Night Flying

Flying kites at night?

Sure, why not? Night flying adds all sorts of things to the experience - depending upon how you do it. It can take on the rush of hunting for the black cat in a dark coal cellar at midnight ... at speed ... or the joy of painting in bright splashes of light on a dark canvas.

There are many different ways to fly sport kites at night. The most obvious is just to wait until it gets dark, and fly. Why do you need to see the kite?

Black kite, Dark night, No lights

You get much more feedback through the handles than you would expect, once the eyes become useless. The only real problem is when the kite is a fast one - you won't be able to control it very well. A nice slow team kite is good for this minimalist style of night flying.

Of course, many people fly in areas with a lot of light pollution, so most of the time your night vision will be perfectly good enough to pick out the silhouette. If your flying site is directly lit by artificial light, then I wouldn't say that you were really night flying.

The next most simple method is to keep a light shining on the kite. A large Maglite torch is good for this, but unless you're a one-handed flyer, you'll need someone to aim the torch, and track the kite.

Unlit kite being followed by a D6 Maglite. 15s exposure

Perhaps you might like to try this with a laser pointer - but be careful with them, and don't shine lasers at people.

Next, try attaching lights to the kite itself. You have a very large nimber of options here! Some people have been known to sew LED lights into the leading edge, others like using the fishing/diving chemical light-sticks. Simply lighting the wing-tips and nose is enough for many people. Strobing/flashing lights are very effective on single-line kites, but confuse matters on moving stunt kites. I have seen a large single-line kite used as a platform from which to launch fireworks, but I think that's really beyond what we are discussing here.

I use LED lights from Fly By Night. There are 10 lights in a set, five on each side of the battery pack (two AA-size batteries, aka MN1500 or LR6, not included. Use Lithium batteries if possible. They cost more, but are much much lighter), which slips easily onto the spine of the kite. The lights cover the leading edge of a full-size kite, don't slip around in flight much, and are very tough, surviving for a long time in the kite bag with all the other junk, as well as the usually inevitable crashes until you get used to flying a kite that has just become heavier, when you can't properly see the ground or any other obstruction ...

From the right, stall, right-wing axle, stall, up and away


Fly By Night can be contacted in the USA on (206) 351-2385.

I have also started to take photographs of kites at night. I won't put them all on this page, but if you do follow the above link, be ready for lots of images!