I original got interested in aerial photography by kites while reading David Pelham's Penguin Book of kites. I thought I would have a go at that, so aged 14 or so (I think) I decided to construct a lightweight camera controlled via radio control that I could fly off my Brookite French Signal Kite. The camera consisted of a Kodak fun camera, with a gear box of a toy tank to drive the film advance and a servo to either fire the shutter or roll on the film. The camera just hung off the bridle point of the kite and swung around wildly...No prizes for guessing the quality of the pictures. I decided that I need a more stable kite and chose a Jalabert Parafoil which I then made (or rather my Mum did) unfortunately this kite was not that stable either in mid wind ranges, though it did produce better quality pictures. So with a bit of dabbling in this art, I forgot about it, A-levels and a Degree got in the way and most of the equipment I had, got lost. Then, while embarking upon my PhD, one of my friends whom I was living with told me that her boyfriend was into KAP and this got me interested again in the subject, after a 5 year hiatus.

It turned out he was using a Flowform kite for lifting the camera and control gear. What impressed me was the picavet system that he used. It immediately dawned on me this was a great way to keep the camera from spinning around and would lead to much better pictures. I was also stunned to see how stable the Flowform kite was (left), admittedly it was being flown in ideal wind conditions. So I decided that I needed to get Flowform and thought that taking the dimensions off his kite would allow me to make a copy of his (I didn't want to shell out 120 quid!). After obtaining considerable yardage of ripstop (how much material do these things need!) I spent 2 weeks of solid machine sewing (and unpicking) which resulted, much to my amazement in a half decent kite that actually flew (below).

I constructed a camera rig for it which had just pan and shutter release on it, the pitch was fixed at around 45 degrees, and I went flying! The camera I was using was a Panasonic C-420AF, which returned some half decent photos but even the shutter speed just wasn't fast enough. Plus I really wanted to see what the camera was pointing at. So the idea of VideoKAP with a proper SLR camera started nagging away at me. If I could only make such a system, I would get perfect shots, I was convinced!

I also began to realise that the Flowform would not lift a heavy SLR so I started looking for a bigger kite. At about this time Green's kites of Burnley were doing a deal on their Stratoscoop 4 for half price. So I bought it and have been struggling to keep it on the ground ever since!