16 Year Old Landon Kohtz Built a Kite Taller Than He Is

This season Landon Kohtz (16) will be taking his newest creation, “Indecisive” a 7′ tall kite with a 9.7′ wingspan, up into the sky. The kite boasts an alternating up and down arrow pattern that creates a neat illusion: You might first notice the blue arrows and think they’re on a white backdrop, or you might just notice the reverse. Hence the name “Indecisive”. Landon likes pointing out to people that there’s more than one set of arrows than the ones they first notice. Landon pieced together, sewed, and added spars to create the kite. It’s beautiful, impressive, and “pulls like a horse” in the right wind.

Landon has been flying stunt kites since 2012, and regularly participates in kite festivals. He made Indecisive so that his parents would have something to fly at kite festivals while he puts on a show with his own stunt kite. This is the second kite Landon has made, but his interest in making things that fly began with his work on a 30′ tall RC Hot air balloon. “I like flying kites because of the relaxation and it’s stress free fun. It is also great to watch people watch a stunt kite do all kinds of tricks and flips and twirls,” Landon explains, “Making kites is great too because all the work pays off when people see it fly and comment on it or marvel at it. The satisfaction is more than worth the effort of building a kite, and it’s a totally custom kite however the builder wants it.”

For Indecisive, Landon used plans created by Michael Anderson and Brooks Leffler for the form of the kite and made his own arrow based design to take advantage of the large center panel of the design. The kite is made from .75 oz ripstop nylon from Texlon Corp, and uses SkyShark 8P spars for the spreader and P2X spars for the verticals. The hardest part of the build was piecing together the arrows, but other than that Landon says that it was pretty straightforward to make.

So far, he’s been happy with the reactions people have had watching the kite in action. Because the kite is so strong, it can lift flags and inflatables which makes for a better show. What’s next for this project? “This project is done, all that’s left to do is fly it as much as I can,” says Landon.

[via Reddit]