Fire Dart

If you've been following my blog, you'll know we're partial to 'old school' kites for our pair- and team-flying. So when a full-size Fire Dart popped up on eBay, I couldn't resist a bid. Turned out I was the only bidder, and for £20, the Fire Dart was mine!

Fire Darts go back to the time that stand-offs were optional, and had to be bought as an extra separately. My Fire Dart didn't have any, but with some help from the good people at the Gone with the Wind forum, who were kind enough to measure the length of their stand-offs, I made a set from fibre glass, arrow knocks, end caps and some tubing on the lower spreader:

So how does it fly? Pretty well! Nice tracking, able to fly tight circles, and quite light on the lines. Officially, the wind range is 3-15mph, but it becomes quite hard to fly below 5mph, and can easily take 15mph and more.

Given how it flies, we want to try and get a second one, which will not be easy. And to make this even more difficult, we're going to be picky about the colour. Ideally black + another colour. So black/pink, black/yellow, black/blue. Even another black/red would do, as we can then turn the sail round so that it becomes the mirror image of the one we already have. Red/blue would also work. I've seen pictures of a white/blue one, which we'd also consider. Or basically any other combination of primary colours. But not yellow/pink, or pink/orange, or any other 'soft colour' combination.

Got one gathering dust? We can offer it air time and the company of its own kind!