THE ASIAN CONNECTION: During the Han Dynasty (200 B.C.-A.D. 200), kites became military tools. The Chinese would attach bamboo pipes to their kites and fly them over the enemy. The whistling of the pipes incited fear among the enemy.
Gen. Han Hsin also flew a kite over the walls of a city he was attacking to measure how far he would have to tunnel to get past the defenses. Knowing that distance, the troops reached inside the city walls, surprised their enemy and won the battle.
Kites eventually spread to other Asian countries. During the Silla Dynasty of Korea, around A.D. 600, Gen. Gim Yu-sin was ordered to subdue a revolt. But his troops refused to fight. They had seen a large shooting star fall from the sky and considered it a bad omen. The general used a large kite to carry a fireball into the sky, and the soldiers, seeing the star return to heaven, rallied to defeat the rebels.
During the Edo period in Japan, people below the Samurai class were allowed to fly kites for the first time. But the government tried unsuccessfully to discourage the practice as "too many people became unmindful of their work."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: One of the most famous — and luckiest — of kite fliers, Franklin used kites to test his theories about the atmosphere. He believed that the Earth and sky functioned like the conducting layers of a Leyden jar, an early form of electrical conductor. In June of 1752, Franklin and his 21-year-old son took a silk kite out into a storm.
After quite a while, Franklin considered calling off the experiment, as nothing seemed to be happening. Then he noticed that a few of the silk threads tied to a metal key were standing straight out. When Franklin touched the key with the back of his knuckle, he felt a shock — both physical and mental. His theory had been proved.
However, Franklin could have easily been killed by this experiment — as were some others who tried to duplicate it. Even Franklin admitted he killed many a turkey during his trials and that he had been knocked unconscious by a charge from one of his Leyden jars. He eventually learned to ground his wires.
Franklin had another experience with kites — much earlier in his life. He was flying a paper kite on a hot summer day when he came upon a pond. "I found that by lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands," he wrote in his autobiography, "I was drawn along on the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner."
HOMAN WALSH: In 1847, near Niagara Falls, folks decided they needed a bridge to span the gorge near their town. The challenge was how to get that important first line across the gorge. Steep cliffs, rapids and swirling winds hampered conventional methods.
They finally came up with the idea of flying a kite across the gorge with the line attached. Although a number of people attempted the feat, only 10-year-old Homan Walsh succeeded. He did it backward — by going downriver to the ferry, crossing over to the other side and then letting the prevailing winds carry his kite back across the gorge.
Turns out, young Homan was stranded on the other side for eight days because jagged ice in the river made it impossible for him to return — much to the dismay of his family. But folks on the other side took him in. For his efforts, young Homan received a cash prize of $10.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL: The man who invented the telephone also spent a great deal of time exploring heavier-than-air flying machines. One of his developments was the tetrahedral kite. The tetrahedron is supposedly the strongest, most rigid symmetrical structure that exists in nature. By covering two sides of the tetrahedron with fabric, Bell came up with the basic structure for a kite.
His largest kite was actually made of 3,393 interlocking tetrahedron cells and was big enough to carry a human aeronaut.
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS: Everyone knows that Wilbur and Orville are credited with the invention of the first airplane. But most people don't realize that their skill in kite flying and riding led them directly to their other invention.
The Wrights studied birds (buzzards, in particular) and kites in their attempt to understand flight. At this same time, an Australian named Lawrence Hargrave was devising the first box kite for the purpose of studying weather. When the Wrights saw and flew a Hargrave kite, they knew what shape their manned flying machine should take.
One time while flying a box kite at Kitty Hawk (where later experiments would also take place) they discovered it had enough lift to carry them off the ground. They also discovered that by varying positions of lines attached to the kite's extremities, they could simulate the twisting wings of a soaring bird — a technique they called wing-warping, which was utilized in their flying machines.
PAUL GARBER: In 1942, Garber was an officer on the carrier USS Block Island. He had flown kites as a boy and began to see other potential for them. One day he made a kite and challenged a gun crew to use it as a target, which helped improve accuracy.
He also built 5-foot kites that featured a silhouette of the Japanese Zero or German Focke-Wulf-190 plan silk-screened on a light blue rayon sail. At a distance, the blue background disappeared, revealing only the silhouette. These kites were also used in training gunners.
Garber also used kites to pass important papers from ship to aircraft. A cable with the package attached was strung between two kites. A passing aircraft would snare the cable with a hook and deliver the package.
After the war, Garder became the first director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and was responsible for the museum's extensive kite collection.
— Source: American Kitefliers Association.