Two flyers, three Scorpions

One of the classic kites that, for some reason, I hadn't even flown yet until recently, is a Flexifoil Scorpion. And then, as if the universe wanted to make up for that, I ended up with three Scorpions in a very short space of time ...

Scorpion #1 was a SC06:

And Scorpion #2 a SC04:

At that point, I thought we'd simply have a pair of Scorpions to fly. Until I got my hands on another SC06, and that triggered an idea ...

How about stacking two of the Scorpions (one of the SC06s and the SC04), and then fly that 2-stack side-by-side with a single Scorpion (the other SC06)?

First create a stack, of course, which turned out to be pretty simple.

I sort of guessed the length of the stacking lines, but they behaved really well together at the first attempt!

Even though the wind was quite light (6-9mph), they developed quite a bit of a pull.

So, time to get the single Scorpion involved!

My initial guess was that the stack would fly a bit slower than the single kite. Twice the weight, but less than twice the effective sail surface area. Turned out my guess was right: the stack indeed flew noticeably slower than the single kite, though not by much.

And the fact that the single kite flew a bit faster than the stack just screamed 'refuel' at us. Could the two of us fly a three-kite refuel?

Turned out to be pretty easy; certainly easier than trying to take a picture of a refuel while flying it!

As you may know, as Flying Fish we're constantly looking for unusual kites to fly at festivals. I think being able to fly three Scorpions like this counts as unusual.