Double Martinelli!

Sometimes you just stumble across some kites, and the offer is such that you simply can't refuse ... I have to admit I'd never heard of a kite builder called Ron Martinelli, and had never seen a Martinelli kite until I saw a pair for sale at Windswept Kites, for a price equivalent to around £18 ... That's £18 for the pair! They looked like a smaller version of a Top of the Line Spin-Off, and they looked like they would be a hoot to fly as a pair when the wind picks up. Needless to say, the pair is ours now, and here they are at our primary pair-flying site:

I googled around, trying to find more information on the kites, at the very least the model name, but drew blanks all over. Until I got in touch with Ron himself, who told me that the kites were made in the 1980s, that only something like 15-20 were ever made (one of which is in the Weifang Kite Museum in China), and that they didn't have a specific name. So without knowing it, I got my hands on a pair of pretty rare Martinelli kites!

So what about their flight characteristics? They look like small Spin-Offs (wing span is 1.91m, as opposed to 2.47m for a TotL Spin-Off), and they fly like a Spin-Off ... on steroids. As you might expect, they do need a decent wind to get going, but once the wind goes above, say, 12mph, they are really in their element.

And what about flying them as a pair? Fast, noisy, and a hoot to fly together! A really fun pair of kites to pull out on a windy day, at the end of a practice session, and just have pure, unadulterated, fast and furious FUN!