Doug,

The great difference between AWE and air travel is the tether. And the tether takes much space, so a great kite is needed to pay off. But maybe you favor an un-tethered system.

PierreB

"Doug, The great difference between AWE and air travel is the tether. And the tether takes much space, so a great kite is needed to pay off....PierreB" *** Thanks Pierre, but, with no economically-workable AWE schemes in sight at this time, we can only hypothesize as to what "is needed".  Better to say "what MAY BE needed..."

The reason I said "air transportation "obviously" requires airborne railroads suspended by balloons" is that this might have sounded logical to someone in the 1800's, knowing the only workable flying machines of the day were balloons etc., and the only reliable mechanical transportation system was railroads, any reputable "Professor Crackpot" of the day might of course seek to combine these two known methods into a single system, which might be lightweight railroads in the sky suspended from balloons.  Any DaveS of the day could then embellish this fantastical future-of-the-past with his spotted mushrooms and engineers that drive the trains "for the honor"...  How could anyone (at that time) question that logic? 

Similarly, today we are familiar with kites as "the" go-to method for elevating something in a windy environment, so, of course, any kite person contemplating AWE thinks it "must" involve "a bigger kite" (What else?).  There is a saying, if your tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Similarly, if you are a kite-flyer, any airborne challenge "obviously" requires nothing more than "a bigger kite", however, I'd like to remind everyone that there may be other answers that we are just not thinking of right now.  If this is all so simple and straightforward, why is there so little progress?

The topic started out as, World's biggest kite.
We now have ongoing petty argument off topic. :(

For disambiguation sakes.

Tower: can be a verb or a noun.
So applies to both kite and rigid structure turbine arguments.

Having a lesson in language use from me should be considered a new low.

In the red corner Ds
In the blue corner dS
Round 2. Start!
Ds gets first hit.
A swift hook from dS.
............. Forever.....

Keep your bitter muppet thugging slanging matches in this topic to have it stay on forum please DSs

The ref.

A question to Rod, Doug, Dave(S, L, N), Christof and all,

Without kite lifter, Daisy does not have lift by itself, but with a kite lifter big enough, Daisy is tilted and takes lift by itself. What is your advice about it?

(note I test some rotative kites).

PierreB

So close to getting that cuppa brewed for my mum.
But the wind has died at 20 watt hours.
I was getting 2watt hours per minute at the start of the test.
Fingers crossed the wind comes back.
Might have to go up a hill. Seaside weather sucks. Was 5.2m windsurfing sail size weather to start... 7m and course board now. (standard units!)
Strong wind rules.

Images by Google Search for exactly "wind tower"  HERE

This topic thread over " wind tower "    or  " wind towers "

has an eye for inspirations for kite-energy industry.

The mix might include " windcatchers "

Start on that branch:   Windcatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

			Windcatcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A windcatcher (Persian: بادگیر‎ bâdgir: bâd "wind" + gir "catcher", Arabic: ملقف ‎malqaf [1][2]) is a traditional Persian architectural element ...
			View on en.wikipedia.org	Preview by Yahoo

So, ready to fly some AWES within windcatchers or wind towers?

Have a wide-mesh net stretched over a patch of land. Use node supports as wished. Let kite-energy systems launch from, land, rest, etc. on the patch-covering wide-mesh net.  Tethers and sails stay almost completely sky-side of the patch-covering net. Farming and other activities continue as needed on the soil side of the broad patch-covering net. Low-mass secondary uses of the broad net may be employed (say, hang clothes to dry; hang posters; hang bird nests, hang swings, hang manufactured things to dry, hand vines for growing fruits and vegetables, hang WECs from the net; hang solar-energy devices from the net, have transport vehicles hanging from the kite-field broad-raised net system, etc.).    We have already had some launch and passive self-relaunch notes share in forum by the use of perimeter high lines to drape sails ready for working in AWES.     IsoDome AWES may consider self-storage atop a farm broad-patch raised net. The systems of such raised net permit safe operation of many human living and commercial activity.   

CC BY NC SA   kPower, Inc.    See us for easy license to use such net tech for kite-energy systems.

Did you explore:

Theo Schmidt, Theodor Schmidt

 and

Glencross R. 1993. Sailing craft Hagedoorn. AYRS Projects . AYRS Publication No. 112.

Glencross R. 1996. Kites and Hapas at Speedweek 1996. Ultimate Sailing IV. AYRS Publication No. 112.

Hagedoorn J.G. 1971/1994. Ultimate Sailing: Introducing the Hapa/Ultimate Sailing: The Hapa Revisited. AYRS PublicationNo. 114.

Hagedoorn J.G. 1975. Ultimate sailing. Scientific American , March (page numbers unavailable).

Daisy becoming a giant AWES, is a cyclic piloting necessary and possible to obtain some lift, as a steered wing flying by loop (Makani for example)?

PierreB