As the flight progressed, the shock absorber soaked up any changes of tension in the line. It also told us that the wind, all the way to a record altitude, was as smooth as wind in a wind tunnel. Only very rarely did it bounce up and down, and then only with grace and gradualness. The first pulley we used on the bungie stopped rotating after a while, forcing us to replace it. The replacement pulley worked flawlessly.

As with all previous flights, we sent a 2 metre radio beacon aloft on the kite, and we hung a strobe light from the kite's nose. The radio beacon could be picked up from 50 miles away. In the event that we had broken a line, this beacon would have enabled us to track the kite as it descended and very probably locate the kite and altimeters.

At about 5:20, we discovered that the Kevlar line coming from the capstan, had cut deeply into one of the nylon pulleys that fed line to and from the capston. This pulley bears the full pull of the kite, which by this time was nearly 100 pounds. This was the one time "Murphy" nearly stopped us cold. We walked out well ahead of the winch with two long fiberglass poles and somehow wrapped the line around the poles. Then we turned the poles at a right angle to the line, and took up the strain. Five members of the ground crew (Gord Moogk, David Little, Gary Janssen, Michael Hartwick and Michael Cannell) nearly exhausted themselves bucking the 100 pounds of pull for 34 minutes while we drilled, pried and cut the offending pulley off of the winch and replaced it with a stronger pulley. To the humour of it, these five men are able to claim that in all recorded history, they are the only men who have ever flown a kite by hand for 34 minutes at well over 13000 feet. The kite reached the record altitude during their struggle.

At about 6:00 we discovered that we could see air through the line storage spool. My guess is that of the 24,000 feet of line on that reel, all but a few thousand feet was payed out by this time. As it was late in the day, and since we had agreed with Navigation Canada to be down by 10:00 pm when we had filed our NOTAM, we began to haul in the line. All went well for the first couple thousand of feet. Then the line started to chatter on the take up reel. The chattering was so bad, that it grooved the surface of the hard plastic capstan. In due course we solved the problem by increasing the tension of the line storage spool. The line storage spool tails the capstan. The grooving was such that we needed to install an extra pulley to guide the line on to an unspoiled section of the capstan. For me this was the scariest part of the experience. I had fears of having to fly the kite through the night until the wind dropped enough to bring it down. Not so much bad design, as just not using the full capabilities of the winch or the lack of experience in using the winch. I know better now.

We hauled in the line at the rate of about 2 feet a second, which amounts to about 7000 feet an hour. It seemed like it took forever for the kite to get larger. Those who had been tracking the kite could now see it clearly. There were many times when I would go for 30 minutes without being able to visually locate it in the sky.

When we finally got below 3000 feet, there was no wind and only the winch kept the kite flying. Occasionally, the kite would take off like a hang glider heading for parts unknown. Then, I would speed up the winch and get the line pulling again. At about 300 feet I totally lost control of the kite. It was gliding down faster than I could pull in the line. Gary and other members of the ground crew, spread out across the field, tried to catch the kite as it glided in. The kite landed within 300 feet from where it taken off. I immediately checked the angle of attack adjustment device and discovered that it had only tipped the nose of the kite down slightly. This indicated the pull on the line at the kite had exceeded 100 pounds for only a second or three.

It took about an hour and a half working in bad light, and then in no light, to stow all of the gear and get ready to head over to the Kincardine Airport for coffee and have a look at the altimeters.

When Dave and Gary, who had set up the altimeters, set them to read out, they discovered that they had been thwarted by the Japanese instructions and had never succeeded in locking the altimeters in the recording mode. Therefore the only data recorded and displayed was the maximum altitude. Altimeter "A" read 14,580 feet. Altimeter "B" read14,720 feet. The height of the flying field as taken from the topographical map was 860 feet. Then there were the calibration curves for the altimeters. Altimeter "A" reads 120 feet high at 10,000 feet and 200 feet high at 15,000 feet. Altimeter "B" reads 40 feet high at 10,000 feet and 80 feet high at 15,000 feet. In addition to this, there are compensations for temperature and humidity but these adjustments will not change the final figures very much. The altimeters are in the process of being re-certified so that we will know that any errors in their reading is the same after the flight as before.

In retrospect, the conditions were as ideal as possible. Very little wind down low, meant very little line drag down low. Good wind aloft meant good kite lift. There was a bright blue sky and very few clouds. The line coming off the bungie pulley rarely dropped below 35 degrees...... and often was 45 degrees or higher. We surmounted all problems and only lost systems that were not critical to the success of the attempt. We did not break the line and the kite was as good as new upon landing. The teamwork bonded us together and our success will provide us with stories to tell for years to come.

At this point I surely hope that I can attract interest from Meteorologists and Environmentalists for the purpose of doing genuine and much needed scientific research using kites as mid sky, high sky or low sky platforms.

by Ron Clawson and Richard Synergy .

Article appeared in Kitelog November 2000.

Richard Synergy is the author of two books on kites. More information about Richard and his high altitude endeavors can be obtained at his web site.