Kites can be typed in several ways: Thoroughout kite literature people talk about kites in different ways; different skill levels; costing levels; quality levels; competitive levels; collectible levels; historicity; famous makers old and new; figure or not; dominant material...paper or aluminum foil,etc; for beginner or expert; hard or easy to make, artistic or plain, tiny or huge, practical or recreational, scientific or commercial, manned or not, experimental or tried-and-true, singele tether or multiple tether, tailed or not; air or not-air; original from a famous maker or replica; this or that reputable manufacturer; insignificant or significant application. These various extant typings evident throughout the literature are simply organized from what is found in the literature. Specific nations type kites for regulations. Specific groups of manufacturers and commercial users of kites type kites along the lines important to their concerns. Sport kiting organizations have their own typing categories. Kite festivals type kites for kite contests. Patent offices type kites in certain ways. Sport competitors type kites in their own ways. Hydro kite companies and scientists type hydro non-air water kites in their own ways. No one point of view controls the freedom of the kite to be many things for many people as is evident in the kite literature over thousands of years.
 

• 1. Dominant material: By virtue of the dominant material that is used to make the main body of the kite (plastic, animal skin, wood, metal, composite, paper). Some kiters pride themselves for being successful in making the main kite body all out of exactly one type of material; a nutritional food kite that can be eaten, a styrafoam-only kite, an aluminum-foil only Rogallo kite, a paper-only kite, an ice-only kite, a balsa-wood only kite, for examples. However, mixed-material kites may have a dominant material but with some other secondary materials; these are more usual; a kite that is dominant with tissue paper may have various kinds of stiffening framing sticks that are not tissue paper but perhaps made of rattan, reed, bamboo, tree wood, fiberglass, carbon fiber, sandwiched aerogel, glass, metal, or other.
  
   
• 2. Wing character: By the nature of the main wing part (monoplane, flexible sail, rigid wing, biplane, multiplane, ram-air inflated, closed bladder gas inflated , object mimic (of animals, birds, boats, airplanes, insects, people, places, things)). For example, the main body of the kite--the wing part--may be made up of inflated gas bladders to give endless shapes; here are three references toward that kind of wing:: ^[1]; and ^[2]; and^[3] Such closed-bladder inflated wings differ from open-cell ram-air inflation like the Domina Jalbert parfoil kite; also open single-surface flexible sails are often stated as being simply inflated by the wind.
  
   
• 3. Dominant application: By virtue of dominant application (play, recreation, art, meditation, exercise, industrial, fishing, mining, electricity generating, underwater military, sport, advertising, transportation of passengers, cargo transport, seeding vehicle, tug, weapon, fighting, mechanical power for running machines or performing tasks, sport or survival fishing, aerial photography, taxi, competition over art or aerobatics, performance art, bridge-building, air-sampling, antenna acting, signaling, billboard, messaging, rescue, entertainment, art-teaching, craft-teaching, aerodynamics-teaching, beacon, attention-attracting, gift, meditation, speed racing, fetching, dropping, artistic ballet, loudspeaker lofter, logging crane, and more).
  
   
• 4. Life: By being manned or not. Is there life aboard the kite wing or not? Are there live animals or live plants on board? Is there virtual or remote life onboard?
  
   
• 5. Buoyancy: Lighter than air or heavier than air; lighter than the medium in which it interacts for lift or heavier than the medium in which it interacts. The kytoon is a kite that is lighter than air that in insufficient winds to stay aloft by its kite lifting qualities will nevertheless stay aloft by its lighter-than-are balloon qualities. Similar devices for other media like water occur (water buoys that water kite in stream while being anchor to the bottom of the stream or other submerged anchor) ^[4]
  
   
• 6. Control: Kites can be typed by virtue of control method of the motion of the kite's wing body (single-line, dual-line, three-line control, four-line control, n#-line control, radio-controlled, mixed-type control, fused-controls, laser control, torque-line control, part-breakage control, powered controls, aerodynamic controls). Is there a robot onboard the kite main body that alters the bridle or kite's surface or kite's boundary layer flows to control the flying of the kite? Is there a person onboard the kite's main body to control the kite's motions; Dave Culp describes Kite Tugs with crews of people on the kite or kytoon to control the kite's tugging of commercial cargo ships to reduce fuel costs in shipping. Is there animal or plant life onboard the main kite body that are used to control the motion of the kite? Are there instruments onboard that react with wind, tension, sun, temperature, moisture, or ambient media density, or some other characteristics of the flowing medium (often air) in order to control he motion or shape of the kite for some special purpose? Hobby and science kiters have placed hundreds of devices on the kite line and kite body that are controllers of special actions (turning on lights, making electricity, dropping objects, moving an aerodynamic flap to give motion to the kite, taking aerial photographs, collecting air samples, for examples). Are there realtime video cams and other sensors onboard that feed data to a remote human or robot pilot for control purposes? Is there onboard an expert program servomechanism that controls the kite motion according to that expert program. Kite-based electricity-generating systems employ such expert programs.
  
   
• 7. Replica: Kites may be typed by which famous kite is being replicated. Is the kite a replica of the famous Garber Target Kite that may have helped win a war? Is the kite a replica of a particular Hargrave box kite? Or of a first Rogallo Flexikite? Or of an early Domina Jalbert parafoil kite? Or of a Wright glider kite?
  
   
• 8. Artistic quality: Kites are sometimes typed for their artistic quality. The artistic quality might be for the kite's artistic motions, artistic in-air appearance for shaped art or applied art. The art involved for non-flying art-use purposes attract people to decorate home walls and upper spaces in rooms with hung non-flying kite bodies...with or without the other kite part: the kiteline. Any level of visual art may be involved. Sound art made by the kite has been explored. Radiated sound art and artistic music coming from the kite body or kite line example a way to type kites.
  
   
• 9. Manufacturer: Kites are sometimes typed by who made the kite. Is the kite a collectible Hi-Flier kite? Is the kite an original one-of-a-kind William Eddy kite? Is the kite made in a selected country: Mexico, India, China, New Zealand, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, or other? Is the kite made by a homebuilder do-it-yourself hobbyist? Is the kite made by a certain tribe? Is the kite made by mass-producing machines that are computer controlled or by the loving and caring hands of a certain person?
  
   
• 10. Visibility: Are the essential parts of the kite visible or not or how visible? Is the kiteline visible or not? How visible is the kiteline? Is the kite wing visible or not? How visible is the kite wing?
  
   
• 11. Size: Is the kite "giant"? Is it a mega-sized kite? Is it a large kite? Small kite? Miniature kite? Tiny kite? Microscopic kite?
  
   
• 12. Ambient Flow media: A kite reacts with an ambient media, usually earth air; however, NASA is planning kites for non-air atmosphere on Mars and other planets. The ambient flow media for space kites is plasma or photo streams like the streams from the sun. Water or hydro kites have water as the ambient flow media. Soil kites have soil as the ambient flow media. Towed kites through solids or semi-solids bring other media into focus. If a kite "flies" in a food or chemical vat or a husbandry tank of bacteria or algae, then the chemical soup is the ambient media. So, a kite can be typed by its media; air kites are very common; but air certainly is not the only important ambient flow media that humans use for kite systems and applications.
  
   
• 13. Actuality level: Kites can be typed by the level of actuality involved with the kite. Is the kite only described in fictional literature? Is the kite only depicted in a drawing and not in any materialization? Is the kite only in the imagination of a person evidenced by talking or writing? Is the kite possible? Is the kite actualizable or not, feasible or not, possible or impossible? Is the kite finished or unfinished? Is the kite broken or with flying-potential integrity? Did the kite once materially exist, but not has no materialized samples? No one has yet built and flown a Domina Jalbert parfoil kite that is a square mile in bottom-surface area; such a kite is possible, but has not yet been actualized; the kite is in the imagination and can be visualized; the same can be drawn schematically or be illustrated in a computer program. Is the kite in a cartoon video with virtual presence? Is the kite living only in the dreams of a sports-kite competitor? Is the kite only on the drawing boards of a kite manufacturer? Is the kite a part of a fictional legendary story?
  
   
• 14. Price: Kites are frequently typed by price. Entry-level kites are often in a lower-priced category. Low-cost kites, medium priced kites, expensive kites, and priceless kites show up in the literature. Minimalist hobby kitemakers have published making kites at the right price: free...by using materials from the ambient environment of natural materials and human discards and trash. Over $100,000 commercial tug kite systems are now fact. NASA prided themselves for making a Charles Richard Paresev manned kite-hanging-pilot glider for a little over $4,000 in 1961 and respecting such as a low-cost success compared to other aircraft NASA had made.
  
   
• 15. Supplier-path: Kites are sometimes typed by the supplier path. Is the kite available by mailorder? Can the kite be ordered online? Must the kite be picked up at the supplier's place of business or home? Can the kite be paid for by a certain payment method? Is the kite supplied only by way of demonstration and instruction? Is training by the supplier required before the kite is released to the customer?
  
   
• 16. Mimic subject for kite appearance: When looking at the kite's main body, what is seen? Does the viewer see a mimic of an insect, butterfly, human figure, cultural scene, organization flag, national flag, mammal, bird, hawk, airplane, ball, flying saucer, alien, beverage container, house, sun, moon, star, famous cartoon character, or any other object. Want an insect kite for part of a grammar-school thematic lesson? Want a set of kites that look like the flags of the nations attending a big event?
  
   
• 17. User aged: Kites are frequently typed for young children or adults.
  
  Is the kite suitable for a toddler to hold in moderate 3 mph to 8 mph winds?
• 18. Wind leveled: Kites often are typed by the wind speed range within which the kite operates well. Is the kite designed primarily for indoor zero-wind activity? Does the kite operate without human-powered running the kite's kiteline anchor point when the wind is 3 mph at the kite's operating altitude? Does the kite fly well with 8 mph to 18 mph winds and not well when the wind is faster? Does the kite fly well in gusty winds? Is the kite a high-wind kite? Low-wind kite? Moderate-wind kite?
  
   
• 19. Skill leveled: Beginner kite? Novice kite? Master kite? Expert's kite? Professional kite pilot's kite?
  
   
• 20. Kiteline breaking strength typing of a kite: Kites that well use kitelines that are under one-pound breaking strength, under 10 lb breaking strength, under 100 lb breaking strength, etc., are thus typed by the kiteline breaking strength.
  
   
• 21. Regulation typing: Does the kite have a quality that has it come under a certain regulation by some governing body? Is the kite so structured that it falls outside of a certain regulation? The governing bodies regulating kites that can be used span from school authorities, city govenors, state authorities, federal authorities, sports organizations, consumer products' regulatory agencies, parents, lifeguards, coast guards, waterway authorities, airspace control agencies. Is this specific kite allowed to be flown in this particular scenario? Each nation may control its own airspace with regulations. A particular kite-using company or a private kite-using person will have rules about kites; typing a particular kite relative to such rules is common practice. A two-line control kite does not ever win the single-line kite-contest event. A manned free-flying hang glider kite weighing over a certain amount must be licensed differently than if it was lighter than such a limit.
  
   
• 22. Typing by named category:

- * Airplane mimic kite - * Arch kite rotary two-anchor rainbow arch or/and static two-anchor rainbow arch - * Bow kite - * Bowed kite - * Cellular or box kite - * Delta kite - * Fighter kite - * Foil or parafoil kite - * Hydro kite - * Indoor kite - * Inflatable single-line kite - * Jalbert parafoil kite following invention of Domina Jalbert - * Kytoon--shaped balloon that kites (lighter than medium in which it moves within a gravity field) - * Manned kite Man-lifting kite Manned kite. Kite having human as free-falling anchor (subset of hang gliders). - * Miniature kite - * Plasma kite - * Rogallo Parawing kite - * Rotary kite--vertical axis rotary, spanwise rotary, mixed rotary, streamwise axially rotary - * Rokkaku - * Sauls' Barrage Kite U.S. Design Patent No. D136,018 COLLAPSIBLE KITE Hosea C. Sauls - * Scott Sled and Allison Sled: two kite types that have interwined histories and a large following with many hybrids stemming from the origninal leading historical designs. - * Soil kite - * Stunt kite - * Styrofoam kites - * Target Kite by Paul Garber --a key gunnery practice target practice kite in war. U. S. Navy Target Kite - * Tetrahedral kites - * Zero-wind kite (kite pilot stays within a tight ground cirle) - * Tetrahedral kite - * Underwater kite