Build A Circular Aerofoil Kite

[Waalcko] fell in love with kites when he was 13 years old. He saw a NASA Para Wing kite fly and couldn’t get it out of his head. Now, years later, he shares how to build a circular foil kite design he came up with.

We’re all particular about our chosen hobbies. Some of us like one design direction and hate another. For [Waalcko], he really hates internal supports in kites. When he spied a single line kite in a circular foil configuration he was enraptured, but the design had those hideous spars. So, he got to work and pushed himself to the limit coming up with a kite that was a circular foil, flew with one line, and had no internal supports.

His instructable is a great read and goes into deep detail about the basics of kite construction. (After reading it we’re certain that even the shallows have depths when it comes kites.) It goes through the terminology used when talking about kits, the techniques used to assemble them, the common problems, and more.

Many hours later, if all goes well, one should end up with a really cool kite.

13 thoughts on “Build A Circular Aerofoil Kite

  1. If you want quick, cheap, and easy you can also take a cheap broken umbrella, bigger is always more fun, remove the spokes and attach shroud lines to the old spoke attachment points. Bring half of the shrouds together in one riser and half to the other keeping the shroud lines in order. Shroud lines should be about the diameter of the canopy.
    This is obviously a great parachute for big model rocketry if packed and wadded properly, a fun two handed kite, and also a cool ceiling mounted toy or stuffed animal storage basket. Leaving the rear two shroud lines unattached to the risers and rather run inside the risers (using 550 parachute cord sheath) to exit near the handle loops and then attach there, you can steer your umbrella para-kite by wrapping trigger fingers around the two ‘release’ lines to spill a bit extra air, similar to how a military C9 parachute with Waters release does. The release lines will require a little work to get them just right.

  2. I’ve made 4 of them, they are a challenge to sew. When you have the correct wind, they move around the sky and bounce off the ground. They are a crowd-pleaser.

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