Adoptee #3, off to a new owner

More than a year ago, I wrote about the second of three 'adopted' Peter Powells getting to the air again. So what happened to the third? Here's its story ...

One evening we were having dinner at good friends of ours, when the conversation turned to flying kites. Our friend lamented the fact that he used to have a Peter Powell, which he really enjoyed flying, but that the kite was long gone. When I asked him whether he would be interested in getting his hands on another vintage Peter Powell, his eyes lit up. Guess that's a yes then!

I'm sure you'll see where this is going .... I still had one adopted Peter Powell Mk I Stunter lying around, so what better use to make of that than give my friend a Peter Powell kite to fly again!

First of all, it needed more TLC than its two predecessors coming through the Peter Powell Kites Adoption Agency.

It was lacking both cross spars, the t-piece was broken, the tube at the tail end of the sail was missing, and the nose needed some patching up as well. Fortunately, I had enough bits and bobs lying around to replace all that, and the end result was a 99% original vintage Peter Powell Mk I Stunter, ready to fly (the 1% was the small tube at the tail end of the sail; that was a modern piece of tubing). I even had an original sticker to glue on the sail!

An original tail and a set of original lines and handles was no problem either. Before handing it over to its new owner, I gave it a quick test fly, just to make sure all was as it should be.

It was ...

So all that was left for the kite was to have its first flight under new ownership!










I think I can safely say my friend was happy as a lark, reliving his childhood.