Lets go Fly Kites! By Dawid Dorfling, Windsong Kites, Shelly Centre, Shelly Beach


Kids just love kites and although some won’t admit to it right away, so do most adults! Hopefully we all still have a little kid inside, and one of the best ways you can find yours is to spend some time flying kites with a young one. By choosing the right kite and understanding a few basic tips, you can avoid most of the frus- trations, and provide hours of simple, inexpen- sive fun for your kids and for yourself!


Learning to fly


With a little assistance from an adult, kids as young as 2 years old can have a huge amount of fun flying kites. There’s no hard and fast rule, but typically younger than 2 years old, attention spans are pretty short and kids may have some problems making the connection between the pretty thing in the sky and the handle in their hand. It’s usually around 4 or 5 years old when kids really enjoy sticking with it for half an hour or more, especially if there are a bunch of their friends or family members fly- ing too. Regardless of age, when first learning to fly kites you should count on a young child letting go of the handle at least once, allowing their kite to get away and forcing you to run helplessly across the field trying to retrieve it. But then, that’s half the fun, isn’t it?


Pick your kite


Keep it simple. While a variety of kites are cer- tainly capable of providing a wonderful day of kite flying with young ones, many are quite de- pendent upon optimum conditions.


Single-line Kites


When choosing Single-line Kites for kids, we’ve had the best luck with basic delta kites as they fly well in a wide range of conditions, are re- markably stable and incredibly forgiving, as well as being one of the least expensive ways to get started. Small to mid-sized deltas work very well for very young kids (2 to 5 years old), and are also very suitable for older kids (4 or 5 years old and up) because they are so reliable, are very light pulling, and will fly when other kites won’t. But the choice of kite is yours and Diamond Kites, Sled Kites, Parafoil Kites are all very appropriate choices for young kite flyers.


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