#helikite

[i-hls]

Kite/Balloon Hybrid Will Improve Battlefield Communications

When it comes to the battlefield, network and communications are crucial. However, being always connected to a communications network isn’t always the case. In remote battlegrounds, especially across enemy lines, forces sometimes have difficulties connecting to networks. Because of this, m

https://i-hls.com/archives/97589

[i-hls]

עפיפון/בלון ישפר תקשורות בשדה הקרב

בשדה הקרב, תקשורות ורשתות הינן חיוניות. אך לא תמיד כל כך פשוט לשמור על קשר לרשת תקשורות צבאית בשדה הקרב. בשדות קרב נידחים, במיוחד מעבר לקווי אויב, לא תמיד תהיה לכוח גישה לרשתות צבאיות. בגלל קושי זה, צבאות מחפשים תמיד מכשירים ופתרונות שמסוגלים לחבר את כוחותיהם לרשת הצבאית. מכשיר אחד שמסייע במאמץ זה

https://i-hls.com/he/archives/97591

[theprostandard]

@jakekelsick using the Grill Mount. • This right here is why I LOVE KITEBOARDING. It gives you a reason and the tools to get out and EXPLORE!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ -⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #TonaLife #TonaStratus #TonaPOP2 #Heli #HeliKite #Kiteboarding #Kitesurfing #Kitetrips #Caribbean #TurksAndCacios #Nature #Ocean #grillmount https://www.instagram.com/p/ByAdWLknLTy/?igshid=182nbjo6vqu2n

[boldtendencies]

Do interns, Lizzie and Emma, have the might for flight?

Uncluttered by clouds for the most part, the sky is a great upturned bowl of optimistic blue - the London skyline like an abstract pattern on its rim. If it wasn't for the crisscrossing white scars of the vapour trails reminding us that it is by no means uncharted territory, we might feel like the first pioneering balloonists of the nineteenth century. The sky seems to offer itself up as if it were brand new; it is an unfathomable mystery.

Today, Lizzie and I are pilots in training; James Bridle is giving us a crash course in flying his military-grade helikite balloon. We are both a bit apprehensive that James, who evidently has the practical bent of an artist with an MA in computer science, has too much confidence in the abilities of two interns trained only in art history.

After we have carried the freshly charged car battery and the rest of the kit from James's studio to the balloon tank, I am reluctant to put down the printed sheet of instructions that I clutch in my now nervously sweating hand. Having never been in a situation in which I've needed to lift a car battery before, I was slightly taken aback by its being heavier than I expected, and suddenly the winch and the clips and the cables in the balloon tank look threateningly hi-tech.

The worst-case scenarios flicker through my mind - visions of the balloon bursting or it somehow being released into that vast expanse of blue and being whirled away to waltz with The Shard. I decide that the former would be worse. The latter would make for more sensational publicity: ‘INTERNS RELEASE MILITARY-GRADE BALLOON OVER LONDON, DESTROYING ART AND CAUSING FLIGHT HAVOC’. It would also anticipate James's envisaged project of flying a balloon at the same height as The Shard, creating 'an-Other Shard', although it might scupper his progress in seeking permission to do this.

But James insists that I put the instructions to one side…”All it takes is a little common sense.” 

Of course, being the expert, it turns out that James is right. And thankfully Lizzie and I, between us, seem to have enough common sense and physical might to control the balloon in the gusty conditions on the roof of the multi-story car park. We have now flown the balloon to 150 feet and brought it back in again, and as we are releasing it for a second time, after having topped it up with helium, my anxiety is totally transfigured into exhilaration. Holding the winch-controller, I am squinting against the sun as I watch the balloon get higher and higher whilst the car battery moans. With each ten feet the cable extends, my excitement swells. 

To fly the balloon is to taste the elation and to partake in the utopian imaginings of Nadar, the Parisian photographer and balloonist. Author of an 1866 treatise entitled 'The Right to Flight', after which the commission is named, Nadar envisaged communication and travel via balloon bringing an end to conflict between nations. This is the intention behind James Bridle's project: to recover the initial idealistic potential of ballooning at its inception, the technology of which has subsequently been harnessed for more sinister purposes such as surveillance. Rather than flying for the purposes of controlling people, this balloon, floating serenely over Peckham, is for people to reclaim. 

One visitor likens the crosses that the cable forms in the sky with the vapour trails to kisses - the balloon is curiously beautiful. Her friend describes seeing the balloon from miles away during the cycle to work. Catching sight of it from a distance, people tend to first assume that the balloon is an advertisement; baffled on second glance by its enigmatic starkness, they are drawn to its source to find out what it actually is. The three tanks that they find - housing the balloon itself, the kaleidoscopic projections James creates from the camera attached to it, and images, books and research that expand upon the themes the commission addresses - become a hub of discussion and debate. 

Lizzie and I free and recapture the balloon three times before we let it go once more with the intention of leaving it to fly for the evening. Feeling ourselves buoyant with pride, we decide to head off to Frank's for a celebratory drink, wondering with mild interest whether there are any regulations regarding drinking and balloon piloting....

text and photo: Emma McKinlay

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AutoKAP on Teahupoo's mythic wave by Pierre Lesage on Flickr.