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Past Events
Sept. 23-26, 2004 Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival ,
one of the finest hot air balloon festivals in the Northeastern
United States
Wood 'n' Kites arranged to have the World's
Largest Kite at the festival. This Magical Gentle
Giant flew on both Saturday and Sunday.
The
Mega-Ray was built in 1997 at
630sq.m. of lifting surface area. and
had its first official flight in mid June 1997 and has now flown at many
events all over the world. It is officially
the worlds largest kite.
The Guiness Record
certificate was issued for an officially observed flight of 22 minutes,
57 seconds at the Bristol Kite Festival on 7 Sept. 1997
“One of a Kind Kite”
Dimensions: 42 meter
wingspan and the body is 28 meters long (plus a tail that doesn’t count
as area) for a total of 630sq.m.
Minimum Anchor weighing in
at
“Six Tons”
History
The Mega-Ray was designed by Peter Lynn
and built by Phillip McConnachie. It has now flown many hundreds of
hours as the main feature at more than 40 events worldwide.
The design is derived from the trilobites, a
group of primitive arthropods, now extinct, but once abundant in the
warm seas of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods (between 400 and 600
million years ago). Most Trilobites were bottom dwellers, moving over
sand or mud for food. They ranged in size from a microscopic 0.5mm to a
gigantic 700mm Great emphasis has been made to have the kite move as the
represented animal would in real life. This approach has lent itself
particularly well to sea creatures, which can have the appearance of
“swimming in the sky”.
Vlieger Op in Holland flew the C.S. 550 Parafoil
from 1981 until 1996. This was the world’s largest kite until the
Mega-Ray’s arrival.
Along with this spectacle , we also flew our
famous 100 foot long Spinsock with the open end diameter measuring
over 17 feet.
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