Mk I vs Mk II

We've got a Mk I Stunter ...

... and we've got a Mk II Stunter ...

Which one is better? There's one way to find out!

Seemed like an interesting experiment: fly the two, which basically differ in the number of bridle legs, side by side. You'd expect that a Mk II kite, with the extra bridle legs going to the wing tips, would be more manoeuvrable, wouldn't you?

Well, it turned out that it made absolutely no difference what-so-ever. We didn't notice any difference in speed, handling, steering, responsiveness, etc, between them. At least these two flew very well together and if you didn't know which was which, you wouldn't be able to tell the Mk I from the Mk II.

And this picture is here purely because the blustery wind made the tails dance in the sun; it looked colourful and made me smile :)

A pair of vintage Mk I Peter Powell Stunters

Following our acquisition of a job lot of Peter Powell Mk I Stunters, the next two to receive TLC (including new t-pieces) and to be declared ready-to-fly were the two black-sailed ones. We decided to fit them with new silver-coloured tube tails, which we got from Mark Powell at a festival last year.

Wind when we first flew them was quite strong and blustery, going well over 25mph at ground level (so another 5-10mph at the end of the 45m lines?), but the kites behaved absolutely fine!

It doesn't really show in the picture, so you'll have to trust me, but when the sun catches the silver tails, the combination of black and silver looks really good!

Peter Powell Stunter Mk I

Of the recently-acquired job lot of vintage Peter Powell kites, the one that required the least amount of TLC was the single blue one with fibreglass frame.

When we flew it, the wind was a bit iffy, dropping away often, and we struggled to get it to fly properly, but when the wind did pick up for brief periods, it flew fine. As our first blue Peter Powell flies with a red tube tail, we decided to attach a yellow tail to this kite.

Obviously, we'll need to fly it in a bit stronger wind, and it will also be interesting to fly this Mk I kite together with our Mk II kite, to see whether there is a difference in handling. Watch this space!

A job lot of vintage Peter Powell Stunters

If you're thinking of building up a collection of Peter Powell kites, and you get the opportunity to get your hands on a job lot of 1970s vintage kites, among which are several Peter Powell Stunters, you're not going to say no easily, are you?

Allan Pothecary, of Close Encounters fame, had decided to sell all their 1970s dual-liners, including seven Mk I Peter Powell Stunters (plus a bag full of red, blue and yellow tube tails). He dropped me an email to ask if I was interested and we very quickly reached agreement on the deal.

So here are the seven Peter Powell Stunters that really provided the impetus to get serious on collecting Peter Powell kites. All Mk I kites, three with fibreglass frames (the two black ones and the single blue one in the back), and four with aluminium frames and fibreglass cross spars. These four (two yellow, one red, one blue) were bridled as a 4-stack.

Most of the t-pieces were either cracked or about to crack, but fortunately, the t-piece of the latest Peter Powell Stunter has exactly the same size and shape as in the 1970s, so Paul could sort me out with replacement t-pieces.

So, with some TLC, these seven vintage Peter Powell Stunters will soon be back in the sky again!