Portsmouth International Kite Festival

Saturday 23rd - Monday 25th August 2003

Location: Southsea Common, Portsmouth, Hampshire
Organised by: The Kite Society

Page 1: Introduction | Peter Lynn | Single Line Kites
This Page: Revolution Megateams | Aquilonisti Vulandra | Misc | Team Flic | Links

Revolution Megateams

Watching the Revolution Megateams was definitely the highlight of our weekend. Various members of the Flying Squad, Team Flic, Scratch Bunnies and Mobius Flix were drafted in to fly in the megateams, which had up to 15 people flying in formation. To see the whole crowd around the arena standing still, just looking up in amazement at what these guys were doing, was a fantastic moment.

Aquilonisti Vulandra

The Italian Gruppo Aquilonisti Vulandra flew many different sizes and shapes of kites throughout the weekend, including their huge UFO, Codys, flowers, and even an orchestra with conductor! Their cheerful Italian style was most welcome at Portsmouth.

Misc

Amongst the many things to see at the festival was Robert Valkenburgh's Wind Gallery, with aeolian harps, musical chimes, wind turbines and flags, which provided motion and sound the whole weekend.
A rally of 15 SMART cars visited on Sunday, it was interesting to see how they had been customised. One we saw had a bass speaker in the boot that was so large that there was only room for a small bag next to it! Hardly practical for kites...

Team Flic

Sabine flying Custom Revolution

Meet Sabine from Team Flic of Toulouse, France. She designed and made this Revolution sail, as the shape of the kite reminds her of a boat's sail. Team Flic flew in the megateams throughout the weekend, as well as demonstrating their own kite ballets to music.

Philippe flying Mini Revolution

At first sight this may look like a normal Revolution 1.5 being flown on long lines. But look closely - the kite is actually a 1/3rd scale replica and flies on 5kg line! It was made by a friend of Philippe's and is very twitchy and light to fly. I had a go of flying it for five minutes and it's lots of fun!

Postscript:

On arriving home I was dismayed to find that two of my SmartMedia memory cards in my camera (Olympus C3030) had become corrupted and unreadable in both the camera and an external card reader. They contained more than 180Mb of photos from the weekend. However, after downloading a demo application from LC Technology I was pleased to find that their PhotoRecovery software could read and recover most of the files. I purchased the software online for $40, downloaded it to my PC and I had recovered my photos within the hour. Without it, you would not have seen most of these pictures. I highly recommend it! Thank you.

Links:

Aeolian Report from Portsmouth 2002

Aeolian Report from Portsmouth 2001

Aeolian Report from Portsmouth 1998

The Kite Society

How to draw the Union Jack correctly

Gruppo Aquilonisti Vulandra

Team FLIC

Pedro & Esteban Gonzalez

V6 Kite Team - Marc Vanden Broeck and their Portsmouth photos Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

Peter Lynn

Other Portsmouth 2003 Links:

Milotxes Digital Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

Imperium Aer

Mobius Flix

Dave Williams

Rasga

Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower Links

We did wonder what the concrete tower being erected in Portsmouth Harbour was, and have found out it is going to be called Spinnaker Tower. Check out the links below to be enlightened!

Spinnaker Tower: http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/pcc/residents/yourcouncil/planning/cplpan/infshs/inf/cplmilltow.cfm

Photos by David Packman: http://www.hampshirecam.co.uk/jun3003.html

BBC report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/southampton/webcams/spinnaker_tower.shtml

Watch the tower grow: http://www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk/Custom_Pages/CustomPage.asp?Page=1358

Portsmouthand.co.uk: http://www.portsmouthand.co.uk/home/tower.cfm#

The Tower: http://www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk/mk4custompages/custompage.aspx?SectionID=4565

The View from up there: http://www.portsmouthtoday.co.uk/mk4custompages/custompage.aspx?SectionID=4540