Circofoil kite

The Amazing Circofoil. Comming full circle.

Hi!

I would like to share this kite with you, I am pretty sure you have not seen this one before. It only took me more than 10 years to say this. Let's find out why:

Somewhere in the eighties/ nineties kites became hugely popular again. Specially because of some exciting powerkite designs like the Wipika inflatable kite, the Nasa

Power Wing and later the Arc by Peter Lynn. Before that I never have flown a kite but probably there was something in the air. Flying a Nasa Power Wing one day

changed all that. I had to reset my mind to what kites look like and were able to do. I saw the light. No even worse, I found the love of my life.

I never bought a kite either. (Cheap supermarkt kite excluded) There seemed to be a sacred marriage between flying kites and building them. Actually it was a no￾brainer for me since I was only 13 years old. The Nasa Para Wing plans were already available on hard copy. The Internet was still a foetus. Now you just google: NPW5

kite plans. My hard earned cash was spend on every inch of fabric I could get hold of and every spare hour was spend behind the sewing machine. In retrospect you

could think that spending every available hour behind the sewing machine has led to social isolation but the opposite was true. The newly found confidence, creativity

and enthusiasm brought new interesting people in my life. It paved the way to where I am now.

Building and flying kites was the way to go forward. The Internet was the catalyst to broaden my horizon. Peter Thomas' foilmaker software and later on David

Aberdeen's SurfPlan was used extensively and sparked the designer in me. I was taken over by designs that flew without the aid of any integral support like sticks and

spars. Peter Lynn took it to the next level by creating the Arc. A sparless, bridleless ram-air inflated kite shaped like an arch. To me it was the holy grail in kite design.

Then there was the Circoflex. A kite flown on a single line. The circular shape. Serene, simple, elegant, perfection. But it had those dreaded spars! Could I make it fly

without spars? My attempts on making Arc-style kites learned me that the aerodynamic forces in the kite itself is what it takes to maintain its shape. A wild guess, David

Aberdeen's SurfPlan and all the know-how I gathered over the years I put into this kite. It turned out to be the first single line kite I made and designed. The feeling of joy

and accomplishment you get with the first attempt of making this kite and seeing it fly cannot be described. I was over the moon.

Over the years the love for kites faded. It really was something in the air because I saw it happening to others in the kite community as well. Maybe it is like the change of

seasons and I am just waiting for spring to come up again. The kite lying dormant in my attic has waited long enough. It's time to fly and inspire others to fly a kite too.

Posting this to the Instructables community means that it has come full circle. For this instructable I made a completely new version of the kite without the use of SurPlan

or Foilmaker so it's easier to acces. Many thanks go out to my sister for helping me out with the drawings and calculations.