Skunks news page 10
Petes 10 metre panda day
Pete told me a while ago that he was waiting for some big inflatables from china and this Sunday we met at the tower to test fly one of them,the panda.Even though the weather was freezing cold and the sand was like walking on rock the sky was blue and the sun was shining which made the day better.The wind was at a good strengh but just from the wrong direction which at the tower causes bumpy winds on the beach,lucky Petes sled 81 handled that.
As this was Pete first big inflatable I helped him set up and adviced him to use a safty line on the bear which meant that the lifter had a 1000lb line anchoring it to the post and another 1000lb line went to the bear incase one or the other snapped.Pete is still scared of putting his lifter up higher after seeing mine snap and float out to see last year (you must get over this Pete) this made the bear in the bumpy wind and it took a while to inflate but after some time and with the help of Pete and myself we got the panda to grow to full size,the massive black and white bear filled the sky and looked superb and got lots of comments from the public and special family photos as well.
I did not like the 5 metre panda pete had got before because of its eyes but on the bigger panda it looked better and the only thing against this 10 metre panda is that the arm do tend to 'twist' which I have told Pete to sew a line in the paws of the panda to the thighs of the panda which would stop the twisting action of the arms.
In all I love the big panda and would think that his other 10 metre bear that he got with it would be just the same as the panda and look and fly great,well done pete for supersizing your inflatables.
Not only did Pet get some great inflatables but he got them at a bargin price of £125.00 each this was only possible because he had a friend frieght them over saving on the p/p it look longer but saved around over £100 so well worth having friends like that.
I did myself do some of my own flying by testing out my new quad the 'Batcat' and I was very please with it indeed as I did think that it would be just a fun quad with not a lot of control but I was wrong it handled very well just as good as a rev exp,the size and shape made it pull harder and the silly little handles are not my thing to fly it with so next time will fly it on the rev handles,there is a problem with getting in the leading edge which I have not solved yet and that is that the sleve for the leading edge has four layers so if you get the spars in the wrong holes they dont find each other inside,this can be anoying.Other then that the quad is well worth having in your quad collection and the kite come complete for around £70.
As well as the quad I did struggle trying to get the food theme up on a sled 36 but after an hour of farting around with it gave up and packed it away,Pete also tried a 36 with his parrot and had the same deal with the wind but even with the minor hassels we had a great time testing out the panda and having some quaility time together.
Later on in the day 'Nippa' Danny turned up on the beach with his new power kite and told us all about it and how he needed a pair of pliers to get the air in as it didnt have a return valve on it.He got it set up and jumped around for the day as well as having a fly on the batcat quad,later he asked me to take some photos so he can post them up on facebook,he also was gutted he lost his new pliers on the beach and it was when we was just leaving Pete handed him the pliers saying he found them on the beach and to be more careful with your stuff... lol .. and around 2ish we all headed off the beach to the warmth of our houses.....
If your looking for a big inflatable kite the 'New sky kites' have some real nice cheap inflatable for your collection you can find them HERE
And to end this write up here are the pictures from today fly.
Mystery of the sled 81
Today for the first time since before christmas I went up to the Haven for a quad fly with the old gang,and the February weather was dull,cold,wet and changable winds,the ground was soggy and the dog crap that I havn't had on the beach was everywhere,I got to say this has put me off going up the haven again in the near future,we also had the dreaded dog run through Daz's lines.But with it being Daz's 40th birthday I made the effort to get up there to give him a card and some beers for tonight and also had the chance to give Chloe her Eeyore bowl and mug. I was rewarded with a number of surprise items in the form of a new strong anchor wire from Colin and a superb big holdal bag from Mark,just great to sort out some room in my other bags of kites,thankyou both.It was great to see all the gang again after so so long,Bruce,Simon,Old Pete,Colin,Daz,Stuart &Dee,Margaret and Roger,Mark and the kids all turned out on this crap flying day up at the Haven.It was nice to see some new quads in the Martello group with Daz and his Bazzer eye quad,and the colourful quad Simon had. I am glad I went though for one big reason and that was After cutting away all the old line and bridle we managed to free the sail of the rail and laid it out on the beach to get some photos,it was I might say 'had it' after months in the salty sea and the sail was like rice paper easy ripping at the slightest pull,but what a find after all this time it must have been just out there in the sea for months,what made us laugh even more was that when I was posing for the photos a dog run up and sat right inbetween my legs looking at the camera's flashing away,he must like his photo taken. I took the smelly wet sled back to show the others and we all bantered about it and laughed,it was great to see that old sled again after all this time and now with its slump body I can lay it to rest in a proper grave,lol.
when Margaret told me there was a kite wrapped around the steps to the beach,''you don't think it could be your sled 81 do you Rob'' she said,only one way to find out and we headed of to where she had seen it and sure enough it was my Premier sled 81 which went out to sea months ago,it had been tied around the handrail leading down to the beach and it was near impossible to get it untied from the rail,so I walked back to the others and got some scissors and my camera telling the others that it was the old 81,Colin and some others had to come and look for themselves and we all spent a while getting the mess of the rail.
Young Pete's knot video
Pete Smith made a small video on a very handy new knot for the bigger single line kites,I think it will be most useful for some of us to learn this new knot for our kiting hobby so here it is,grab a bit of rope and start learning it now....Thanks to Pete for the kite den video.
Kiting for children in need
Its been over a month since I last had a good flying day and the winter blues were well inside my head,but after todays fly I have been 100% topped up with kite fever,I got home after the day and remembered why I love the kiting hobby.
So its Sunday the 7th of March and the skies were blue and the sun was shining bright,but still very cold.I had packed the car with way too many kites to be able to fly in one day but in fact just as many as I would take to a festival but the beach is always a bit strange with the wind and today although it was in a perfect direction it was blowing quite hard infact at about the strength of the limit of our kites.
I arrived at 9.11 am,light a fag and headed out on the beach,first thing up was my sled 36 to see what the wind was doing up at around 100 feet I would say it was around the low 20mph and this gave me an indication of what to fly.Next it was time to erect the banner and get the bucket out for the collections for the day,today it was for children in need and although the cold kept most public indoors we still collected a sum of £56.36p which don't sound a lot but when your going to be there flying anyway its all worth collecting for different charities while we are out flying.
So with the banner telling the public whats going on I got back to the task of getting some items up on the sled line,first up was 'Willy' the windsock boy and his trusty dog,by then Pete had turned up followed shortly by Stuart and Dee and then Daz,this held up the putting up of more kites for a while as we do like a chat when meeting up and it was a good excuse for a hot cup of tea.
Soon after it was all go with us all puting up more sleds to hang on more items,with the wind at the speed it was it was great for my ground stuff so I got the turtles out and the ladybirds which bounced around all day on the sand looking the best they have for ages,the kids throughout the day hugged,thumped,kissed and kicked the items while most just had to pose for photos on the parents phones.
Pete had up his spinning balls filling the sky with movement and colour and Stuart and Dee had up a sled with his home made items on it and also flying back and 
forth was his new whale from china,I have decided that I will get one after seeing his as I never did like them that much until I see it from side on and from the back view it looks so much better then the front viewing of the whale.
Just after 11am I heard a shout 'Hello Skunk' its was our good friends Gareth and Kel and Mark which was funny as we were all just talking about Mark awesome looking new sled he made and I was saying that I had not seen it yet,that soon got corrected as he got it up on a line for the rest of the day.Yet more turned up and it was Mark and his son Harry,'Harry the helper' as I now call him cos he loves helping me put up the kites kept busy on the beach while his dad froze standing around watching us all.
Gareth and Kel put up some nice spinners and other items and later Gareth gave me his new card for his new website which you can see HERE,his site is high tech and modern and is just getting going but I can see it becomming a popular kiting website for the future.FOOKITERS as they are known are a great kiting couple that are always helping out new and old kiters with info and gadgets so be sure you save the link for weekly view and please sign in with them.I hope the website goes well for them and remember guys there will be days when you think is it all worth it,I been doing the kite den for six years and sometimes the comments people make are not nice but then remember you can't please everyone and its you views that count on your website.Marks new sled didn't dissapoint me it was a awesome colour design and looked great in the sky,his kite making is well up there with Bruces stuff and I can see him getting into the single liners club very quick indeed making new stuff for his line.It was a great treat to see the guys on the beach flying with us and to hear that one off laugh from Kelly bellowing across the beach .
As time rolled on it was soon early afternoon and the rev was calling me to fly it,once again I interacted with the public and landed on the lamp post along the road,bounced on the railings and walked it on the beach,,one member of public said 'I bet you can't do that again' with a grin on my face 'no mate bit of luck that'.....
One other fun moment was getting out the premier spinner and as I held on tight the others gave it a hand to inflate,the pull was harder than I thought and I am sure my right arm is an inch longer than the left,roars of laughter from Kel as I was getting dragged about by it but the wind just got the better of it when I anchored it to a sand bag and the line broke making Stuart run down the beach chasing it,mmm time to put that away I thought.
So in all a great day with great friends and awesome kites,we loved it the public loved it and I hope you have enjoyed reading about it...o yes one thing did spoil it for me! I was happy clicking away on my camera when a message come up on it saying memory full,WHAT! I looking inside to find I had forgot to put in the sd card so only had the internal memory to use Dohhhh what a prat,so I dont have that many photos but I'm sure I will soon add the link to the others that got more photos of the day...till next time folks stay safe and have some happy days flying.
And from Peter Smith is his video of the day
Thanks pete that was great to see the day on movie format.