Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee

In a comment to our second blog post, Rich Edwards, a friend and (soon to be ex-)colleague, challenged me to fly a routine to "Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee". He really threw down the gauntlet there, and if you don't know this piece of manic music, here's a reminder:

See what I mean with 'challenge'?

Meeting this challenge kept nagging at the back of my mind, and I'm very pleased to announce we've done it! We did need the right conditions for it, which in this case meant a 15-25mph wind. And we also needed the perfect kites for it: a set of small and very fast kites, home-made for the team some time ago:

Because the piece of music lasts just a minute and a half, we could easily make it up as we were flying, throwing in chases, wraps, infinity wraps, and anything else we could think of more or less at random.

It took a few tries to land the kites at the end of the music, simply because we had to listen to the music a few times to know when the end was coming. Last run we landed perfectly!

Rich, we've met your challenge now! And not only that, it also gave us a fun little thing to add to our portfolio, to be flown when the conditions are right. Thanks!