OUTSIDE: Get High

My yaw was bad. I hate it when that happens.

It was a recent stunning spring day. It was the kind of day that entices people to keep moving here. It was windless. Yes, really. I hadn’t flown a kite since “Lost In Space” was running on Wednesday nights in the 1960s. Unfortunately, a little pilot error meant there would be no flight on this day perfect for everything except for launching a kite.

Aurora normally has ideal kiting weather. We live in a river of wind on the Front Range. But not today. As our photographer and I drove to Utah Park, I swore I wouldn’t run with the kite. I’m old, and there are few things sadder than an old man getting all bulgy-eyed and wheezy, hopelessly dragging a kite behind him. As soon as we got there, the wind died. And immediately, I got all bulgy-eyed and wheezy as I hopelessly dragged my kite around the park, angering flocks of geese and entertaining the high-school kids who hang out there.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Jeff Tomczak says that there are kites for everyone now. Tomczak, owner of Rocky Montain Flag and Kite Company at Peoria and Iliff in Aurora, is the kind of guy who talks about kites like baseball freaks rattle off player names and statistics. Diamond kites. Foils. Night kites.

The kites are amazing air ships that can set you back anywhere from a couple of bucks to a few thousand dollars. But whether you’re spending your week’s allowance or enough to buy a used car, the science is all the same. You may think that flying kites is just a lark that folks have enjoyed for a few thousand years, but all the power of the Universe hangs at the end of your string. The lift created by air rushing over a kite, which is actually a wing, draws an endless variety of shapes and sizes off the ground, just like it does an airplane and a bird.

Colorado kiting can be as relaxing or athletic as you want. Once you pilot your paper, sticks and string into the air, kiting can easily take on a Zen fly-fishing quality. Classic diamond kites will gently tug at your hand, prancing about like an excited dog. Pull on the string and the dynamics change. The top of the kite nods, creating more lift. Walk toward the kite and the dynamics change again. Lift is reduced and the kite succumbs to gravity.

Jeff Tomczak’s Colorado Kite Tips

Aurora Reservoir rocks for kiting not only on the beach, but in the water, too, where a kite can pull you on a board or raft around the lake. For wide-open space and a view, nothing beats Cherry Creek State Park. But just about any park or field is perfect for unobstructed fly time.

This is addicting. Holsters, poles, lighted, strobing, stealth night fliers (so, so cool), space shuttles and a car-full of gadgets and gizmos will have you looking for a second job.

Kites make excellent birthday party themes. For just a couple bucks, kids can design and color their own kites, or they can easily assemble favorites such as Minions, Angry Birds, Barbie and more. Get the kids out to a park for flying, or send ‘em home, kites in hand, to torment their own families.

Kids can do this. Old people can do this. Your dog can do this. Anyone but me can get outside and have fun with a kite.

There’s so much more these days. Kite engineering has gone far beyond box kites and tetrahedrons. Pine sticks have been replaced by ultra-light-weight, flexible carbon-fiber poles. Old grocery store sacks and newsprint have been replaced by mylar, nylon and other NASA-like materials.

And fly? If fishing bores you to tears, strap on a kite that requires straps and braces to keep from dragging you into the lake or across a field. Sport kites do everything from clever tricks in the sky to pull you, your three-wheeled buggy or snow-ship for as long as you can take it.

“These kites are amazing,” Jeff says. He showed me a video of a Scout 3, with a guy grinning ear-to-ear as a para-wing pulled a skier across an alpine bowl at just under the speed of light.

Want.

If being accosted by your kite sounds more like a problem than a good time, you want a Revolution kite. Yeah, they’re a couple hundred bucks to start, but these are so much more than kites. These are flying machines. The brochure says so. These double-winged miracles are made of the bones of pterodactyls, or something like that. Ultra light, pilots can make them dive, hover, roll, sail and endless other stunts. Maybe some pilots.

Determined to do more than stand on the ground and wave to my kite, I got a sport kite for 20 bucks. Brightly colored, no one would be able to miss it as I made my two-tethered pal dance first left and then right. I couldn’t wait to see it swoop and daringly dive above the glittering pond at Utah Park.

My yaw was off. Yaw is the vertical pitch of a ship. Too much yaw and your airship can stall. Had I actually been able to get the damned thing into the air, this would have been a concern. Two tethers, no wind and some bad-ass geese was more than I could handle. Despite my promise to maintain some dignity, I was determined to succeed. A few times, a breeze arose and my kite shot straight up, then over, then down. Then up. Then over, Then down. Then up. Then the photographer said she had better things to do. The geese did, too, wandering off into what could have been a perfect, windless spring day.