Kites built in Summer, 2013

Here are 3 foam & carbon kites that I built in July, 2013.  They all have EPP foam-cored wings.  The two nearest ones have 3-foot wingspans, and the far yellow one has a 2-foot span.  The far one is covered with strapping & packing tape over the foam and carbon spars, while the 3-foot span ones have Japanese paper covering the foam and spars.  The front body pods are of similar construction to the wings, and the tail booms are carbon tubes.  The tails are coroplast sheet.  The wings rubber-band on to the bodies. They hold up much better to high-speed crashing than the balsa and paper planes do, and they go very fast.  The red one is the fastest because it has the smoothest finish on the wing, due to 2 layers of paper over the foam, a very thick wrinkly paper base that has been clear doped and sanded, and a second, thinner layer with the coloring you see.  The blue one only has one layer of medium-thick, somewhat wrinkly Japanese washi paper, so the finish is a little rough.  The yellow one is finished in mylar packing tape, so it's pretty ugly, but quite strong.