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Flying a kite is one of the few things that does not use up any form of energy (except your own) to enjoy. There is that initial run to get the kite airborne but once its up you just enjoy its leisurely sail through the air.
In the beginnings, kite flying was not considered a leisurely past time but rather a serious means of fending off evil spirits and they were thought to have magical powers.
It is believed that kites originated in China before 1000 B.C. and widely flown in the East and the Pacific according to destrier.hubpages.com. They made their way to Europe via the Greeks and Romans around the fifteenth century but became popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by China by way of Holland when Eastern and Western cultures started to recognize each other. In the seventeenth century the English adopted the name kite after the highflying bird that had a long forked tail that resembled the familiar one on a kite.
As the enthusiasm in kite flying progressed, different shapes began to appear in the form of birds and dragons with elaborately painted designs. In the eighteenth century the kite became from just an elegant toy to a more serious instrument for meteorology flown around 1749 with thermometers attached to take temperature readings. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin made his famous flight to study effects of electricity.
In the early eighteen hundreds the dynamics of flight were beginning to be studied by observing how a kite flew. The airflow above and below the kite’s wings causing low and high pressure above and below the wing is the main principle of how an airplane flies.
Today, recreational kite flying comes in all kinds of forms whether they are sport kites flown in aerial ballet, power kites for acrobatic stunts or just kites for plain old fun. They come in all types of shapes sizes and colors as seen on www.kitestop.com. So find yourself a beautiful kite and go out on a nice sun shiny day with a slight breeze and watch it sore through the sky in its gentle graceful motions of flight.
