A power kite or traction kite is a large kite designed to provide significant pull to the user.
They come in three main forms: foils, leading edge inflatables and supported leading edge. There are also rigid-framed kites and soft single skin kites. There are several different control systems used with these kites which have two to five lines and a bar or handles. Most foil kites are made for use on land as they are "opened celled" so air flows in and out easily, this can be used as a safety feature to depower the kite. There are a few exceptions for this with new foils that use closed cell technology; they float on the water while you relaunch.
Power kites are generally used in conjunction with a vehicle or board, such as in:
- kitesurfing on a kiteboard
- kite buggying on a purpose-built 3-wheeled cart
- kite landboarding on an all-terrain/mountain/land board
- kite skating on all-terrain roller skates
- snowkiting on skis or snowboards
- kite jumping, using a power kite for jumping above the ground
- man lifting, where a harnessed kite flier is moored to the ground or one or more people to provide tension and lift
- kiteboating, on a boat
Research is also under way in the use of kites to generate electric power to be fed into a power grid. Kites can be used to reach high altitude winds such as a jet stream, which are always present, even if ground level winds available to wind turbines are absent.
Kites of related design are used for sailing, including speed sailing. Jacob's Ladder, a kite-powered boat, set the C-Class world sailing speed record with a speed of 25 knots (46 km/h) in 1982, a record that stood for six years. A kiteboard was the first sailing craft to exceed a speed of 50 knots (93 km/h) in October 2008.
Power kites range in size from 1.5 to 50 m2 (16 to 540 sq ft). All kites are made for specific purposes: some for water, land, power or manoeuvrability.
Famous quotes containing the words power and/or kite:
“Hearing, seeing and understanding each other, humanity from one end of the earth to the other now lives simultaneously, omnipresent like a god thanks to its own creative ability. And, thanks to its victory over space and time, it would now be splendidly united for all time, if it were not confused again and again by that fatal delusion which causes humankind to keep on destroying this grandiose unity and to destroy itself with the same resources which gave it power over the elements.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“What is to be done with people who can’t read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)