Chapter 11

There is only one way to learn the practical art of kite-flying, and that is to begin and do the thing yourself--with many mishaps and disappointments at the outset. One of Mr. Eddy's practices when sending kites up in very light winds or in an apparent calm, is to reel out two hundred yards or so of cord in a convenient open space, leaving kite and cord on the ground until ready to start. Then, by taking the cord at the extreme distance from the kite, and beginning to run with it, he gets it quickly into the upper air currents, which are always stirring more than those at the surface. It is sometimes necessary to run for a considerable distance before the kite reaches a sustaining current; but a real kite enthusiast will not mind taking trouble; indeed he had better abandon the whole business if he does. It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up indefinitely as long as the flyer is willing to run with the cord at the rate of about five miles an hour.

In flying kites tandem there is always to be guarded against the danger of a breaking of the cord. Few people realize how hard a pull is exerted by a series of kites well up in the air. A strain of twenty-five or thirty pounds on the cord is not uncommon; and not only the strength of the cord, but the way of attaching it, is of great importance. There should be two strings (never more), fastened to the upright stick at its lower end and at the point of crossing, the upper length being about one-third of the lower one, and the two being adjusted so that, when taut, the kite takes an angle of about twenty degrees with the ground--which means that the kite goes up almost straight overhead, the string making an angle of about seventy degrees with the ground.

In sending up a series of kites to fly tandem, it is best to head the line with a small kite, three or, four feet in diameter, and gradually increase the size until a diameter of six feet is reached for the one sent last. This arrangement makes it possible to hold the upper kites by lighter cord, the heavier kites being reserved for the half of the line nearest to the ground; and thus there is a material lessening of the load to be borne. The first kite should be well up, say five hundred feet, before the second is attached to the line. But after that they maybe sent at closer intervals, sometimes with only a few hundred feet between them--say two hundred feet in light winds, and five hundred feet in heavy winds. Each kite in a tandem should have a length of at least one hundred feet of cord from the main line, and great care should be exercised in knotting fast the individual lines.

The best way of starting a second kite, after the first is well up, is to pay out about a hundred feet of cord for the tandem line, attaching one end of this to the main cord and the other to the second kite, which is left lying on the ground back downward. Then pay out the main line evenly until the tandem line begins to lift. As the pendent kite is borne higher and higher, it will swing for a while in a horizontal position; but will presently begin to flutter and sail sideways, and then finally come up more and more, until the wind catches it and it shoots up like a bird into its proper position. In fact, once the first kite is securely up, the others will fly themselves by merely being attached to the main line as described. Of course each fresh kite increases the pull on the main line, and the line must be made proportionately stronger as the tandem is increased.

RUNAWAY TANDEMS.

Mr. Eddy has had some remarkable experiences with escaping kites. One day at Bayonne, in July, 1894, while he was flying a tandem of eight kites in a northwest wind blowing eighteen miles an hour, the main line broke with a loud snap, and the kites sailed away towards Staten Island with the speed of an escaped balloon. One can scarcely conceive the rapidity with which a line of kites like this travels over the first four or five hundred feet after its release. An ice-boat goes no faster, and one might as well pursue the shadow of a flying cloud as chase that string. At the time of the escape the top kite, a four-footer, was up nearly a mile, and the other seven were flying at a good elevation. The consequence was that although, as invariably happens in such cases, they began to drop, the lowest kite did not strike the ground until it had been carried about a quarter of a mile, to the New Jersey shore of the Kill von Kull, which is half a mile wide at this point. Here kite number eight, a six-footer, caught in a tree and held the line for a few seconds until its own cord broke, under the strain, and set the other kites free. This check had lifted the other kites, and they now flew right bravely across the water, not one of the seven wetting its heels before the farther shore was reached. Then the lowest of them came to the ground, in its turn putting a brief check on the others. But its cord soon broke under the strain, and the six still flying went sailing over the trees of Staten Island, hundreds of people watching them as they flew--six tailless kites driving along towards New York Bay, the main line trailing behind over lawns and house-tops.

Then a queer thing happened. As the loose end of the main line trailed along, it whipped against a line of telegraph wires with such violence as to wind itself around the wires again and again, just as a whip-lash winds round a hitching-post when whipped against one. The result was that the runaway kites were finally anchored by the main line, and held fast until their owner, coming in quick pursuit on ferryboat and train, could secure them.

On another occasion, two of Mr. Eddy's kites flying in tandem broke away, and started out to sea, the dangling line passing over a moored coal barge on which a man was working. Feeling something tickle his neck, the man put up his hand quickly and touched the kite-cord. Greatly surprised, he seized the cord and made it fast; and he was not at all disposed to give up the kites when Mr. Eddy claimed them. There is no property, indeed, so hard to prove and recover as a runaway kite. For one thing, there is absolutely no telling how far a runaway kite will sail before landing. Mr. Eddy estimates that when the main line breaks, a kite well up in a twenty-five mile breeze will travel, before alighting, a distance equal to twelve times its height from the ground. This means that a kite straight over the Battery, in New York City, and a mile in the air, driven by a stiff south wind, might land in Yonkers if the cord broke. There is, by the way, an old-time ordinance on the statute book, prohibiting the flying of kites in any part of New York City below Fourteenth Street. This, however, did not prevent Mr. Eddy from taking recently a series of unique photographs (some of them are reproduced in this article), by means of a tandem of kites sent up from a high building near the City Hall Park. The only complication that resulted was a fierce contention among a crowd of idlers and gamins over the possession of one of the kites, which came down accidentally and lodged in one of the Park trees.

THE LIFTING POWER OF KITES.

A tandem of six or eight six-foot kites exerts a pull of thirty pounds or more on the main line; but it must not be assumed that such a tandem would lift and carry through the air a weight of thirty pounds. The weight of thirty pounds would be carried a short distance; but as the weight moved off, there would be a sudden lessening of the resistance on the line, and so of the wind pressure against the kites, which would soon cause them to sink. A tandem of strong kites in a good breeze might be made to operate a sort of jumping apparatus which, after being carried a short distance, would anchor itself to the ground until the renewed strength of the kites lifted it up again for another jump. But all kite experts are agreed that a kite's power for lifting loads clear of the ground must be enormously increased according as the distance to which the load is to be lifted is increased. It would be possible, for example, to build a tandem of kites strong enough to lift a man clear of the ground, supposing him to be swung in a basket from the main line. This, indeed, has been actually accomplished. September 18, 1895, in England, Captain Baden-Powell was lifted to a height of one hundred feet on a kite-string supported by five large hexagon kites. But Mr. Eddy calculates that to lift a man of the same weight (one hundred and fifty pounds) to a height of fifteen hundred feet, with a wind blowing at the same rate (twenty miles an hour), would require seven kites with upright and cross-sticks not less than sixty-four feet each in length.

The only other instance on record where a man has been lifted by a kite-cord was in the experiment of the great Australian kite expert, Hargrave, who, on November 12, 1894, placed himself in a sling seat attached to a tandem of his wonderful box kites, and was swung sixteen feet clear of the earth. The entire load, including the seat and appurtenances, amounted to two hundred and eight pounds. Mr. Eddy calculates that six of his bird-shaped kites, twenty feet in diameter, would lift a man and basket in safety to a height of one hundred feet, assuming the wind to be blowing steadily at twenty miles an hour.

THE METEOROLOGICAL USE OF KITES.

Although Mr. Eddy began flying kites as a diversion, he soon saw that there were more serious reasons for continuing his experiments. Having long been interested in meteorological problems, it occurred to him that good results might be obtained by sending aloft, on kite-strings, self-registering thermometers and apparatus for indicating the direction and strength of the air currents. On February 4, 1891, he sent up what is believed to be the first thermometer ever attached to a kite for scientific purposes. This was at nine o'clock in the evening on a cold winter's night, the thermometer registering ten degrees Fahrenheit at the ground. On reading the record after the descent, the thermometer was found to mark six degrees Fahrenheit, which indicated, according to the recognized law of decrease of temperature, that the kite had been sent to a height of one thousand feet. The law is that in ascending from the earth the temperature falls one degree for every two hundred and fifty feet; but subsequent experiments convinced Mr. Eddy that it was by no means to be relied upon as an indication of the height of kites. Not that the law is false; but it holds good only when the meteorological conditions above are the same as at the earth's surface, which is very far from being the case always.

Out of these experiments Mr. Eddy evolved an important theory which has since been abundantly verified. Seeing the frequent variations in the thermometric readings from what the law had led him to expect, he concluded that these were due to meteorological variations overhead; and that changes in the weather, say the approach of warm waves or cold waves, make themselves felt in the air strata above the earth's surface several hours before they can be detected at the surface. Observations extending over months at the Blue Hills Observatory, near Boston, and elsewhere, have abundantly confirmed this theory.

With this fact established, it followed, in Mr. Eddy's opinion, that it was perfectly possible to use kites in making weather prognostications; and, indeed, he has been doing this himself for several years with the best results. Whenever his kite-thermometers, sent to a fixed height which he determines independently by a specially devised kite-quadrant, show actual readings which are either warmer or cooler than the theoretical readings, he prophesies that the weather will, within a few hours, become warmer or colder at the earth's surface, and these prophecies are fulfilled in a large majority of cases. If the kite-thermometers show exactly the temperature which the law would call for, he prophesies that there will be no change in the weather.

It has also been demonstrated that kites may be used by meteorologists to indicate the approach of storms, which they foretell by a sudden and continuous veering over a considerable arc, usually about sixty degrees. This veering begins usually six or seven hours before a storm, and often as much as twelve hours. And another sure sign of a storm is the continuous and sudden dropping of the kites followed by a quick recovery, which shows that the wind is blowing in gusts interspersed with periods of calm.

In making a series of meteorological experiments which he conducted at the Blue Hills Observatory, Mr. Eddy often employed as many as eight or ten kites; and in August, 1895, he sent up twelve kites on one line, three of them being nine-footers. This is probably the largest number of kites ever sent up in tandem; and although on this occasion the line carried only the thermographs suspended in a basket, the whole weighing not more than two pounds, a very much larger load might have been carried, had it been desired.

Among many other curious things about the wind observed by Mr. Eddy, is the fact that the night winds are by far the steadiest and most satisfactory for kite-flying. On this account much of his work with kites has been done in the darkness, although he uses lanterns on the lines to assist him in locating the kites. It has also been demonstrated that the force of the wind increases steadily as the distance from the earth increases. Archibald proved this conclusively, by suspending a series of wind-measuring instruments at intervals along the main line, their registration showing almost invariably greater wind pressure at the higher altitude. Mr. Eddy has furthermore noted that, while the early morning wind is usually very light at the earth's surface, it is almost invariably good aloft; and he has again and again verified the well-established fact that all clouds herald their approach and are accompanied by increased wind velocity.

THE HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER MADE BY A KITE.

The modern system of flying kites tandem was devised by Mr. Eddy in 1890, although it was hit upon two years later independently by Dr. Alexander B. Johnson, the distinguished surgeon of the Roosevelt Hospital in New York. The tandem system makes it possible to send kites to far greater altitudes than had ever been previously attained. And here the best record is undoubtedly held by one of Mr. Eddy's tandems, sent aloft at Bayonne, on November 7, 1893. Mr. Eddy began to send up the kites at 7:30 A.M.; but, being hampered by light breezes from the east, found he was kept busy until half-past three in the afternoon in getting nine kites aloft. He had paid out nearly two miles of cord, when the top kite, a little two-footer, stood straight over the spar buoy in Newark Bay. The lowest kite, a six-footer, was hovering some distance inland from the shore, on a line from the shore to Mr. Eddy's house (where the end of the line was anchored) measuring fifty-five hundred feet by the surveyor's map. Taking two observations from the two ends of this base line, Mr. Eddy's kite-quadrant showed angles of thirty-five and sixty-six degrees; and these data, by simple methods of triangulation, were sufficient to determine the altitude of the kite, which was found to be five thousand five hundred and ninety-five feet--or something over one mile. The kites were seen by hundreds of persons during the fifteen hours that they remained up, the experiment coming to an abrupt end at ten o'clock that night by the blowing away of the two upper kites in the increasing wind. The escaped kites disappeared in Newark Bay, along with three thousand feet of the line.

Much interest attaches from a scientific point of view to experiments designed to test how great an altitude may be reached by kites; and for a year past Mr. Eddy has been working in this direction for the Smithsonian Institution, the hope being that he will ultimately succeed in sending kites two miles above the earth's surface. Professor Langley has been following these experiments with great interest, and has furnished Mr. Eddy with a special quality of silk cord which, it is believed, will give better results in meteorological observation than the ordinary hempen twine or rope. The great difficulty that Mr. Eddy finds in the way of making his kites reach great altitudes, is the pull on the cord, which increases greatly as the kites rise higher. It is probable that a tandem of fifteen or twenty big kites, reaching to a mile above the earth's surface, would exert a pull of one hundred pounds; while at a height of two miles they might, Mr. Eddy thinks, exert a pull of three hundred and fifty pounds; and at a height of three miles, a pull of seven hundred pounds. However great the pull, it is essential to successful flying that the man in control be able to let out or reel in the main line with great rapidity, and it is evident that a dozen men could not by hand alone accomplish this if the kites were sent as high as might be. It is likely, therefore, that, as the importance of scientific kite-flying becomes more widely understood, some simple dummy engine will be devised for rapidly turning the windlass on which the main line is wound.

Mr. Eddy has made frequent experiments with rain-kites, which he used for the first time in November, 1893. It is true that Franklin sent up a flyer during a shower, but in his case the rain was merely an accident accompanying the electric storm, which was his only concern. Mr. Eddy, however, has sent up kites in the rain for the purpose of studying cloud altitudes and other meteorological phenomena; and by this means he has discovered what was not previously believed to be true: that clouds sometimes sink to within six hundred feet of the earth's surface without actually coming down to it. In fact, Mr. Eddy has had kites disappear in a cloud at a height of only five hundred and sixty-eight feet. It has sometimes happened that clouds settling toward the earth have obscured the kites gradually, the top one becoming invisible first, and then the others in succession. Mr. Eddy has found that by such indications he is able to foretell the approach of fog four or five hours before it reaches the earth's surface, so slowly do the clouds settle through the air strata.

It is best to make rain-kites of oil-skin or paraffine paper, as the ordinary paper or cloth becomes saturated with the dampness and very heavy, thus lessening the buoyancy of the line. So penetrating is the dampness of clouds, even without a rain-storm, that the wooden frames sometimes become warped and the paste seams soak open.

DRAWING DOWN ELECTRICITY BY A KITE-STRING.

The scientific kite-flyer will find much to tempt him into the field of electricity; and will be able, not only to duplicate Dr. Franklin's historic experiment of bringing down sparks from the heavens, but may go far beyond this, taking advantage of the greater knowledge of electricity at his disposal and the superior apparatus. In the summer of 1885, Alexander McAdie, at the Blue Hills Observatory, got strong sparks at the earth's surface from a wire connected with a kite whose surface had been coated with tinfoil so as to form an electric collector. He also, by the brightness and increased lengths of the sparks obtained, proved that the electric force in the atmosphere is very greatly increased with the approach of thunder clouds; and also that this force increases steadily as the kites reach greater altitude, and _vice versa_. Indeed Mr. Eddy and others who have conducted similar experiments, have found the electric force so strong at certain altitudes as to make the manipulation of the conducting wire a source of considerable danger.

On October 8, 1892, Mr. Eddy made an important advance in electrical experiments with kites, by using a collector quite separate from the kites themselves, which were merely used in tandem to support the line on which the collector was swung and raised to any desired altitude. By this arrangement any accident that might befall one of the kites is less likely to ruin the whole experiment.

Much experience with the kite-collector has convinced Mr. Eddy that there is always in the air overhead, at all times of the year and in all weathers, an abundant, practically a boundless, supply of electricity. It has never yet happened to him to send his collector up to even so low a height as four hundred feet without getting a spark in his discharge-box at the earth. He has discovered, however, that the greater the amount of moisture in the air, the greater is the height to which he must send the collector before getting the first spark. There is no doubt that large quantities of electricity might be obtained by hoisting large collectors, supported by strong flying tandems, to considerable altitudes, and drawing off the supply at the earth by means of a system of transformers which would lower the electricity from the dangerously high tension at which it discharges down the wire, to a voltage that could be handled with safety. In his experiments thus far, Mr. Eddy has discharged the copper wire leading from his collector into a wooden box containing a pasteboard wheel with darning-needle axle and tinfoil edges. The axle is grounded, and the copper wire from the collector placed near the tinfoil periphery of the wheel, so as to discharge its sparks through the intervening distance, and by the shock cause the wheel to turn.

THE USE OF KITES IN PHOTOGRAPHY.