Kites have long been used to carry a pilot line in applications as diverse a sea-rescue & suspension bridge construction. Similarly a small kite is ideal to initiate the launch of vast kite arrays. A small kite might be towed aloft by a bicycle into usable wind, then used to haul aloft a larger kite, followed by a yet larger kite, & so on, until a whole cloud is launched. Arches naturally launch in an automatic cascade; throw a kite or two up in a breeze & the whole arch launches reliably.

A practical method for this class of launches is to lay out whole kite array on the ground in zigzags & coils according to launch order. A launch can be fed from a moving vehicle. A kite can easily lift several times its weight. A small kite with a pulley can be pulled against hard, trading altitude for far higher pull on demand.

CoopIP/FairIP                             ~~Dave Santo                    May 14, 2010       M1523

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Terms: kite cloud, cloud (kite), vast kite array, coterie, kite mesh, small kite, arches, trains, zigzag, coil, launch order, usable wind, pull on demand, kite with a pulley,