Dyneema®, the world’s strongest fiber™
WORLD ALTITUDE RECORD

 

October 2005

The October 2005 attempts were frustrating. For days we struggled with hot conditions and light,variable winds then suddenly on the 5th day, our kite was snatched by big winds at 4,000 ft and propelled upwards at a phenomenal rate. The winch motor could not cope with the load and burned out. The kite rocketed to 7,500 ft before we were forced to lock the winch and attempt to retrieve the kite by walking the line down. Eventually we retrieved it after 4 hours of struggle, downing it in trees 4 km to the east. We recovered the kite and line the next day. It was the end of our efforts for 2005 as could not use the winch without the full size motor.

Left is a typical wind profile that frustrated our attempts to fly beyond 3,000 ft. You can see the calm zone at 3,000 ft. The kite would stop rising at 2,500 ft and counter winching wouldn’t work.

Below is the profile that propelled the kite into 50 knot winds and 7,500 ft.

Kite up a tree after the wild flight to 7,500 ft. Farmer Steve help us retrieve with a ladder and chainsaw.

Above: is a screen shot of the GPS Team software. We started using GPSflight telemetry in october 2005. Left is the ground track and right is the altitude plot. Both traces are drawn in real time.

Winch as used in October 2005 and 3rd version. There are 2 versions after this and they were complete rebuilds but the basic layout remains the same. The yellow line is 300 lb UHDPE from Amika in Taiwan. It is similar in structure to our current Dyneema line from DSM in Holland but in my opinion not as compact or consistant in quality.