Panflute Kite (Revisited)

The Panflute is a soft kite (no sticks) made of 7 connected windsock like tubes or cells. It has a good wind range and flies at an angle of 30-40 degrees. It flys with a side-to-side sway, or wobble, making this kite very pleasent to look at in the sky, particularly with a long ribbon tail, or other decoration.

The kite is a great for families. It can be stuffed in a bag, and flown on the beach. Bury the handle in the sand and leave flying to mark your picnic spot. However you need reasonable sewing skills and access to some light weight fabric. The soft un-sealed ripstop in curtain shops is fine for this kite, though not for any other kite I know of.

Read other peoples responses, results and photos

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Templates and Pieces

Start by making the two templates (or measure directly) from cardboard, to cut seven (7) of each type panel ('B' for the bottom, 'T' for the top panel). For aesthetics try alternating contrasting colours for each cell or create a rainbow color sequence.

The kite is very forgiving, so while a hem allowance should be added, it isn't required.

Similarly you do not need to use exactly the measurements suggested on the template. A bit shorter or longer is fine, same with the widths. As long as the base width, at the lower end of bottom templete 'B', (7 cm in this diagram) is roughly doubled (14 cm), and quadrupled (28 cm), everything will work out.

For example:- My giant panflute (see photo right) is 2.5 metres long and the base width is 16 cm (making the top measurment of piece 'T' 64cm wide. These were caluclated to fit the ripstop pieces I had available.

Sewing Pieces Together

On all the pieces hem the top and bottom edges. Then starting with one 'B' and one 'T' piece, for an outside tube, and pin them together along one side edge with the outside faces facing each other, IE: top and bottom edge hems on the outside, inside sides on the outside.

At this point also sew some loops at both ends of seam. These will be used to attach one end of the bridle line and tail lines of the finished kite. The bridle loop should be directed to the side, as that is where the pull comes from, while the tail or drogue loops should face downward.

In larger versions you may like to add a side pannel rather than a bridle loop. The pannel is made by layering and sewing together the material to make it thicker and stiffer, particularly as you get to the corner with the bridle point. Its job is not to add surface area to the kite, but to spread the forces from the bridle line accross the kite as evenly as posible, and prevent kite from folding up due to those forces. It is NOT needed for a normal sized panflute.

Preprepare the side pannel first, and hen both outside edges. Position it between the top and bottom pieces, before sewing through all three pannels.

You may also like to do a second run of the hem though the machine with a zig-zag stitch down the edge of the hems to prevent fraying. Isn't nessary, but will make the kite more robust and last longer. I didn't do this with my first panflute and it is now (5 years later) showing problems. Still flys great though (see photo left).

Fold the first two pieces along the seam, so the outside of the pieces is now outside. Taking another pair of top and bottom pieces sandwich the first two pieces already sewn together between these. Top piece over top piece, so the two outsides face each other. Simularly with the bottom. If you remember the outside sides face each other when sewing you should never get this wrong.

Pin them carefully together and sew through all four pieces, to finish the edge tube and start the next tube. This can be tricky so take your time and do it right. Run the edit through the sewing machine again using a zigzag or blanket stitch to stop the material fraying.

Repeat with another pair of top and bottom panels, twice more, to complete three tubes and one side of the middle tube of the kite.

Start the process again but starting from the other end of the kite, with the opposite edge of the pieces. When you run out of pieces you should have two halfs of the kite completed with only the last seam of the middle tube to be sewn.

This last seam is the most difficult as you have to roll both groups of panels into the middle cell you are closing off. That is the whole kite is rolled up, inside the middle tube, which is then completed, inside out.

Take your time and figure it out. and remember, inside faces of the top and bottom panel will face outside. Use lots of things like, pins, bulldog clips, clothes pegs, or anything else, to hold the two rolls of material tightly together in a roll, and help you position the four panels for the final seam. Only when you are sure you have it right, and you will not sew though more than the four panels you intend, should you proceed with the final seam.

When the final seam has been sewn, pull the kite out of the middle tube to form its normal working shape, removing any pegs, pins, or buldog clips you used to hold the rolls of fabric together.

Bridles and Tails

To the loops you sewed at the front (upper) corners of the kite tie a bridle line approximately 2 metres long (longer the better, a cheap braided nylon builders line is good for this). Then tie a loop in the middle of this line to attach the flying line. Repeat for the lower corners using a much shorter length (about a metre), so you can attach a tail to the middle.

The plan calls for a drogue, to steady the kite. However I found a 5 metre ribbon tail, or tube will work much better, (and look good too). You can also just attach two seperate tails directly to the two lower corners instead. Almost anything will do as its job is only to remove some of the side-side 'wobble', of the kite. It should be a good length. If a drouge is used put it at the end of at least a 2 meter line, so it is some distance from the kite.

Now go fly it :-)

Large Panflute Notes

When I scaled up this kite I found the kite tended to collapse (folding in half) as too much air was lost through the ends of the tubes. To stop this I sewed about 5cm up the middle of the end of each tube, dividing the end of the tube into two (see photo right). This restricted the airflow exiting the tube, increasing the internal pressure and making the kite more ridged, and less prone to collapse.

Andrew Kilborn had some great success, in joining the leading edge of the top cell panels to its neighbours. See his email in responses for a photo. This means that when one cell inflates, it will open the neighbouring cell a little allowing the wind to inflate the next cell as well.

In my own giant panflute I also added some triangular side flaps using a thicker red ripstop (see photo), and layered even more pieces (with double sided tape and sewing) at the corner where the bridle lines are attached. Though this should not be required, I believe it helps to spread the load with the extra thickness also helping to stop the folding collapse of the kite. Also, though I have not performed any real test, I believe it would make the kite fly at a higher angle. Looks good in any case. Aside: don't make them too big!

Due to its large size, a extra line is sewn on top of the hem accross leading edge of all the the 'B' pieces, from one side to the other. This is best done while the kite is being built, using a lines from each corner, sewn along the leading hem as the pieces are joined together, and overlaping on the center panel. The line prevents the huge pull of the kite ripping out the kite seams, especially in the leading edge corners. This isn't a problem with a normal sized panflute, but a must, in a larger kite like this one.

Also I recommend on a big kite like this, that the bridle line is completely detachable, so that it can be easily replaced. I have found that in any sort of kite to kite conflict, it is the bridle lines that take most of the wear and tear. In the three years my giant panflute has now been flying I have replaced its bridle lines 4 times!

My large panflute can fly from a very light breeze (with some tails removed) to near gale force winds that few kites can fly in. One weekend it flew in such strong winds that eventually caused the bridle lines of the kite to give causing the kite to fly off into the bay! Lucky for me a friendly jet skier went out to pick up the soggy mass for me.

On other occasion with light winds all the other kites dropped out of the sky as the wind died, with the panflute the last to do so. I did remove the larger center tail, leaving one the two smaller side ones to save weight.

To finish with the photo to the right is another large panflute created by Phil Holoway, a local kite club member. The tail on the panflute is very long, and shows clearing the huge "swish" the kite gives its tail. Also note that the kite was made with 8 cells instead of 7, resulting in the kite being much wider. Any more than 8 cells, I would then recomend the addition of a extra central fin, turning the kite into a double arched panflute.

Other ideas...

Once you have made one of these kites, they become easy to make, and fly. They make great Christmas presents, and you can make them in what ever color the reciever likes. You could even sew their name down the lower center (middle) panel (applique) before sewing the peices together to make it very a very personal gift.

The individual panels also do not have to be the same color. You can sew different colored peices together before cuting out the panels themselves to make the kite look even more interesting. See photo on Phil Holloway's panflute, above right.

The kites also like to swish tails, so you can add interesting and fancy tails to the kite. My big one isn't great, but the long tails with white balls in it (called "space balls" tail) make it a very interesting to look at in the sky.

Responses, Results & Photos

For more information about peoples experience with building a kite with this plan, and what results they have achieved, I suggest you look at the various Responses I have recieved. Also on that page I have included photos of other panflutes I have found on the net.

Many thanks to all who have replied.

If like this plan, and/or build one, please mail and let me know what you think. Including any ideas, suggestions or other experiences. That way I can add them to the above so others can read and benifit from your results. :-) Photos especially welcome!

Sources and References

This plan was developed from the internet plan published by Buck Childers.

This in turn was based on a short article in the Dutch magazine _De Zette Vieger_, Nbr.6 which references another kite newsletter by Piet van Stallduinen.

Buck Childers plan was revised for the Queensland Kite Flyers Society's Newsletter, and later became this plan. Since then it has grown, becomming more detailed and more than three times larger with detail, construction notes and options.