A Brief History of Kites & How to Build One Yourself

People have been flying kites for a very long time. There is a lack of archeological evidence of kites due to their fragile nature and all that remains are depictions and references to them in paintings, frescos, poems, written records and oral traditions. The oldest surviving kites are about two hundred years old. The oldest reference to a kite is over two thousand years old. One fact that is known for sure is that kite flying is more popular now than ever. There are huge kite festivals all around the world. The biggest being the Indian Ahmedabad Kite Festival which takes place on January 14th of each year where kites by the millions are estimated to fly during the two day festival that mark the end of winter.

Kite flying probably began as a tool to communicate with the spirits of ancient people’s animistic world. The Mayans are thought to have communicated with their ancestors by attaching messages to large disk shaped kites, as practiced in festivals by their descendants today in Central America. The Chinese are 

generally credited as being some of the earliest people to build and fly kites. They                                        Squeaky the

                                                                                                                                                                                                           Octupus

had the ideal materials to work with, silk and bamboo, both light in weight and 

strong. Kite building became an art form that seem to have developed independently around the world then spread and mingled with one another to create a myriad of new styles and design.

Kite 30" Diamond Unicorn                                                              Detonator - Dragon Ball                                              Mahi Fish

                                                        

Curiously Europeans are thought to not know about kites until Marco Polo brought back detailed descriptions of Chinese kites in the late 13th century. I find it hard to believe that ordinary people of Europe did not fly kites until over a thousand years later than the rest of the world. There is a drawing from 4th century BC Greece of a girl flying a kite. It follows that if Greek and Roman children played with kites then pre-medieval European children must have also.
Just as the textile technology enabled kite building on a broader scale, modern technology has spurned the growth of the kite industry to new heights. Using carbon fibers, graphite, Mylar, Kevlar, Tyvek and other space age materials in conjunction with modern design tools like computer modeling and wind tunneltesting, kite designers have been able to work around many of the old constraints of size, strength and weight and have created an enormous diversity of kites. Just about any object can be replicated as a kite and flown.

                                                                                                                         

Jolly Roger Penta Kite                                                                 Spongebob Diamond Kite                          Prism Jazz Stunt Kite (Spectrum)





See More: Kites

Want to design a kite to fly on Mars? Now you can with this nifty kite modeling program developed by a team of NASA scientists from the Glenn Research Center.
Interactive Kite Modeler Version 1.4a
Take the Guided Tour and let NASA explain the math and science principles of kite building and flying.

How to Build a Kite