KITE HIGH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 82, 8 April 1931, Page 6

KITE HIGH.

The golden age of kite flying wae before the advent of telegraph wires and power lines, and some wonderful things ha. 'J been done with kites in their heyday. George Pocock, who was the grandfather of the great W. G. Grace, was an expert on kite navigation. His kite carriages, which ran for thirty years, were famous in their day. The main kite was used as a buoyant sail attached to another kite. Experiment ehowed 'that two kites with a combined area of one hundred square feet could draw a carriage weighing two hundredweight; in strong breezes this weight could be considerably increased. The kites were of the usual round-headed pattern and were made of thick calico or linen. Special carriages were built fitted with brakes and special steering gear. The largest of them held sixteen boys. When a start was to be made, up went the pilot kite, and when a sufficient height was reached the main string was fastened on to the carriage, a pull on the lower string hauled the second kite up, and the carriage began to run. It must have taken a considerable degree of skill to manage the kites so as to adjust them to the variations of the wind and the changes due to the windings of the road.

■I had not seen a kite for years until the other afternoon, when I spied a small boy lazily sauntering'in the garden elope and hie kite, a beauty, lazily sailing overhead. Are boys still keen on kites, I wondered, or is it true, as I seem to think, that they have not bothered much about them the last few years? Nobody knew. Somebody murmured a word about Mr. Dick and David Copperfield; someone else referred to the "Boys' Own Paper." Then (suddenly it wae nothing but kites. Everybody that went out in the afternoon saw a boy flying a kite or heard that Jackie So-and-so was making one. The newspapers had pictures of boys with kites. Kites were in the air, in every sense of the word,

Pocock did other wonderful things with his kites. Beeidee attaining speeds of more than twenty miles an hour with his kite carriages, he used kites to draw boats and successfully raced them against ordinary, yachts. And eurely picking fruit by the aid of kitee was a novel idea. A girl sat in a chair attached by a rope to a large kite; she was hoisted up and moved quietly round a large pear tree, gathering fruit at her ease. What an adjunct for orchard robbers! I do not advise Young Auckland to try this. —M.A.R.