liftingkites

Feb 2 – Lone Ranger Update

2/2/12

Some more great photos from Don and Joe in the Atlantic Ocean. They used the kytoon and the white and red rokkakus today, using the higher kite to take photos of the lower kite. They also engineered an aerial photo of the research team on the deck. This day they traveled from sample station #3 to sample station #5. Upon arriving, everyone went swimming.

Feb 1 – Lone Ranger Update

2/1/12

Don and Joe took some great photos of Sargassum at station #3 from the lifting kites and from the collection boat. The fisheye photos were taken from the GoPros–either on the kite or on a handheld pole. The lower-res photos with the black borders are from the Axis cam. Expedition log: http://www.schmidtocean.org/story/show/608

Jan 31 – Lone Ranger update

1/31/12

Here’s the first photo update from Don on the Lone Ranger. He and Joe are on a 14-day voyage between Bermuda and the Bahamas to help scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute document the Sargassum population in that area. They took the aerial photos using GoPros and a Canon G12 on an inflatable rokkaku kite and an inflatable Fled. The camera rig shown is a gyro-stabilized mount that hangs from the kite bridle or kite line. In the photo it is holding the G12 and the Axis cam, but we can also use it with GoPros or other small or mid-sized cameras. The rows of Sargassum that are visible from the higher-up kite shots are called windrows. The SOI cruise […more]

Testing new rokkaku kites

1/17/12

Dudu and Betsy tried out a couple of new rokkaku kites this morning, and he, Don, and Betsy went out this evening to try some more. The photos preceding each label depict that model in flight.

From Dudu:
Our prototypes from versions 26 27,28,29 and 30 are made with the 2 piece light Dacron material with the closing seam on top of the tubes. This caused the curve to be flatter than usual.

We tried to fix this issue on version 30 by adding more curve to the design, but we also changed the curvature flow, getting more curve at the center than the tips. This resulted in the same maximum, but the new flow is not ideal, making […more]