High as a kite

I tried to fly my kite a couple of days ago down on New Brighton Prom. The wind was pretty strong, and the kite was flapping around all over the place.

After repairing the damage caused (spreader bar penetrated ripstop nylon) with some insulating tape, I tried again from a different more sheltered  location. The wind was a bit weaker, but very turbulent. It was impossible to get the kite high enough to find steady winds.

Today though, the winds are much lighter, so I went down to the Prom again, and risked sellotaping my little camera to the kitestring.

And I actually ended up with some footage!

 

As you can see, the results leave a little to be desired! I may need to attach a weight to the bottom of the camera to make it less affected by the buffetting. Also, attaching the camera to the string a little below the kite might help too.

Still, early days. If you click pause during the video, you can occasionally get some reasonably interesting still images. 

The little camera itself seems pretty shock resistant. It took some fairly hard landings, although no direct high speed nosedives, and still works just fine. I really wouldn't want to try sending anything expensive up there at the moment. 

Take two...

I added a pound coin and some blu-tak to the bottom of the camera. I also attached the camera to the string about a foot or so below the kite, instead of much closer to the kite. Finally, I attached the camera to the string with two pieces of sellotape, instead of one. I also used my Bren attachment, to facilitate launch and recovery. This time, the kite didn't crash to earth even once.

Here's the result:

Although still far from perfect, there are moments of lucidity here.

Bren has an idea for a housing. I've suggested adding a tail to the housing to make it point into the wind.

And then I found...

A bottle cage that I never got around to putting on my bike...

Attach camera to cage. Tie cage to kite...

And...

I tied the cage to the kite using only one piece of string. Hence the assembly was free to rotate. But tie it on at two points, and I think it's going to finally be pretty stable. You can see for yourself how much better this third try is.

Journey in absentia

I just went out to see an exhibition in Frodsham.

Just before I went out, I pointed Google Earth at Lands End, in the far South West of England, and zoomed in to street view.

From there I could only go one way, so I weighted down the up arrow key and left it wending its way along the A30.

Now, two hours later, I'm back home. But where will Google Earth be? Is it smoothly scrolling through the Devon Country side? Has it taken to going round and round some roundabout somewhere?

No. It had parked itself in a car park in Penzance.

Anticlimax!

I will try the same thing from John O'Groats.

Road Movie!

For some weird reason, firefox doesn't like me editing this post with the video showing. Putting it into Edit HTML mode seems to have sorted things out.

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Google Earth now incorporates Street View. Its rendering in Google Earth tends to be far smoother than the browser based version. So much so that it's possible to undertake a fairly coherent virtual journey. This I have done. The video below shows a part of what I did.

I'd like to imagine that this is what it would be like to drive after you've dropped a tab of acid. Somethng that I suspect would be extremely dangerous in real life, whatever Hunter S Thompson might say.

The journey takes you westbound along the East Lancashire Road, from the Golbourne Roundabout to the next major junction to the west, the M6 intersection. It's a journey I've undertaken many times in my life because when I was training to become a driving instructor, the training sessions took place close to Golbourne.

Funny how particular roads can have an impact on your life. The A41 is also of interest to me, as I posted last year, following a journey I undertook when I was 16.

The East Lancs road is technically called the A580. It connects Liverpool to Manchester, and is reckoned to be Britain's first Dual Carriageway. When I was travelling along it once or sometimes twice a week, a few years back, most of it was national speed limit, or 70 miles an hour. The last bit of national speed limit section is the bit in the video. It's now had a 60 mph limit introduced, so the entire journey is regulated by local speed limits of 40, 50 or 60 mph. The restrictions have been introduced mainly for road safety reasons, although I suppose fuel economy is also in the minds of the planners.

(saving at this point. Got more to add to this post shortly)

David Alvand's back garden as seen by the media

Nightmare neighbour

David Alvand refuses

to chop trees which

can be seen from space

Screams Australian Newspaper, The Herald Sun.

Well, let's see, shall we?

First of all, what is space?

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale has established the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 kilometres (62 mi) as a working definition for the boundary between aeronautics and astronautics.

The United States designates people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) as astronauts.

NASA's mission control uses 76 miles (122 km) as their re-entry altitude, which roughly marks the boundary where atmospheric drag becomes noticeable, (depending on the ballistic coefficient of the vehicle), thus leading shuttles to switch from steering with thrusters to maneuvering with air surfaces.

I landed safely at Liverpool airport!

I somehow taxied onto the southern runway at Manchester Airport ( 53°21'7.80"N, 53°21'7.80"N)

Via the grass...

Took off... Went too far south. Found a city. This turned out to be Chester, but I thought it was Wigan or St Helens. But anyway, I recognised the canalised bit of the River Dee. I used to work nearby.

From there I was able to follow the A550 towards Ellesmere Port, and circle round a bit over the Mersey until I found the runway. And I landed it without crashing. On the grass. But it did finish on the runway. ( 53°20'0.65"N, 2°51'5.76"W)

Progress!!!!!

Flying around an island.

Graciosa Airport (Portuguese: Aérodromo da Graciosa) is an airport in Graciosa Island in the Azores. It's precise location is 39° 5'32.00"N 28° 1'48.20"W.

(I wonder if there's a way of embedding kmz links into my posts here?)

Last night, I set myself a mission. Using the propellor plane, the SR22, I had to take off, staying on the runway, fly right around the island, and land on the runway again.

Taking off was fine. I can take off, no problem. Flying around the island was fine. I can fly around an island 3 times before breakfast.
Landing was not so fine. It never is. Scared and hesitant, I came in too slowly, lost my stability, and landed on a wing and a prayer, except without the prayer. At least I managed to crash on the runway.