For more events in the Southeast or others that may not be listed here,
click
here to visit the AKA Region 4 web site. There are also links to the
last few years of the WACKOS at the bottom of the page.
Sometimes, I don't get all the good pictures. But at least Jim &
Laura post them for everyone to enjoy. Check out the gallery at Kitefliers
Kite Gallery. And Jim Martin sometimes posts pictures on his Photo
page - http://www.fotki.com/jmartjr
December 2005
We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year.
We'll see you all on a flying field someplace
in 2006!
|
November 2005
| 5th - First Saturday Fun Fly |
| 12th - |
| 19th - Third Saturday Fun fly |
| 26th - Saturday after Thanksgiving. Anyone going to be around and want
to purge some Tryptophan? |
October 2005
| 1st - First Saturday scheduled fly |
| 8th - |
| 15th - Third Saturday and it was a beauty! Where was everybody?
The winds weren't perfect, and they rarely are, but there was enough to
fly something. The temperatures were ideal with hardly any humidity. The
field was the best we've seen it all Summer. Race traffic really didn't
get in the way. The few of us that were there flew pretty much the whole
time with a couple single liners keeping the sky decorated when we took
a break. We don't get many days like this! |
| 22nd - Some nice lightwind Sunday flying. Until the ex-high school
football players showed up. |
29th -
Festival By the Sea, Holden Beach, NC a.k.a. Grumpy Fest II
|
The weather was beautiful! The camaraderie was outstanding! Unfortunately
the winds were off-shore and extremely variable. Several kites took a salty
bath because the winds kept changing. It was not conducive to putting on
our normal single line show. One kite bath was the result of a failed trick
on a stunt kite. John, you really are supposed to hang on to the handles,
particularly when you're flying somebody elses kite. |
. |
September 2005
| 3rd - Blasted gas-buying panic in Charlotte kept us home this weekend.
But it didn't stop us from getting together at Frank Liske Park for the
first time since June sometime. It has been a long time since our bunch
has been on a field together, flying, eating and jawing. We did more eating
and jawing than flying but it was still a great time! |
| 10th - Nothing on Saturday but Sunday was GREAT! Some of us were
at Mint Hill Park for a few hours in the afternoon and the winds were super
for quads. Poor Hector broke another dual line and had to try Stu's Rev
1.5. For somone that professed to know nothing about flying quad kites,
he did pretty well. I sense another soul going over to "The Dark Side". |
| 17th - Third Saturday scheduled fly. Last chance to fly with
your buddies before they go to the convention. |
| 26th - 28th Annual AKA Convention begins in Ocean Cty, Md and runs
until October 1st. There will be WACKOS in attendance. Jim Podlasek put
some pictures here
.and
Jim Martin put some here. |
August 2005
| 6th - First Saturday scheduled fly |
| 21st - Third Sunday scheduled fly |
July 2005
| 2nd - First Saturday scheduled fly |
| 9th |
| 17th - Third Sunday scheduled fly |
June 2005
| 4th - 1st Saturday - Was anyone at the park? Guess not. |
| 11th - |
| 19th - It wasn't a bad day to fly ... until the thunderstorm showed
up. The wind was mostly light and good for UL stunters and fighters. Good
crowd of WACKOS, too. No pictures - too busy flying! |
| 25th - |
May 2005
| 7th - If you didn't make it today, you missed a beauty. The sun was
warm, the sky was clear, the winds were mild and variable and the flying
was pretty good. There were lulls but they were followed by decent winds.
Too light for quads but got in some good dual line flying. There was a
couple new kiters that joined us for the afternoon. They wondered where
everybody was on such a beautiful day. |
| 14th - |
| 21st - The winds weren't perfect, but kites were flying, the
Sun was shining and Stu got sunburned. Once again, if you missed flying
today, and many did, you missed a good day. Dory got a bunch of pictures.
Click here to see some of the best.
A couple of us went to Robinson Middle on Sunday to get in a little
more air time. |
| 28th - This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. If you'll be in town,
let's go flying someplace. Some of us want to fly at least once, maybe
three times - DOW - Depending On Weather naturally.
Write Marty or Stu if you're going to be around and want to fly. But plan
on coming to the Southern part of town because the only flyers at FLP this
month have lived on the South side. |
April 2005
| It's Official: April in North Carolina is Kite Month. Governor Easley
says so. The proclamation has been removed form the Governor's web site,
but I think I may have a copy floating around someplace. Write if you really,
really need to see it. |
| 2nd & 3rd - Day At The Docks unfortunately was a real blowout for
both the WACKOS and the vendors who showed up to display their crafts.
Friday night we had winds upwards of 50 mph and heavy rain. Some of the
vendor tents were destroyed. Saturday morning we had tropical rains and
strong winds in the morning. The rain stopped by noon but the winds were
10 - 24 mph, with gusts to 32 mph. Sunday was pretty much the same. It
was very disappointing considering the last two fests at Holden were so
perfect. Maybe things will be better this Fall. |
9th - Saturday is a National Kite Month event! Now officially called
......... Grumpy's Day Off Fun Fly & Kite
Extravaganza
We had a really good day - lots of sun and wind and fliers. We even
had a visit from the curator of the NC Museum of Kites and Curious Kite
Things. As predicted, a rok battle broke out and was quickly over. Twice.
I think the Dave Gomberg - Rok Battle - First Out Hat is on it's way to
Greensboro. I believe it has been there before. |
| 16th - 7th Annual Blue Ridge Kite Festival at Green Hill Park
- Roanoke/Salem, VA OR the 3rd Saturday Flying day at Frank Liske Park.
This is how I felt about the festival.
"It was an amazing experience. It was more like a fair than a
kite festival. There were food vendors, a kite shop (naturally), arts &
crafts booths, face painting and a kids kite booth that gave out 1000 sled
kites in the first 2 hours. The line to the kids kite booth was 100 yard
long by 10 a.m. At any one time there had to be 200 - 300 (or more)
kites in the air. The festival ran from 10 am to 4 pm and they had over
9000 (!) people come through. There was still a long line of traffic to
get in at 3:30 and it took over an hour to get into the place. The flying
area is larger than a polo field, well over 8 football fields and wide
open. There are some trees around the periphery, but I have never flown
in such a big space. We roped off an area for competition-style demos,
and put on bear drops and some single line stuff. The bear drops were really
funny - imagine 40 or more kids, running in one big group, chasing a small
bear on a parachute. The group moved with the bear as it got blown around
by the wind, running through other crowds, around booths and among other
kite flyers. And nobody got hurt! It was great to watch.
We hung out at the park after it ended and got everything packed up
by 6:30 and headed for a pizza joint for supper. Everyone was sunburnt
and tired but exhilarated from the days activities.
The Chamber of Commerce ran a first class show and all the sponsors
really took care of the kite fliers with great accommodations, a goodie
bag of munchies and plenty of water, an event t-shirt, a fine, plentiful
Chinese buffet at the park Friday night, a huge breakfast Saturday morning,
a great lunch on the field Saturday, and lots of small things that don't
readily come to mind.
Sunday was pretty good, too. About a dozen of us showed up at the park
to get in a little more flying and socializing before heading home. I was
just going to stop by on the way home and say Hi & Bye to a few folks
and then leave. I got there at 9:30 and didn't get on the road until noon.
Flew quads about 2 hours straight - it was a perfect end to a great weekend.
There's a forum on Gone With The Wind that talks about the fest and
the link is: http://www.gwtw-kites.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20862."
We have got to set out calendars for the 8th Annual Blue Ridge Kite
Festival in 2006!
|
| 23rd - The Laurels, unfortunately, was a washout. Maybe next time. |
| 30th - Charlotte Museum of History - Kites To Kitty Hawk exhibit
opens. I've added a short page on the exhibit. For information about museum,
see http://www.charlottemuseum.org
. As a teaser, I've put some pictures here.
And Jim Martin has added some to his photo page under WACKOS.
You really should come down and see the exhibit. |
March 2005
| 5th - Rained out! Had a couple things in the sky but then the wind
got cold, the drops started falling and we pulled it all down. Except for
our diehard stunters, Stu & Andy. Flying in the rain - reminds me of
St. Augustine last weekend. As usual, Louis' lunch was good food &
good company. See you all in Tryon next Sunday. |
| 13th - Foothills Equestrian Event Kite Demo |
| 26th - Lake Park Kite Day was another pretty good day even though the
winds were very fickle. The gray skies and threats of rain made for a smaller
crowd than last year but those that came showed some pretty nice kites.
A bunch of WACKOS showed up and all but a couple of us enjoyed lunch at
La Unica in Indian Trail. It was a pretty good day. |
| 31st - We hung a bunch of kites in one of the halls in the South County
Regional branch of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. The kites will be
there until the end of May, so visit the lebrary at Rea Rd & Hwy 51. |
February 2005
| 5th -1st Saturday. Weather projection >> Mostly sunny. Highs around
60. Northeast winds around 10 mph. If you ain't flying tomorrow, there
must be something wrong with you! |
| 26th - St. Augustine SKC - http://www.saskc.net |
January 2005
| 1 - Let's fly on New Year's Day and start a new tradition! Begin the
new year with something in the air!. Some folks have a "It's too D**n Cold
To Fly" party, what will we call ours? Again, let's try Mint Hill Park
today. |
15 - The forecast looks like: "Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper
40s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph." Other than the temperatures, it
looks like a pretty decent forecast. Lets get out and fly something. It
might be the last chance we get for a few weeks.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It was windy but it was a cold wind. Grumpy
& Joe had a couple single lines in the air with some new laundry. Linda
and Marty stood around with their hands in (their own) pockets and complained
about the cold. Jim & Laura came for a while, flew Jim's new Skydancers
for about 10 minutes. Then we all packed it in and went to Louis' for lunch. |
| 22 - |
| 29 - Let's have a "Try & Fly" get together at Frank Liske Park
today. If the weather permits, we'll fly something for awhile, then adjourn
to Louis' for lunch. The main idea is to talk about all the events going
on this Spring and get some idea of who's going to be where and when. Considering
the weather we're projected to have this weekend, the "Try & Fly" is
postponed. Check out the events below and the calendar on 2005Calendar
and think about which you want to attend. We'll try again soon to get together
and maybe next weekend will be considerably better. |
|
