A blog detailing our collection of Peter Powell kites, and chronicling our flying of these kites. Plus a bit of PP kite history thrown in. Our collection to date stands at 77 kites and can be seen here. I am keen to expand the collection, so if you have an old Peter Powell kite, whether made in the UK or the US, gathering dust and looking for a new home, why not get in touch? Depending on the kite (does it bring something new or different to my collection?), its condition (is it flyable? how much TLC does it need?), and the price you ask (+ shipping if from outside the UK), we may well be able to do a deal.
If you're UK-based, you may have seen the interview that Mark and Paul gave on BBC Breakfast this Saturday morning.
Very nice interview, touching upon the rise and fall of Peter's kite business in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and the resurrection of the PP Stunter by Mark and Paul, behind Peter's back, in the last couple of years.
The interview was interspersed with some old footage, and, for me, one piece of footage really stood out. You may have read that Peter, in the early days, got his grandmother to let herself being hauled up by a kite. I'd heard the story of course, but wasn't aware there was actual video footage of it!
So here some screen grabs of granny being hauled up, handbag firmly in her hand!
You can hear Peter ask her whether she likes her birthday present, and granny appears to really enjoy the experience!
While surfing the wwweb for snippets of information on Peter Powell kites, I stumbled across this article from 1977 in the magazine 'Popular Science'. Contains a picture of a triple-stack flown from a boat! I'll just leave you to enjoy this wee window to the early days of Peter Powell Stunters.
When it comes to modern Peter Powell Mk III Stunters, we have a customised pair for Flying Fish:
And we have a set of five, customised for L-katz:
It recently dawned on me that I don't actually have a basic standard Mk III in the collection. Clearly, that's a situation that just couldn't be tolerated to endure ... Whereas Mk I and Mk II Stunters came in a small number of different colours, modern Mk IIIs give you the option of 10 different colours. If you then take all the permutations (left wing, right wing, large and small mid section) into account, the number of possible colour variations becomes way too much for a collection. Quick back-of-the envelope calculation suggests that of the 100,000 possible combinations, there are more than 65,000 possibilities where each panel is different from the adjacent panel, and 810 of those are symmetrical .... Not going to attempt to collect all of them! So it was to be a single Mk III PP, using the template available in the Peter Powell on-line shop.
But, as I said, with 10 colours to choose from for the various panels, which to pick for each panel? I finally decided on one in the colours of the Dutch national flag, but reflecting the historical 'ranje-blanje-bleu' flag rather than the modern 'red-white-blue' one.
Obviously, the tail had to be orange as well!
Kite was very happy in the gusty 12-28mph wind we first flew it in:
If we're flying as Flying Fish or as L-katz, we'll obviously fly the appropriate PPs customised for pair or team. But if one of us just wants to have fun flying a Peter Powell Mk III Stunter, we now have this 'Dutch' one to use! Any excuse to add to the collection ...
