Kite fighting

[Midnight_Carnival]

I was just wondering, since people from all over the world chat here, if any of you do kite fighting as a hobby?
If so post pictures of you kites!

At the art gallery where I work I had the brilliant idea of a painted/decorated kite exhibition - I sold the idea to the partners who own the gallery and spent the next few weeks in "Japanese kite fighting hell" producing too many Hata type fighting kites out of bamboo and cloth (couldn't get hold of washi paper!) these were given to local artists to paint, but since it took so long to make enough, we only gave the artists a short time. Still, I was delighted at the results.

Haven't flown any though

I've also come up with an idea for an epic kite melee which features two teams facing off using smaller hata type kites, larger hexagonal kites, 2-man delta kites and one massive 6-man behemoth hexagonal kite - the match ends when the huge kite of one side touches the ground.

The problem is I'd find it nearly impossible to find another person to kite-duel against, let alone form teams of coordinated kite soldiers who'd work together to bring down the enemy kites.
I'll stick to making and flying kites as a hobby for now.

[Dugi]

How do you prevent the strings from tangling? I never thought it safe to use more than one kite at one place because if such long strings tangled, it would take hours untangle them.

[Chewan]

Well, it's hard to start a fight with one kite only...
The trick is to control your kite, avoid entangling, but rather CUT the line of your competitor.
To achieve this you turn your line razor-sharp, coating it with glass, hooks or blades
(protect your hands!)

[Midnight_Carnival]

For conventional kite-fighting, see what Chewan has to say above.

For my proposed kite melee, there would naturally be a lot of the above as well, but because of the large number of kites involved, and becasue contestants can personalise their kites to a degree as long as the modifications meet the requirements

Spoiler:

these exist primarily to ensure that a kite who's string has been cut does not pose a serious risk to contestants or spectators!

, etc, tangling not only of kites strings, but hooks, blades and tail modifications would probably happen. In the event of two or more kites becoming tangled they have a set ammount of time to untangle in the air after which they must land and be untangled before returning to the skies - the obvious exception would be the huge 6-man kite which would not land as this would end the match, and if it did not, it would handicap the opposition since they would not be able to ground the enemy kite while theirs would still be up and vulnerable. Kites tangled with the huge kite will be given a certain amount of time to become untangled in the air after which they are regarded as forfiet.

My home town recently hosted a kite festival in which there were literally thousands of kites in the air at the same time, I can't say that not one tangled with another, but I am unaware of any becoming tangled and have not heard complaints of this from kite fliers

I've heard of kites used in construction, they could aparently lift heavy stones and be used sort of like cranes, makes me wonder how many modifications you can do to a kite, heh-heh.