I flew around the area for a few minutes, searching for someone on the ground who might have been the owner of the kite. I saw no one. I headed back to the airfield and landed. As I taxied back to the hangar, a little dog was chasing and barking at the kite, snapping at the ripped paper and sticks. After shutting down, I found that the kite was stripped down to a couple of little sticks and some scrap paper. Ther was very little left of it. The string had cut into the leading edge of the wing and had apparently been wrapping around the tail as I flew. I had 15-20 pound monofilament fishing line wrapped around both the vertical and horizontal tail planes, partly restricting the movement of the rudder. I still have that line and kite somewhere in my parents atic. The aircraft required two cloth patches, one on the right wing and one on the hoizontal tail due to the line cutting into the fabric.
I was fearful that such a strong kite string might have done damage to the fingers of some young kite flyer on the ground. A week past before I started to relax about that thought. No one ever notified the airfied and I never heard any reports of missing fingers by anyone.
I spoke with a flight instructor about hitting the kite string and he told me that he saw a kite near Cochranville at about 1000′ AGL, just before my flight.
Larry Toto
toto@mammo.pndr.upenn.edu