers/2

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

'Ding Hao!'. 

I don't know if it's the same with Yanks & Mustangs, but it seems most British men feel the need to model a Spitfire at some point in their lives.....Some go just a little further than others: 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234999371-118-spitfire-mk-xive-race-80/

PS - The height adjustor on that seat works! 

Edited May 14, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Michael Emrys]

For what it's worth, in my childhood I built both Mustang and Spitfire models, including Spitfire flying models which I twice began but never completed.

Michael

[Sgt.Squarehead]

For some reason flying models have never appealed to me (my dad liked them though).....I guess part of it is that they're never truly to scale and the flying experience via RC is somewhat remote for my liking, I used to like flight-sims, but now I prefer whopping great kites and what I'd really, really like to try is this:

Guess I better get some practice first though! 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Michael Emrys]

Parafoils are pretty popular in my neck of the woods due to the fact that we have a lot of seaside bluffs and it is windy a good part of the time. I watched a guy one day who was taking advantage of that strong on-shore breeze environment. He would catch the updraft from the bluff and then glide far out over the water. After losing altitude in that process, he would glide back to shore to catch another updraft. He kept pushing it farther and farther from the shore, but he never got his feet wet.

Michael