I am pretty sure this breakthrough was mentioned out loud at the first AWE conference.  I feel that I have heard it 100 times.  Not a novel idea in my opinion.  Rather it is the first obvious stab any might take at AWE.  Find a low-power application and simply do it.  Which is the novel part of the idea, lifting a wind turbine using a kite, or charging your celphone with it?  I know we have talked about this long ago.  This whole discussion is getting more and more moronic as the years roll by and nothing happens.

I wonder if you have an explanation why the gyrocopter was chosen over a cloth kite for that old submarine-towed airborne observation man-lifter from WW2?

This place is powered by a 10 kW wind turbine on a 120-foot tower.  The turbine is the best brand, known for its longevity, but it has a persistent problem: Leading edge tape wearing out.  The rubberized tape is designed for anal-hair-craft, to protect leading edges of wings and propeller blades from abrasion from dust.  But the dang turbine is out there spinning at 120 mph 24/7/365, more than any plane flies, in this relentless desert environment, and somehow the leading edge tape seems to be the achilles heel of the whole system.  (For lack of a nail, the horse lost his shoe).  Any little peeling tape edge sounds like a baseball bat whacking the air when the winds get strong.  I'm lucky my neighbors are not bothered by it.  Some people would be.  Multiple service calls have only patched the problem, then the patch comes loose in the next storm.  There are procedures to remove the blades and lower them by rope to do a proper tape application on the ground where proper working conditions can be attained, but some service crews would prefer to call in a crane and tilt down the whole tower, in order to do a nice job of sticking a piece of tape onto a blade.  It boggles my mind, for a turbine that makes maybe $1000 worth of electricity per year, certain crappy crews expect you to pay $1000 a year in service calls to keep their crappy tape applications re-patched.  I'm in the process of calling in some buddies from Tehachapi who work on the big turbines to be my new service crew, but the bottom line is, I'd rather have the turbine land when there's no wind, so it can be more easily worked on.  The sacrificial tape is used on most every wind turbine because without it, your fiberglass blade itself slowly abrades away.  Sometimes a proper tape application can include using bondo to fill holes in the fiberglass blade.  Blade maintaenance is an ongoing job and entire companies specialize in nothing but fixing and maintaining blades.  This is where I have to laugh at people insisting that cloth kites can be durable enough to serve as wind turbine blades.  Not to say it is not possible, but if they only knew what real blades go through, I think they might have a different outlook.  Of course, as mere human beans, we all seem to have to occasionally learn the hard way.  Anyway, the bottom line is, I'd prefer that the turbine only be up in the air when there is wind, and down on the ground anytime it needs service.  So an airborne wind turbine would be preferred, over a tower-mounted one, for that reason alone.

Do you EVER shut up?  The feeble weaponization examples you cite do not even scrape the surface of what is possible.  Let's go back to Wayne winning his own Germy award, speaking over everyone else to repeatedly insist that the only effective way to do AWE is using free-ranging, inter-tethered kites at different altitudes, producing electricity by inter-reeling (since reeling is SUCH a great way to produce power AND it is so light-weight) THEN converting that electricity to microwaves (more weight, expense), whereupon it is carefully aimed (more weight, expense) at ground stations (more expense) which convert the microwaves back to electricity (more expense).  So, once the sky is full of those, what happens when somebody gets mad?  They threaten to re-direct the beam, and look out.  Of course, any problems with aiming the beam, and you have an accidentally-fried city, no problem, right?  I can see a swath of fried people like the path of a tornado. - woops!  Well, all in the name of global warming, which will soon kill us all, so it's OK.  Frying people to save them from themselves.  Maybe the microwave transmitter can have a sign on it saying "We are against weaponization of kites, signed, Dave and Wayne".  By the end of that "scientific" conference, we had Wayne insisting that Jesus was going to solve AWE for us, pressuring Cristina to agree, knowing that, being from Italy, she was unlikely to disagree in front of a whole room full of people.  I guess he had her backed into a corner, eh?  Pretty slick.  So we went from microwaves to Jesus.  I guess we're still waiting for Jesus to get around to it.  He is probably busy making sure nobody develops flying microwave beam generators, so as to save humanity from its next self-induced mass barbecue.

AWE is not a newborne baby.  It is a very old concept, withmany many many many workable schemes offered in the literature over the past century.  What I see is, the more probable a scheme would work, the less likely anyone is to actually try it!  It's almost as though there is soome mental barrier "Oh that would actually WORK, forget that, we need to explore dumb methods that could NEVER work!".  So from that standpoint there is little reason to spenmd an inordinate amount of time characterizing exactly what speed of wind might be found at some locations at some certain height at some time of day.  At this point, that is just the old "How many angles can dance on the head of a pin?" type of discussion.  Someday, Cristina will be seen as having been ahead of her time.  That is a complement, but also it means the timing is off.  To use your race analogy, the race started long ago, all the teams have no working cars, insisting on trying first square wheels, then when that doesn;t work, triangular wheels, while the whole time, even a 5-year old could tap them on the shoulder and whisper in their ear "Guess what, ace?  The wheel is already well-developed, and it is round!".  Meanwhile, Cristina is out scouting around for sites to build indy-500 tracks: "Well, here;s a spot that would work, and hey, herel;s another spot, and, well here;s one, and heere;s another one... to no end.  There are unlimited sites for AWE all around the world.  There is almost no site that would NOT work, as a matter of fact.  And in wind energy, there is no fact nmore well-known than winds being stringer the higher you go.  So I will say again, Cristina is a fun person and it is good that the AWE community, such as it is, can say they have someone with a PhD that can confirm that they aren't all completely crazy, and reassure them that "yes, you CAN do it, the winds ARE up there, but the fact is, she is not  going to do the job FOR anyone.  And that is what I see as the problem.  People give up even trying, we all talk all day about one promising method after another, then all the eams are back to eother their desks to blather more and do nothing, or they instinctively go back to merely flying kites, pretending that they are going to ppower the world with their kite-reel.  So how is all that reeling working out at this point?  Didn;t someone ask who has put the most power into the grid?  Have not enough years gone by yet for an answer top that simple question?  I restate: There are NO serious teams attempting AWE at this time.  If there were, you would have someone with a record of steady-state power generation by now.  It sounds to me that the donut guys will be the first to produce steady-state power, not because the donut itself is the answer, but because they have decided to actually BUILD one of the hundreds of simple devices that would actually work and run it, rather than running off at the mouth or pursuing dumb ideas that could never pan out.  They spent a million dollars on a machine that could have been in the sky long ago for a few thousand using a regular blimp.  The first surprise storm will come, and they will be back to the drawing board, probably using a regular aerostat blimp.

You are so used to saying "Doug overlooks", "Doug fails to realize" - who the heck do you think you are, ace?  You really think I don;t read all the articles about Google and Facebook schemes to bring internet communications to rural areas around the world?  There's a new article on that topic every day!  And that I don't appreciate that airborne wind energy, or even kites in general, could play a role?  Why would you even SAY that? I gfues the same reason someone would claim that attaching hoisting a small windmill up with a kite and runing awire down the tether to charge a cell-phone is a new idea, when we all talked about it for a few days, as a first, most obvious way to demonstrate AWE.  Sure, find the lowest known power requirement anyone can think of, say you're going to build it, then forget all about it and move on to more blogging.  What evidence do YOU have that I somehow "overlook" something like that?  Dave S., you have a problem, and that is that you instinctively want to argue your way into AWE, thinking that claiming that I don;t appreciate some simple fact or other, even one we've all discussed together, will get you there.  If you want to say I "overlook" something, please show some evidence.  You really make no sense (still).  But we're used to that. 

There you go again 'Doug failth to realizthe Wayne never won hith own award.  No, geez, really?  That was sarcasm, Dave.  Of COURSE I know Wayne did not give himself a (yuk) "Germy" award.  He just insisted his wandering dual-kite reeling/microwave scenario was the only real idea worthy of cinsideration - the unmistakeable true future of AWE.  So in effect, he WAS giving himself the real Germy award.  But saying I really think he gave himself an award is all you need to go on your next tirade.  Geez you are really unbelieveable.  By far the longest-running newbie-blaming-wind-people-for-their-own-failures-by-internet-personality-attacks I've seen yet.  Well at least you have set a record at SOMETHING.  But I WAS going to suggest that Wayne award a Germy to you for saying you charged a 12-Volt battery using a kite (was it reeling or what?) then momentarily discharged it into a grid-tie inverter, claiming to thereby be the first to power the Texas grid using AWE.
Here's what I notice: You seldom actually address any point I ever make, such as "let's see it without the battery", which might form a credible demo.  You have no interest in anything credible.  You just go on to the next personal attack, starting with some minor obvious point you wrongly claim I don't understand or appreciate.  It is all nonsense, and you are clearly nuts, like Wayne and all the kite-reelers.  "Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo..."

"Doug, You really did overlook"... Hey Dave, I think you have a disease here.  No really, you are out of control.  You start every post with the same inaccurate theme that somehow I "do not understand" the simplest things that everyone can see.  You make no sense.  Please, see a professional.

"Doug failed to note" - there you go again.  Dave S. this is one more inaccurate statement from you.  I have never said kites cannot play a role in AWE, mostly for providing lift, but have simply pointed out that they are most likely unsuitable for high-speed working surfaces.  Makani quickly found this out, right?  Remember?  And who predicted that?  Hmmm it couldn't have been me, right?  One of your main problems is you cannot follow a conversation if it contains any complexity.  Your thinking can't seem to rise above what can fit on a bumper-sticker.  "Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo..."

Circa 1979: Biscomb: "9. The multiple wind turbine tethered airfoil wind energy conversion system of claim 8, wherein: said transmitting means is constituted by at least one microwave transmitter supported by said airfoil and at least one microwave receiver located on the ground."

"Your failing to understand the value..."  Yup, it must be a disease

"You really really do fail to understand..."  Yup, a definite disease.

Old file: 

"Doug is wrong..."  A definite disease.   What about accidents, or use as a weapon?   I thought you said that was, like, super-important.  Who is using microwaves to transmit power today?  Why or why not? At what cost?  This is not a new idea.  What is the real world experience, not the Crackpot hypothetical musings?  I do not "mock" microwave transmission of power per se at all, I mock the idea of constantly interrupting every speaker at a conference for two days to repeatedly insist that one such Rube Goldberg scenario, where the microwave power transmission is only a small part of the expense and complexity that would render it inadvisable, starting with the airborne reeling-for-power, which I think is typical misguided newbie stuff for people who have no experience with real power generation equipment, is somehow, suddenly, the only method to even consider for AWE, so that nobody else's ideas had time to get a fair hearing.  And I don't think saying Jesus would handle it at a purportedly scientific conference that included people of various faiths, nor buttonholing Cristina in front of the whole room full or people on that topic, were appropriate.  It sounded pretty whacky to me.  Just my opinion, that's all.

Not to say McConney is 100% crackpot, but the good professor often cites a size just above whatever the common windfarm turbine size is, when he spews his nonsense, just because it sounds better that way.  If GE is making 1.5 MegaWatt machines, the professor cites a machine just enough larger that he will have an excuse not to actually have to build it.  He knows he can, on the one hand, say if only he had a billion dollars he could build it, but on the other hand he has a built-in excuse to not build it: "Nobody builds turbines that big".  The funniest example that comes to mind is a vertical-axis Savonius displayed in a booth at an AWE Windpower trade show.  It features maglev bearings, as though bearing friction is a problem in need of solution for wind energy, and they use a household fan to blow air on it so you can see it rotate, to "prove" it must be better, because you can actually see it turn!  Of course they mock regular "3-bladed" turbines as though "everyone knows 3 blades are bad", explaining that "anyone can see most of the power must be leaking through" the spaces between the blades.  Their solution avoids that "leakage" by 100% solidity.  The only things they don't explain are how they will be able to afford to build one 400 feet tall to sweep the same area as a regular turbine, since it would have to be as strong as a 40-story building just to withstand the wind, or how it would actually have to be twice as big since half of it is generating no power, or how a Savonius suddenly goes from the least efficient design known to outperforming a regular turbine just because it has maglev bearings.  Kind of reminds me of the wandering dual-reeling-kite/microwave scheme - more holes than swiss cheese!

"Nobody has designed, flown, and documented more rigid-wing component AWES prototypes than I have" - OK so you claim to be the clear leader, yet you just said "the race has yet to start".  Make up your mind.  You just say whatever you think sounds good for the moment, regardless of it accuracy.  Meanwhile, perfectly workable ideas for AWE have been published for over 100 years.  It appears to me that after the first conference, with hundreds of people forming teams, announcing their impending victory, raising many many millions of dollars, with hundreds of articles and even TV shows documenting the (lack of?) progress, the race has been on for some time.  It makes no sense to say the race has not started.  My opinion is few people, if any, are really taking it seriously, or we would have someone with daily output from an airborne wind energy device by now.

OK Dave S., enough of your fixation on arguing with every word I say, without actually addressing any point I try to make.  I would like an answer to this simple question:  Background: Yesterday, you stated that preventing the weaponization of kites is of paramount importance to you and others.  Problem: Today, you seem to be advocating kites armed with what could be easily used as beam weapons, either intentionally or, God forbid, accidentally.  I would like to hear your answer of how festooning kites with microwave beam weapons can fit in with your stated goal of preventing weaponization of kites.

The ill will I saw was hijacking the whole conference and not letting others speak.  You have a bad memory.

Nope Dave S. the race has long been on and the flyoff is now, in real time, and nobody is flying anything on a daily basis.  There is not now, and has never been, any need for a specific "flyoff" of any kind, in wind energy, ever.  For one thing, if anyone DOES ever get anything up and running, it will likely not be convenient or make economic sense to interrupt daily operation to move it to some arcane location just for demo purposes when visits to the site and videos can clearly show its capabilities and output.  Especially with the internet, including this forum and youtube, etc., we have a full-time conference/flyoff in real time, around the world.  The problem you have is you cannot truly envision an actual useful system, in daily use, and instead remain in la-la-land as though AWE will somehow eclipse tower-based turbines while simultaneously remaining forever in crude, miniature, portable, prototype mode.  The two are not compatible.  A good, working system would be unlikely to be removed and dragged across the country just for some "flyoff" against kite-reelers and blue-tarps that generate no power.

OK so you want to equip millions of giant kites with onboard beam weapons then hope that voluntary compliance will prevent use against people.  Okay, I was just asking what your big plan was.  Thanks, now I know.

"AWEify" Blackhawk?