Fractured Axel

No one else seems to have mentioned it so I thought I'd throw out a few random thoughts.

Weather was an equal mix of cloud and sunshine, we all got burnt, we all got wet. Wind was variable, we broke spars on the Psycho and a leading edge on an Enigma in high winds then had to get the Breeze and Phanom Elite UL out on the following day to be able to fly anything.

There were a number of demo flyers about for the week (we arrived on the Sunday of the first weekend and left after the last weekend of the festival) including: Ray Bethel, Team Too Much Fun (Mark & Jeanette Lummas, Susan Shampo and Ron Despojado), Windjammers, Evolver, AWITA, Element'Air and Jean Lemire & Jean Lamoureux.

I'm not going to do an in depth review, just pass on a few of the highlights.

Ray Bethel: Yes, he commits the cardinal sin (in FA'ers eyes) of flying kites with tails on, but he is amazing to watch. When he gets it right it's just incredible. It does seem, though, that there is some Canadian by-law which says you must fly more than one kite, as they all did it (only Ray demoed 3 though). Maybe it's becuase the country is so big? They obivously don't live close enough to someone else to fly pairs with.

Too Much Fun: Over the course of the festival this 4 person team flew 4 or more demos a day and used about 10 different routines (as far as I can remember). Their 10 minute 7 kite routine (4 Revs, 2 Lithiums and 1 other 2-line) was unlike any other kite routine I've seen and well worth watching, if you could stand listening to a medly of tunes from Oliver for that long. What characterised their routintes (and that of the individual French flyers) was the way in which they matched the music. All the motion on the beat and really good use of movement to match the mood of the music.

Skydance: Yup, for one performance only Mark and Jeanette Lummas were joined by Stephen Hoath and Skydance took to the air again. I thought the routine was good when Mark and Jeanette flew it as a pair, when Stephen joined in again it was brilliant. You can see why they were 3 times European cup winners when flying as a team.

Various French Flyers: In team and individual. Some of the individual routines (often flown with Transfer XTR's) were really good. Yes they did the tricks but when they slow down a Jacobs Ladder or a Cascade so it perfectly hits the beats on the music... I've got one routine on film where that happens, you can just about hear the appluase, not from the audience sitting on the 500 seat grandstand, but from the other flyers sitting in the corner of the arena.

Single line kites: Some of the most fun and imaginative I've seen, also some very clever ones. One of the Korean singing ones was cute, we stood under it for ages and still could work out how a single tensioned piece of ribbon could produce so many distinct, repeatable musical notes.

Random bits:
The British tourists, having had to wait for a delayed ferry, turning up at the British tent (parked in the middle of about 10 football pitches worth of kite flying space) and asking "Is this some sort of kite thing?"

Conversation between Rhys and hotel receptionist on night flying day when Rhys walks in dripping wet,
Receptionist: You look a little wet.
Rhys: It's raining.
Receptionist: Welcome to Dieppe.

Staying in the closest hotel to the festival, you could have watched the kites without even getting out of bed.

Trying to find a resturant which didn't serve "Moules", a fruitless exercise.

Night flying, the local council turn off the street lights and the festival organisers have stage style spotlights to follow kites around the sky. Watching the shadows of kites as they flit across the building on the seafront and, in the case of odd Rev, making classic Batman signs on the clouds. Mind you it was a "bit wet" on that night. It looked like the sort of weather in the opening scense of Blade Runner.

Even the good flyers make mistakes. I have video evidence of a Robertshaw doing the walk of shame! I think we can let Skydance off with the mistake on the 3 kite refuel, they did get it back in.

The tolerant locals. It's a good job they like kites, by the last Sunday if you walked around the streets by the seafront and looked up you'd see lines, handles and kites attached to various rooftops, pylons and cables.

Yep, that was the festival I was at too...

2 years is a long wait.

The best thing about Dieppe is that it's on for so long that you can relax, chill out and even spend a day looking at single line kites

The worst thing was when a fence (you know the type, portable 8 ft long lumps of metal used to corall people) got blown over and went through the sail on my Fury . Might need to return it to Carl for a new panel but I'll try repair tape first.

Keith

I was impressed by the fact that as well as being able to buy the official poster, you could also buy a rokakku kite of the official poster.

I haven't tried flying it yet, but it looks really nice.

Unfotunately our small person doesn't like fireworks, so we had to miss the night time show on the last saturday, but that sounds like it was really impressive.

Yep, greatest festival we've been to yet

Highlight 1. French team Transfer routine - awesome, never seen 3 man team like it.

Highlight 2. On the tuesday I flew in the areana with my 'vented Jam' (with practice golf balls on each stand off) and did a 100m side slide in 30mph winds did anyone see it, did anyone see it?

Highlight 3. On wednesday, some Belgian guy performed 'an emotional but sincere' two line ballet routine to music for 10 mins ...... but looked like he only took up flying kites late on tuesday evening! - Peter (fishface), myself, and 3-4 French fliers nearly needed resuscitating afterwards.

Highlight 4. Thursday. Having manned the tent of the 'British Contingency' for a few minutes to provide a break for our officionado's - I was privvy to an interesting meeting when one of our 'elected represetatives' was heard in conversation with our French colleagues.......

Jean Paul : Bonjour Derek, av yew zeen zee group of my freinds from Italy - I was zuppossed too meet zem at 12 o clock for zum dinner?

Englishman : (Loudly and gesticulating with hands and arms as though feeding oneself) Oui! Oui Jon Paul .... Dimanche, dimanche, dimanche!

Highlight 5. The 4 line routine at the 'nightfly' on saturday in the rain - The spot lights can follow the 'Revs' and their 'lines' as well to great effect.

Highlight 6. An old very leathery man (half naked) that seemed to be flying 3 kites at once. I went over to show my appreciation of this amazing geriatric - and when I shook his hand, he almost broke my fucking wrist!

Highlight 7. A 'fit italian bird' who was doing the Comet as well as many other great moves (Lindsey, if your reading this - she was 'plug ugly' and could never make Pasta like you do sweetheart).

T'was great. 'I'll be back'

misterbleepy wrote:

Unfotunately our small person doesn't like fireworks, so we had to miss the night time show on the last saturday, but that sounds like it was really impressive.

Just so you don't miss out next time, there were no fireworks!

Keithgrif wrote:

Just so you don't miss out next time, there were no fireworks!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhhhh!

(but thanks for the info)