Let’s Fly A Kite Today!!

DBF

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Margaret_Eddy_with_her_father's_kites.jpg


Margaret Eddy in 1895 with “tailless” kites made by her father William Abner Eddy
(United States Public Domain)

At the end of the Civil War a 15-year old from a wealthy New York City family began an interest in kites that served him well until his death in 1909. He decided to try something new when he flew his kite and what he did became the talk of the neighborhood and an indication for what lies ahead - for he had tied:

“a lantern to the tail of a hexagonal kite and sent it up a great distance creating some excitement in his neighborhood as the blue light of the lens created wonder on a warm summer evening.” {1}

William Abner Eddy went on to graduate from the University of Chicago and returned home to work as a senior accountant for the New York Herald but he never left his love of kites or his thirst for knowledge. While at the paper he read all the advances that were happening in science and he began to think back to his kites and the "sky was the limit” as to where his kites would fly.

* * *
By 1885 kites in the United States were being used to measure weather conditions. The U.S. Weather Bureau (in its’ infancy) near Boston attached an electrometer, much like Benjamin Franklin had 133 years earlier, as experiments to monitor weather conditions in the lower atmosphere. When Eddy read of the exciting promises kites brought to the Weather Bureau, he believed with the right kites and the right equipment perhaps his design could predict weather.

Eddy watched what other nations were doing in “kite flying technology”. He observed and learned and began designing a new shape to his kites; a diamond shape without the tails that he could string together like a “train of kites”. This tandem technology allowed for a wider use and higher flying kites necessary for any research he desired to accomplish. He wrote articles of his kite flying in the Scientific American and the Century Magazines).

"In the summer of 1890. while experimenting with hexagon tail kites at Bergen Point, I found that the best tandem system was not to fasten one kite to the back of another, but to give each kite its individual string and allow it to branch upward from a main line." (Eddy - Scientific American - Sept. 15, 1894) {1}

* * *

fullsizeoutput_12b7.jpeg


This is an illustration that appeared in Popular Mechanics circa 1898
demonstrating how a train of connected kites carry scientific equipment.

(United States Public Domain)


* * *
William Abner Eddy reached many milestones in kite technology. Among them are:

  1. On February 4, 1891 he attached a "...minimum thermometer to several of these tailless kites flown tandem and took mid-air temperature from kites…." {1} It was while pursuing the scientific endeavors that Eddy was invited to work for the American Meterological Society.
  2. May 9, 1891 using a kite train and a method of triangulation (for measuring the kite’s altitude) he successfully documented the raising of a train of five hexagonal kites with tails to an estimated 4000-6000 feet. {1}
  3. Chicago World’s Fair - 1893 - he spends time at the Javanese village, an ethnic group in Indonesia, that was regarded as experts in the technology kite flying. Eddy was able to analyze their structure and then went “back to the drawing board” and with a few modifications to his old design: the Eddy Diamond Kite was born.
  4. Spring 1894 - Eddy is invited to bring his kites and knowledge to the Blue Hill Observatory, Boston, MA. He arrives late July of 1894 - A Thermograph, invented by the MM Richard company of France and used to measure air temperatures, was modified and fitted for Eddy’s kite.
  5. August 4, 1894 - Eddy’s kite and modified Thermograph reach a height of 1,500 feet, takes measurements and returns safely to earth.
  6. Fall of 1894 - not every kite is successful, as Eddy notes that “the train drifted across the water from Bayonne, NJ over Staten Island to New York Bay trailing its line over buildings and houses to the amazement of hundreds of people." "After two kites had come down, the remaining six were caught on a telegraph line, from which Eddy rescued them after having given chase first on a ferry and then on a train.” {1}
  7. On May 30, 1895, Eddy suspends a camera below one of the kites and takes the first mid-air kite photograph in the Western Hemisphere.
  8. December 5, 1896 - Eddy uses 3 kites to an altitude of 1,000 feet in an effort to use kites as conduits for telephone conversations. Working with Dr. William Mitchell, they connect up the wires as as Eddy describes: "The voice of Dr. Mitchell came to me over the wire and was heard in the telephone with great clearness; and conversation was continued until nearly midnight, when the kites and wire were all drawn in." Eddy went on to detail that: "No battery was used in telephoning, the weak currents from magnets in each telephone operating the line with the probable assistance of earth and atmospheric currents, as shown by the clearness with which sounds were heard.” {1}
  9. 1898 - 17 weather stations across the United States are established as the use of kites to gather weather data.
  10. August 1, 1898 Eddy files an application to patent the “Eddy Kite.” Patent #646375 is awarded on Marcy 27, 1900.
  11. The “Eddy War Kite” was sold to the United States military presumably for aerial photography. When airplanes arrived on the scene the kite was obsolete.
* * *

PicEddyKite.jpg

(United States Public Domain)

He married in 1887 and had a daughter Margaret. The family lived in Bayonne, New Jersey. Eddy died the day after Christmas in 1909 at the age of 59. William A. Eddy took a child’s day at the park flying a kite into a whole new realm of science and technology. He was a man ahead of his times as he was the first to record a crime from the sky. One day while he and his wife were preparing to host a party - someone stole the ice cream. Immediately he got his kites in the air (with camera attached) and amazing there was a picture of 2 men enjoying some ice cream under a tree new Newark Bay. Eventually Eddy walked over to the tree and only found the empty ice cream carton. {2}

* * *


Flying Kite

I often sit and wish that I
Could be a kite up in the sky,
And ride upon the breeze, and go
Whatever way it chanced to blow.
Then I could look beyond the town,
And see the river winding down,
And follow all the ships that sail
Like me before the merry gale,
Until at last with them I came

To some place with a foreign name. {*}

by Frank Dempster Sherman
(1860-1916)


* * *​





Sources
1. http://best-breezes.squarespace.com/william-abner-eddy/
2. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/113236276/william-abner-eddy
3. Bayonne Passages, by Kathleen M. Middleton (Link Here)
4. Popular Science Article
{*}
https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=5569


If you would like to read more Fun Facts about World Records in Kite Flying - Enjoy -
https://www.kites.co.nz/pdffiles/World%20kite%20records.pdf
 
Dont work here in texas panhandle we wide open up here an our winds get up to 50- 60 65 mph
tear that booger to shreds! drivn' a belly dump & when winds get like that our turckboss pulls us all in as cant tarp in them winds a major safety factor in my job,,
Also This was an Awesome & Informative Post makes ya smile Thank you!
 
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