End of 2018 - overview of the collection

Another year has passed, another end-of-the-year blog post, taking stock of my Peter Powell collection and what has been added to it this year.

My collection of original UK-produced Stunters has grown from 18 to 21: I added a blue alu-framed Mk I, a red fibreglass-framed Mk I, and a special Poppins-branded Mk I.

I was also able to add three to the collection of US-produced PP kites, going from 11 to 14: a second Skyraker, a ripstop Mk I, and a second Wing. Plus I added a second Skychaser to the one I already had (but that doesn't count as an extra kite, as stacks count as one).

A further three Caribbean Kite Company kites added to the five I had, bringing that section of the collection up to eight: a Little Cayman, a Mustique, and a Tobago.

And, finally, I added one more 'Poppy Powell' to the one we had, bringing the number of modern PPs up to 10.

Adding all this up means that the collection increased by 10 this year, growing from 43 to 53. Not as large an increase as last year, but that's to be expected: as the collection grows, there are fewer and fewer 'new' ones to add.

Which made me ponder what the maximum number of kites in the collection could be. So I did some back-of-the-envelope scribbling .... if I manage to get my hands on at least one example of every model produced in the past, and assuming I'll have more than one of those that came in different version, plus assuming that Mark and Paul will bring out a small handful of new models in the years to come, I come to a figure of just under a hundred. So that appears to roughly be the maximum size of the collection. Which does mean two things: 1) I'm more than halfway there; and 2) there are still a lot of Peter Powell kites to collect for me!

Mystery CKC delta ...

Seems like I'm starting to get better known as a collector of Peter Powell and associated kites: I was offered an unknown Caribbean Kites Company kite. Was I interested?

Now the kite in question had several issues. First of all, the sail was badly faded; and I mean really badly faded. Secondly, the sail had a large tear near one of the two stand-off connection points. And finally, the kite was lacking an upper spreader. Well, that was not quite true: the kite did have an upper spreader: a length of wooden plant stake.

And on top of all that, its identity was unknown! But as I didn't have that particular Caribbean Kite Company kite in my collection (no matter its actual identity) and the owner of the kite didn't want much for it, I took the gamble.

Obviously, I couldn't do anything about the fading, but the tear in the sail was fixable with some tape, and a fibreglass upper spreader was very quickly cut. But which model was I actually adding to my collection?

Fortunately, I got my hands on a Caribbean Kite Company catalogue some time ago, and that proved to be very helpful. Despite the heavily-faded sail, there was just enough colour left to pin it down as a Tobago, the continuation of the Peter Powell Kites Skychaser. Look at the fourth kite from the left in the bottom left picture: sail colours are the mirror image of my badly-faded kite, and the wing span also matched.

So here's my 'ghostly' Tobago on the ground, following the necessary TLC.

Ghost or not, how does it fly?

Well, not exactly brilliantly, and not nearly as well as its predecessor. It's a rather twitchy kite, which becomes rather difficult to control when it doesn't have constant wind pressure in the sail. But despite it not being the best-flying kite in my PP collection, it's the only Tobago!

Picture credit: Stephen Palmer (detail photos)

11/11 @ 11am, and a Quadra Dazzle

As you may know, L-katz kite team has a set of four 'Poppy Powells'. And with Armistice Day falling on a Sunday, our usual team practice day, and the wind being well suitable for flying Peter Powells, we made sure to bring our 'Poppy Powells' to Stokes Bay.

At 11am, we had them up in the air, stationary and side-by-side, to commemorate the fallen.

With the wind being pretty much perfect, we were keen to try out a range of different moves and patterns, and especially keen to try and fly a series of moves called "Quadra Dazzle". Difficult to explain in words, so I'm showing a series of diagrams, which will hopefully make clear what the moves and patterns are.

We have flown the "Quadra Dazzle" with the team before, but never using Peter Powells, and never flying tails. It took some practice, especially knowing where the tails are relative to the kites, but we did it! And not just once, through sheer luck; we flew one "Quadra Dazzle" after the other! Don't just take my word for it; watch for yourself. There are four complete "Quadra Dazzles" in the video below, interspersed with other moves (Swiss Rolls, Cascade, Threads, Fountain, etc).

We didn't get them all right, let's be honest. A few attempts ended in the tail of one kite caught in the bridle lines of another. Not realising we had people behind us watching our displays, one of those tail catches was accompanied by a clearly audible "oooooh!" from the public.

Is this the first time ever that a kite team has flown the "Quadra Dazzle" with Peter Powell kites?

Video credit: Piyush Patel

Star Trek 5-stack

I've been a Trekkie for as long as I can remember. I still recall my father coming into my bed room when I was a kid, carrying me, half-asleep, down the stairs to the living room, telling me I was now old enough. I must have been maybe 6 or so, and I was about to see my very first Star Trek episode. I never looked back ...

Now what does all this have to do with kites in general, or Peter Powell kites specifically? Very little, until I started playing around with ideas for a themed PP stack, and thought having a stack with symbols of several of the key 'powers' in Star Trek could work well. Bit more playing around resulted in designs for a set of five black PP Stunters, with the symbols of the Federation, Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons and the Borg:

Tails would be silver, blue, green, red and white, to match the main colours of the respective symbols. And, ideally, the bridle and stacking arrangement would be fully flexible, so any of the five kites could be used as the lead kite. Time will tell whether this Star Trek 5-stack will ever become reality!

Oh, and in case you're wondering what my first-ever Star Trek episode was ... "Trouble with Tribbles".

Building a Skychaser stack

A little over a year ago, I got my hands on the second-smallest Peter Powell delta: the Skychaser. As I mentioned in that blog post, because Skychasers were very much promoted as a stackable kite, I would keep my eyes open for more Skychasers, with the aim of gradually building up a Skychaser stack.

My eyes had to remain open for quite a while, but eventually they did spot (and got hold of) a second Skychaser, so I now have a 2-stack of them!

As the kites are quite small (1.26m wing span), I made a set of relatively short stacking lines, but the only way to test whether stacking lines are the correct length is of course to fly the stack.

They really flew well stacked, and it appears my choice of stacking line length was pretty much spot-on.

In my earlier blog post, I described the Skychaser as a zippy kite, and that zippiness remains a characteristic when stacked. They respond well to input, without much oversteer. Obviously, small as they are, even as a stack they hardly develop any serious pull.

I will be looking to add more Skychasers to the stack, so my eyes will have to remain open for the foreseeable future. See how far I get!

Poppins PP

It's been a while since I last posted about a new addition to the Peter Powell collection. Guess that's to be expected: as the collection grows, there are fewer 'new' kites to be added.

But that most certainly doesn't mean my collection is complete! And I'm pretty sure it will never reach that final stage. So here's the latest addition to the PP collection: a Poppins-branded Peter Powell Stunter.

Now before everyone spontaneously bursts out in "Let's Go Fly a Kite!" song, this particular Poppins is not one of the Mary variety ... We're talking here about a kite branded to promote the Poppins chain of restaurants, which is still in existence today.

So how does the Poppins PP fly?

The kite came to me with the upper bridle legs shortened by a loop tied into them. Well, that made the kite basically unflyable, but once I'd untied those loops, it flew very much as you would expect a PP Stunter to fly. No clue why the bridle legs were shortened this way ...

By the way, after the Round Table and BP Peter Powells, this is my third vintage promo kite. Obviously, I'm not going to collect any modern Mk III promo kites, as there are basically a near-infinite number of them. But any vintage promo PP is fair game ...

Mustique!

Two years ago, I got my hands on a Peter Powell Kites Skylite. When the US arm of Peter Powell Kites became independent under the name Caribbean Kite Company, the Skylite was one of the models they continued, renamed Mustique. Needless to say, I've been looking for a Mustique ever since adding a Skylite to the collection ...

Two years on, there was a kite auction that I did not attend, there was a friend who did attend, and you probably don't have to guess very long that he grabbed a Mustique for me, in the same colour scheme as my Skylite; thank you, you know who you are!

So here's our Mustique, which, incidentally, looked brand new, on the ground and in the air:

Of course, the Mustique and Skylite had to be flown together, and after a bit of bridle tweaking on the Mustique, they behaved themselves pretty well.

Can you tell which is which? Certainly not so easy when they're at the end of 45m lines! Closer up, there are some differences. First of all, they have of course different labels sewn in.










And, secondly, the spine of the Skylite is contained within a sleeve at the back of the sail, whereas the Mustique spine is 'naked' at the back of the sail.













Differences aside, I'm of course pretty pleased to have a Skylite-Mustique pair in my collection. Can't be many of those around!

#50!

About three years ago, I decided to start a Peter Powell kites collection. If you've been following this blog, you'll know that the collection has been growing steadily, and I'm pleased to announce the 50th PP kite here!

Fittingly, it's a very early model: Mk I with aluminium frame.

Not the first alu-framed PP in the collection, as I already have a one with a yellow sail. Alu-framed PPs came in different versions, which can be told apart by the diameter of the aluminium rod. As far as I can tell, this blue Stunter is the same version as my yellow one. Nice thing about this blue one is new and unflown! So here it is in its maiden flight.

It was very happy up in the air, after having spent more than 40 years packaged up, waiting for the chance to take to the sky ... Flight characteristics are exactly as you would expect from an early alu-framed Stunter: very steerable as long as it has decent pressure on the sail.

Welcome to my collection, #50, and on to the next 50!

Wing #2

The first Peter Powell delta I got my hands on was a Wing. Now I wasn't specifically looking for another Wing, but when I bumped into one, for a very reasonable price, I just couldn't say no ...

So here's our Wing #2!

Like our #1 Wing, it develops quite a bit of pull when the wind picks up, and, as the sail is basically flat (no stand-offs), it needs to keep flying. Put it in a stall, or suddenly make it change direction, and you risk the kite dropping out of the sky. But if you maintain sail pressure, it tracks pretty well!

Obviously, as we now have a pair of Wings, we had to fly the two together.

As stated before, keep the kites moving, and they fly well together. They don't like tight circles, but as long as it's all kept moving and large, there is no problem flying the two Wings as a pair.

As before, I'm not specifically on the look-out for Wing #3, but should I bump into one with a blue-and-yellow sail, or, even better, one with the later 'zig-zag' sail pattern (black with yellow, lime or pink; any colour combination will do) ....

Looking for Dragonfli and Firefli

So far, I've been reasonably successful in getting my hands on a range of Peter Powell dual-line deltas: Skyraker, Wing, Skyblazer, Skychaser and Skylite. But I haven't got them all yet, and two that are still missing from my collection are a Dragonfli and a Firefli:

Both had a wing span of just under 2m: 1.85m for the Dragonfli and 1.96m for the Firefli. Never seen one of these two come up for sale, and the internet is pretty much devoid of information on either. Only picture I've been able to find is one of a Firefli:

So ..... if you happen to have either a Dragonfli or Firefli (or, even better, both) gathering dust, ask them if they'd want to become part of a large collection of Peter Powell kites. Flying is guaranteed!

Further bag expansion necessary!

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed my steadily-expanding collection. And you may also know that this collection lives in three HQ Proline bags. Well, the collection has now reached a level where it doesn't fit anymore in three bags .... Solution? Get another bag, again from Kiteworld, of course!

The modern Mk III Stunters already had a bag of their own, and now the older UK-produced Mk I and Mk II Stunters are split over two bags: one for 'single' kites, and one (with the feathers) for kites we have a pair of, so those we could potentially fly at a festival as part of our Flying Fish demos.

Will this be the final bag expansion? Surely not; the bag with American PPs is getting pretty cramped as well now ...

Little Cayman

When the American arm of Peter Powell Kites came into being, they initially marketed Stunters with the same 4' wing span as those produced in the UK. But not long after, they started to develop a smaller (3') version as well as a larger (6') 'Monster'. Later on, they also produced the Twister, which had a wing span in-between 3' and 4' (1.05m, to be precise).

When the American Peter Powell Kites company became independent, and changed into the Caribbean Kite Company, they started using the names of Caribbean islands for (almost) all their models; the name of the classic Stunter was changed to Cayman. They also continued producing larger and smaller versions, which were imaginatively called 'Grand Cayman' and 'Little Cayman'. And it's the latter, with a wing span of 1.05m (so equivalent to the Peter Powell Twister), which I managed to get my hands on.

First flight was in very un-Caribbean circumstances, but the kite didn't seem to mind. It didn't come with a tail, so I added a plastic ribbon tail (I felt a normal tube tail was a bit too much for this smaller kite).

Flight characteristics are as you would expect from a smaller version of a PP Stunter: bit more skittish than the standard 4'.

Need to find a Grand Cayman as well now, of course!

Peter Powell kite stickers - a possible timeline

If you're familiar with Peter Powell Stunters, you will be familiar with the stickers that adorn the sails of the Mk I Stunters. But what you may not realise is that there were several versions of these stickers over time ...

Curious how many versions actually existed, and whether you could use them to 'date' PP Stunters, I set about gathering pictures of these stickers, from my own collection, and from photos of PP Stunters available on the internet. Focusing purely on UK-produced Mk I Stunters, I have so far been able to find six different versions. Not saying more don't exist, but these are the six I've been able to find so far:

So is there any way to order these six chronologically, from earliest to latest, as that would offer a way to date Mk I Stunters, at least relatively? Well, none of the stickers has a date on them, so that doesn't work; we'll need to use a bit more subtle detective work ...

First of all, two of the six stickers I have seen only on aluminium-framed Stunters, and we know that aluminium frames predated fibreglass frames. So those two must have been used in the early days. But which is the older of the two? As I said, they don't carry dates, but I think I've found a clue to help me order these two, as well as the other four, chronologically.

I'll tell you what that clue is a bit later, but let me first show you what I think is the older of the two stickers on aluminium-framed sails (and therefore, the oldest sticker I'm aware of):

And the, in my opinion, younger of the two stickers on aluminium-framed sails:

So that then brings me to the stickers from fibreglass-framed sails. And to revealing the clue I've been focusing on: telephone numbers. The phone numbers on these two early stickers are 0242 30922 and 0242 88411. Only one of these numbers also appears on two of the stickers from fibreglass-framed kites: 0242 30922. On the assumption that Peter didn't change his telephone number back and forth, I concluded that the sticker with the 0242 88411 number must be the older one. 

As I said, two stickers with the 0242 30922 number, and I struggled with relative dating of these two, but here's my best guess. Older of the two, I think, is:

and the younger of these two, I think, is:

My reason for thinking this the younger of the two is that it is more similar in design to the next one, which has two clues to it being later:

So what are these two clues? First of all, the phone number has changed, to 0242 43222. And, secondly, it has added the 'toy of the year award'. And that allows us to pin this one down to 1976. So the stickers up to this one must date prior to that award.

Which leaves me with one final sticker, and my reason for thinking this the latest of the six is, once again, the phone number:

Design is quite different from the others, gone is the 4-stack with tails and the 'toy of the year award', but look at the phone number: 0242 862650. One digit more than the others, which suggest that this must have come when phone numbers in the UK were updated to include an extra digit, in order to increase capacity.

My timeline is mostly based on phone numbers, with a bit of gut feeling thrown in. So I may well be barking up a completely wrong tree. If that is the case, and anyone has any information to improve or outright reject this timeline, please let me know, so we can update this post and firm up the timeline. And if anyone is aware of additional versions of stickers on UK-produced Mk I Stunters, please get in touch.