FOR THE RECORD

Whatever importance we kiters attach to world records, they certainly have succeeded as the focus of excitement for the Sunfest kite festival in Ocean City, Maryland. The 1988 edition, September 24, and 25, was an outstanding example.

We sophisticates may scoff, but when Bill Ochse of The Kite Loft offered not only a gold medal, but also $2,000 in each of seven world record categories - well, the drawing power was undeniable. The crowds were there, even on the rainy Sunday. The kites were there, filling the sky around the competition area. And the contenders were there, from as far away as Hawaii and Florida. The results follow.

Most Stunters in Train
It was a real kite flying spectacular that almost didn't happen.

Mix McGraw and Ray Wong flew from San Francisco to Baltimore on Saturday., suffering the usual jet lag combined with a bad case of luggage anxiety. They rented a car to travel the 118 miles to Ocean City, then got trapped on the Baltimore Belway. The weather was cool and cloudy. Winds were variable. Rain was threatening. Everyone was waiting and worrying.

Just at the last minute, around 4:00, the pair arrived and started to unpack their big wooden boxes full of modified Hyperkites. Mix and Ray were still fresh, peppy and highly organized. Just three weeks earlier, Mix flew a 224-record in San Francisco. On a roll, and with a $2,000 carrot in front of him, he wasn't about to mess up.

He and Ray lined up all the kites just so. After a few false starts and snake-like gyrations, the train was up and flying. All 253 kites took a big loop to the right and left and then the train stayed in the air under control for five minutes. The stack flew straight as a ruler, longer than the required time. After landing to the cheers of the spectators, it went up again. Mix was in a mood to have fun with the kites.

On Saturday in the pouring rain, a crowd of kiters jammed the porch of The Kite Loft. After receiving his medal and check, Mix gave an Academy-Award-style speech in which he thanked everyone who helped him, especially Randy Tom, the maker of the kites, and his mother because "she always believed in me."

- Reprinted from Kite Lines

TOP

To break the world's record for a train of stunt kites, the AKA rules require five minutes of flight, during which the train must loop to the left and loop to the right.

Going for it, Mix McGraw lofted his train of 224 modified Hyperkites over San Francisco's Marina Green, and piloted them through a right loop and left loop. So far so good. The on looking crowd of thousands cheered and clapped. But then - three and a half minutes into the world's record countdown - suddenly he called out to his teammate that he wanted to readjust his bridle!

Less than two minutes away from a world's record for the longest train of stunt kites might seem like an unusual time to be concerned about fine tuning your rig... But guess what? That's right - down they came. Teammates Ray Wong and Barry Nash helped realign the twelve inch kites while McGraw changed the angle of his lead kite.

Then the unthinkable happened - the wind, which usually roars in through the Golden Gate, went flat and unpredictable. McGraw's next attempt was doomed, but he swore he'd be back the next day.

And so he was. On Labor Day, 1988, Mix McGraw went into the record books when he successfully met the AKA standards with his 224 Hypers.

Three weeks later, on September 24, McGraw broke his own record with a 253 kite train at Ocean City, Maryland. Asked for a comment he said, "I couldn't have done it without my team and of course Randy Tom - he made the kites."

- Reprinted from "Short Flights"

TOP

When Mix McGraw started his love affair with very large stacks of kites back in 1982, flying a group of 52 Rainbows, set for what was then a world's record. Steve Edieken, then president of Rainbow Kites was of the opinion that it couldn't be done. We know now what, perhaps, was not known back then... Mix is a very determined individual.

"You've got to have confidence in yourself and faith in your kites," Mix said when interviewed by SKQ. That confidence showed up twice: once at the West Coast Nationals when he set a new world's record flying a stack of 224 hyperkites that were custom-built by Randy Tom, and again in Ocean City, Maryland, where on October 8th, Mix broke his own record by flying 253.

"After 150, the biggest problem with these large stacks is the 'snaking,'" Mix explained. "This particular bunch had initial problems with always turning to the left." The problems were obviously solved by the time San Francisco rolled around as Mix made it look easy for the excited crowd. The secret is smooth flying and dealing with all possible circumstances before they happen, according to the world's record holder. Both stacks were flown on 500lb. Spectra line with matching bridles and link lines and were flown after a month or two to get the stacks set up properly. What's next... 300? No word yet, but we know that Mix is thinking about it!

- Reprinted from SKQ

TOP

Candlestick Point State Recreation Area
Third Annual Kite Festival San Francisco,
California August 7, 1988

Candlestick Park is the San Francisco baseball stadium with reputation for wind, which is seldom appreciated by the San Francisco Giants. All stunt kiteflyers love to fly at Candlestick Point. It is located right outside the baseball park where the winds are consistent. The Third Annual Festival had all the ingredients - wind, contest, wind, food, wind, fun and more wind.

Mix McGraw flew a stack of Hyperkite Starfighters 200 in # to break a record. The world's record was set again by Mix at the West Coast Nationals on Labor Day weekend with 227 kites. Then broken by Mix again in Baltimore in late September with 253 kites. This is the the stunt kite record Mix has held since 1980. Mix flew the stack for the required 5 minutes and executed the left and right turns. Seeing Mix at his finest was more exhilarating to the crowd than was any record that he was breaking!

The previous record was held by Kenny Fredrickson of Sand Diego with a stack of 178 Hyperkite Starfighters. Kenny set his record in 1986 at Long Beach, Washington.

The Bay Area Sundowners, a popular stunt kite team in San Francisco, sponsored by The Kitemakers, flew on this auspicious occasion. It was just like old times for Mix McGraw and Ray Wong who have spent the better part of 1985 and 1986 at the Marina Green flying stunt kites.

- Reprinted from The Journal of The American Kitefliers Association

TOP

The wind hadn't picked up yet.

At 2 on a June afternoon, the wind speed was pingponging between 5 and 7 mph as Mix McGraw, of San Jose, Calif., adjusted his 80 kites, each standing upright in the clumpy sand of Bastendorff Beach.

"This is my nemesis. This is my nightmare," McGraw joked, gesturing at the train of kites that he painstakingly realigned into the wee hours of the morning. "I've spent a lot of sleepless nights with these things."

McGraw needs winds of 12 mph to keep the kites, 8 inches by 10 inches and tethered together, in the air.

Impatient in the lull, McGraw predicted the wind would spike at 4 p.m., long enough for him to put on a show for his mother-in-law, Mary Langenberg, of Coos Bay, who was celebrating her 80th birthday with the family.

The family, approximately 30 people occupying lawn chairs in the sand near Bastendorff Beach Road, sipped sodas and beer, hoisted children onto their laps, joked with each other and clapped whenever the kites got airborne. They accounted for three generations and represented six states. Almost every year they regroup for a family reunion.

One year, they went on a tropical cruise. Another, they went to a fireworks display in Roseburg.

"We try to do something every year," said McGraw's wife, Patricia. "If nothing's coming up - "

" - we make something," McGraw finished.

They like weddings because it gives the family the chance to reunite in non-summer months.

And this year, the family was there to watch McGraw, their world-record-setting in-law, fly 80 kites.

But the wind still hadn't picked up and McGraw was kneeling in the sand, a niece playing piggyback on his thick neck while he listened to the wind.

"It's important to learn how to read the wind 'cause if you don't, there will be a huge mess," he said.

It's obvious McGraw has learned to read the wind well: He can guess the windspeed within a mile per hour from a barometer reading, all by listening and studying the white caps on wave crescents.

Most people would think of McGraw as some sort of guru, possessing an almost spiritual knowledge of wind speeds and the amount of space that should be between the kites to allow the wind flow necessary to keep the set airborne, but he doesn't.

McGraw pointed out that it was only four years between 1982, the year he bought his first kite, and the year he set his first unofficial world record.

"I got started in this - I wanted to get a stuffed animal for my daughter and I walked into a kite shop. I bought myself a dual-line kite ... and taught myself to fly," McGraw said, adding with a wry grin, "And I never bought the stuffed animal."

He aimed to set a benchmark in simultaneous-kite flying simply because it was something different.

"When you do something, you don't want to do something someone else has started. You're a leader or a follower," McGraw said, "and I am not a follower."

He set that first record in 1986, flying diamond kites that measured 15 inches long by 13 inches wide - flying 52 of them, to be exact.

"Everybody said I couldn't do it. 'You're going against the laws of physics,'" McGraw said proudly. But he did it and did it again, breaking several world-record barriers: 200 simultaneous kites, 220 simultaneous kites and finally, 253 simultaneous kites.

Last year, he decided to make his records official by having one logged in the Guiness Book of World Records. And, with a recorded 219 simultaneous kites snaking through the wind, he set the first record in the category.

Not only are his world records a constant source of pride for McGraw and entertainment for his friends and family, the flying has kept him fit. "It's a very good workout, mental and physical," McGraw said, tapping his temple. "You've got to be thinking."

Because each kite is pulling the weight of the wind plus the weight of the remaining train, the force is extraordinary. One momentary lapse of thinking, McGraw said, and fliers can get swept off their feet.

To counteract the pull, McGraw has learned how to stand just right: parallel with the train of kites, his feet dug into the sand in a karate stance as he leans forward slightly to lower his center of gravity.

These days, McGraw isn't as interested in beating his own world records as teaching others what he's learned from his on-again, off-again, 19-year relationship with kite flying.

"There's a lot in this," he said, citing another example: "I've been working on this turning problem for a couple of months, but there's no one I can talk to about it."

McGraw's dream is to start a nonprofit organization to teach children how to fly, how to set records ... how to defy the laws of physics when no one thinks it's possible.

"This is not about me anymore," McGraw said, shaking his head. "I'm just a spoke in the wheel. It's all for a bigger scheme ... to me, knowledge is nothing if you can't pass it on.

" It's for that reason that McGraw rejects the I'm-not-a-role-model philosophy adopted by such athletes as basketball star Charles Barkley.

"It's a responsibility to be a role model," McGraw said. "I would much rather be known as someone who knew a little and did a lot than someone who knew a lot and did so little."

After a brief, thoughtful pause as he listened to the wind, a wide smile crept across his face.

"What time is it?" he asked.

A beat, and then McGraw asked again, "What time is it?" while holding his watch out of the glare of the sun.

"It's four o'clock," he said, triumphantly.

And the wind had picked back up.

By Sean Hanson reprinted from World Link

TOP

Waiting for the slightest puff of wind, Mix McGraw tensed, gripping the red-and-black handles of the control lines attached to a train of 75 kites stretched across a soccer field.

It's nearly impossible to fly a kite when there's no wind. But on a recent afternoon at Fremont's Central Park, McGraw intended to show the skills that have enabled him to set a number of kite-flying world records.

During the past two decades, McGraw, an engineer at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale and a San Jose resident, has set five of the six world records for flying the most number of kites at once. And on Oct. 4 at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, McGraw set a new mark for the Guinness Book of World Records by flying 230 kites at a time -- in a train 192 feet long.

A hint of a breeze, and McGraw tugged on the lines, lifting the lead kite into the air; the others instantly followed. "The moment you stand the kites up, they're ready to jump," McGraw said. He ran backward to keep the assembly aloft in the limp air.

He tugged on the left control line, and the kites circled to the left; a pull on the right line sent them into a turn that way. After a few brief moments, about as long as the Wright Brothers' first flight a century ago, McGraw tripped and the flight ended.

McGraw's wife, Pat, and kite-flying friend Achilles Gagliano of San Jose aligned the kites with the shifting breezes for another attempt.

You need at least a 10 mph wind to keep these 75 kites in the air, McGraw explained. But 75 kites is no longer a big deal. It takes a lot more wind to keep up several hundred.

McGraw, 53, started flying kites in the early 1980s. He had gone to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, intending to buy a stuffed-animal toy for his daughter, but ended up in a kite shop "and the rest is history," he said.

He began flying multiple kites, putting together 52 in a train to set his first record in 1982.

"Everybody was saying you can't do it, that it's going against the laws of physics. They felt it wasn't possible," McGraw said.

"It's really about going against the odds," he said. "You can do anything you set out to do if you stay positive, be focused and apply yourself."

In 1986, someone else flew 178 kites. McGraw responded in 1988, flying 200 and 224 kites in San Francisco and then the world record 253 kites at Ocean City, Md.

"It hasn't been challenged," McGraw said. "There are a lot of fliers but nobody will even step up to the plate."

The problem with records on kite-flying, set following American Kite Association rules, is that they're not well documented, McGraw explained.

But setting a mark for the Guinness Book of Records "has a paper trail," McGraw said. So he pursued that goal, flying 219 kites in the West Coast Stunt Championships in Berkeley in July 2002.

Then last month, he eclipsed his own Guinness record in Dayton, Ohio.

McGraw's kites are modified versions of a stunt kite called the Hyperkite Starfighter. They are delta-shaped, 9 by 11 inches, made of ripstock nylon with birch frames.

He connects the kites with four lines, creating a train, with each two spaced about 10 inches apart. Two control lines are attached to the lead kite -- the one closest to the person flying the train. The lead kite "takes quite a lot of punishment," he said.

McGraw uses 80-pound-test synthetic control lines for smaller stacks. For the longest kite trains, he uses 400-pound-test Kevlar lines, the same material used in bulletproof vests.

To launch such a huge assembly, McGraw said, "you need about three football fields. That's how much space it takes up."

It takes McGraw and his wife about 45 minutes to lay out the kites on their backs on the grass, in a straight line, perfectly aligned with the flying lines connected. "You just pull a little on the lead kite, it goes up and everybody follows it," he said.

Flying these kites is physically demanding, for in the air, the train is "a monster," McGraw said.

Turning the huge train in 20 mph wind produces as much as 400 pounds of pull on the flier, dragging him along the ground when he puts it into a turn.

The husky McGraw goes into a half squat, lowering his center of gravity, which "gives you the ability to pull twice your body weight," he said. Flying the kites "just sucks all of the energy out of you."

When the trains are more than 150 kites, he has to overcome the "snake factor."

Because the winds were not very strong at Dayton, the trailing end of the train whipped and wriggled around, making the kite nearly uncontrollable. Yet to set the Guinness record, McGraw had to fly for at least three minutes and make one circle to the left and one to the right "to show you have control and can maneuver."

He stayed up four minutes. A year earlier when he set the previous record in Berkeley, 30 mph winds had stabilized the kites, allowing him to stay aloft for eight minutes.

Next year, he hopes to fly 270 kites to break both his world and Guinness records.

McGraw says the wave of the future is indoor flying with kites made of ultra-light material attached to 20-foot lines as thin as dental floss that "just float in the air."

McGraw says kite flying "can generate a positive image and message to young people, a make-it-happen, can-do attitude. It is possible, even when everyone says you can't do it. You can, but you have to have the right attitude."

McGraw's kite flying club, Teamskymasters, can be reached on the Internet at www.2mteamskymasters.com or by e-mail at mixeer@hotmail.com

By Frank Sweeney reprinted from the San Jose Mercury News

TOP