Thornbury Carnival

When we flew at Minchinhampton Kite Day, we were approached by someone who introduced himself as the organiser of Thornbury Carnival. He explained that every year the Carnival has a different theme, and for 2017, the theme was 'flight'. After seeing our pair, team and mega-team displays, he was very keen to have us fly at the Carnival. So the question to us was: what would it take for Flying Fish, Airheads and Flame to come to Thornbury and put on kite-flying demonstrations? Well, easy question to answer: a bit towards travel costs, and we're game!

So, for us our first invite to a much bigger and more varied event. Unlike the 10-20 minute slots we normally have at kite festivals, we were now given two 1-hour slots, alternating with a falconry display. And with Flying Fish as well as members of Airheads and Flame present, the plan was to put on a sequence of demonstrations, going from one person flying a single kite, to pairs (with and without tails), to a 3-man team, a 4-man team, and ultimately a 5-man team. All with commentary to explain to the public what's going on.

Conditions were far from easy, as the field was surrounded by trees, which created a lot of turbulence. That made it difficult to judge appropriate kites and lines to use, as was evidenced by Barry and Fran suffering several line breakages between them (fortunately, we'd just switched to heavier lines!)

So besides flying as a pair (our Adiemus routine), we flew as a threesome (with Fran):

We flew in a few different foursomes, with Pete, Jay and Barry:

And we flew in a team of five, the "Flamin' Fisheads"!

Not bad spacing, especially given the challenging wind, eh?

Additional picture credits: Thornbury Carnival (3-man flying), Jay Taylor (4 kites in a wrap), Sharon Savell (5-man thread)