APRIL 2009

Left: It looks like Mike Jenkins is using a light sabre but he is just flying a big delta into a clear moonlit sky. The line is bright white Dyneema reflecting a camera flash. The scene was surreal with a strobe lit delta at 300 ft silhouetted by a full moon. Kite flying over 400 ft is not permitted under any circumstances.  

Below: Image taken from my big red delta about 2,000 ft above the air strip. The camp is in the lower centre and a red/yellow delta kite can be seen nearby flying at about 500 ft above. The flying field was improve greatly by the clearing of 400 acres of woody weed north and south of the air strip just prior to the 2009 record attempts. A 17 acre copse of scrub remains top left.

The vertical track profiles above were on day 1 (R) and day 3 (L)  2009. The one on the left was the photographic flight described above. You can see the evidence of variable nature of the wind speed and also our efforts to work the kite higher. We eventually gave up after 3 hours but did get some nice aerial images.

Left: Horizontal track of day 2 flight and Below: Vertical profile. The ground level of 630 ft is subtracted from the sea level gps height for an above ground level height of 9103 ft.

The gathering storm clouds were ominous, heralding nights of rain and finally a massive storm that forced us to cancel further record attempts.

We retreated to the shearing shed to watch movies projected onto a white bed sheet.

Our campsite was awash and we waited out the foul weather then pack up and head back to Sydney. Disappointing to abandon the attempts but 9,103 ft is not too bad considering the weather.

Mike Jenkins - Lord Of The Flies