Gargoyle

After seeing a picture of Pierre Fabre's mask kite I had to have something similar. Of course, I didn't just want to copy it. The image I finally based my kite on was designed by my wife. I call it the gargoyle kite, but it is a friendly sort of gargoyle.

(6K)

Framing the kite was a bit tricky. Essentially, the kite is ellipsoid, but simply running a spar around the perimeter is not an option: the sail would assume a concave shape under wind pressure, which is notoriously unstable. Yakko kites suggest a method of stabilising ellipsoid shapes, but I wanted to have a flat kite to simplify appliquing. My solution was to bow both the spine and the spreaders, resulting in a stable convex shape.
Consult the plan for further details.

An alternative solution is to make the skin itself convex, by removing an appropriately shaped segment from the ellipse and sewing it together again. I didn't do this, because determining the proper segment shape is difficult without CAD; also, I suspect that appliquing this kind of shape could very easily lead to distortions.

A lesson I learnt making this kite was to avoid small-scale details: they simply aren't visible in the sky. I had to go back and redo quite a bit of the applique, because the lines were too thin to produce a proper effect at a distance.

Technical Specs:

• 8mm carbon spine; the curved spreaders are 3mm and 2mm fibreglass; the straight spreaders are 2mm carbon
• skin made of Chicara
• 2-point bridle
• wind range: lower medium to medium; I haven't yet flown it at higher wind speeds

The Gargoyle plan was published in issue 3/2000 of Drachen: Sport & Design