Veronica and Friends

Where to find Veronica and friends in 2004

2005 is getting organised already:

June 11 - 12

Wirral

As you can see, Veronica is an Octopus. She has been custom built by Peter Lynn in New Zealand from Icarex, a particularly light ripstop polyester fabric that gives her an unusually wide wind range. She flies with two other large kites, Ben the Manta Ray and Anuj the Gecko.

Most folk that fly large Lynn kites fly them on relatively short lines (note that an 170' line is relatively short for an 85' kite...), on the grounds that there's no point in having a large kite if you're going to fly it so far away that it looks small.

But we have a different point of view:

• What is the point of flying a big kite if you can't see it from the next town?

When we went to Bristol, whe soared on thermals and used almost every last foot of the 2000' of air traffic clearance available. Those who have been to Ashton Court before, will know that because the location is out of town and surrounded by trees, it's generaly not possible to see the kite festival until you are inside the the park. Veronica changed that because she could be seen from the city centre.

When we flew that Manta Ray at an altitude of 1000' at Washington Tyne and Wear, the kite was clearly visible from Gateshead.

At Basingstoke in 2001, again, we had the space and clearance to fly high and were visible to people coming down the M3, a number of miles away:

We love to travel and to find new places to fly. The following list is inclomplete:

• Aldershot (festival 2000)
• Basingstoke:
  • Kempshot Community centre
  • Kempshot park (past Sainsburys)
  • Memorial park (cricket ground)
  • Crabtree plantation
  • Gershwin Road park
  • Pack Lane park
  • Down Grange (including Basingstoke festival, 2000 and 2001)
  • Gershwin Road primary school
• Bournmouth
• Brentford
• Brighton (festival 2000)
• Bristol (festival 2000)
• Bristol Downs
• Camberley (recreation ground behind pool)
• Cocoa Beach, Florida.
• Cricklade
• Dunstable (festival 2001)
• Edinburgh (Newspaper picture) (festival 2000, including from Arthur's seat and the Crags)
• Egham (by the river)
• Frimley Green
• Guildford (Stoke Park)
• Hartley Wintney
• Hook (Hants)
• Hampstead Heath
• Middle Wallop (festival 2000, 2001)
• Milton Keynes
• Minehead
• New Forest
• Old Dean, Camberley
• Orange Lake, Florida (hill overlooking)
• Ponce Inlet, South of Daytona, Florida.
• Portsmouth (festival 2000)
• Reading (prospect park)
• Richmond deer park
• Richmond playing fields (by A316)
• Royston
• Santa Fe Community College, Hogtown, Florida
• Sattelite Beach, Hogtown, Florida
• Scheveningen, Holland (festival 2000)
• Sherfield-on-Loddon
• Staines
• Streatham Common (festival 2001 reported in Aeolian and local Newspaper)
• Swanage
• Treasure Island, Florida (Festival 2002)
• Worcester (Powerkiteshop launch 2001)
• Wellington country park (festival 2001)
• Washington Tyne and Wear (festival 2000, 2002)
• Weymouth (festival)
• Windsor Great Park
• Winersh (Ashenbury park)

Unusualy for a Lynn Octopus, Veronica is generaly well behaved at festivals, her light weight helps to make her particularly stable. When we work at a festival, we understand that there is a job to be done, to cause the maximum impact and spectacle for the audience whilst remaining safe and causing the minimum inconvenience to other fliers. We often regard our job as being to fly for the people who are not in the field, to attract them to the event and increase the number of people who attend, bringing increased custom to the traders and increased exposure to sponsors.

When conditions and prudence the ATC permit, we often fly considerably higher than other kites, in order to attract people to an event:

Landmarks are provided purely for a sense of scale

Note that considerable space is required in order to fly at altitude. The rig for flying the Manta at 1000' is nearly one third of a mile in length and we must be able lay out the entire thing in a line in the same direction as the wind for safe launch and landing. Often we are restricted not by the CAA, but my the limitations of the site.

If you'd like Veronica and her friends come to your festival, please drop a line to Andrew & Kathleen. Hosted on Sow

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