In reply to Stephen A. Lawrence's message of Wed, 13 Apr 2005 22:10:47 -0400: Hi, [snip] >The problem is that the cable is going to hang in a catenary. If it's >at a 45 degree angle at the kite, it's going to be at some much smaller >angle relative to the ground. In order to avoid having thousands of >feet of cable strung out near the ground before it climbs to some >reasonable height, and in order to avoid making the no-fly zone really >huge, it may be necessary to put a great deal of tension on the cable >unless the material of the cable is very very light, or some other >method is used to support the middle of the cable. > This is another reason to use kevlar, however one also needs to take into consideration that the power wires need to be added to the weight of the cable, so wires as thin as possible should be used, probably aluminium, and the kite should generate the highest voltage possible. In fact an electrostatic generator iso magnetic might be preferable, as these can be very light weight, and are by nature high voltage as opposed to high current. It also means that no transformer need be carried on the kite, which will further reduce the weight.
Regards, Robin van Spaandonk All SPAM goes in the trash unread.
