Kite handling skills at 80 years old, beat this!!

Hardly my cup of tea but impressive none the less.

Just to clarify:

typical kiter..

Yes Ray Bethel was in Perth for the Red Bull air show. He is well past 80, but won't tell anyone his exact age anymore as he reckons its between him and his maker now. He is a very, very interesting person. Old school to the core, and yet well up to date with whats going on in the world, more so than most people a quarter of his age.

His kite flying skills are extraordinary, to the point of being inexplicable for someone his age. The patience and knowledge that goes into make kites re-fuel is impossible to describe, but when he stayed with me for a couple of weeks in Sydney he tried to show me, needless to say it takes many hours of fine tuning.

+1 Power up maybe

With his donkey dick of course Stabber!

Sublime.

Reminds me of a passage from Tim Winton's Breath

"I couldn't have put words to it as a boy, but later I understood what seized my imagination that day. How strange it was to see men do something beautiful. Something pointless and elegant, as though nobody saw or cared. ... We talked about skill and courage and luck - we shared all that, and in time we surfed to fool with death - but for me there was still the outlaw feeling of doing something graceful, as if dancing on water was the best and bravest thing a man could do." (pp23-4)

Why even cough? Just say it outright: "At some point in the past, perhaps earlier than I can remember, I was so shamed by others (who were no doubt themselves similarly shamed) for displaying any aesthetic expression or appreciation that I disowned that part of myself, labelled it 'gay' and now project it onto others as something to be feared, loathed, and avoided at all costs. I have accepted this as the price of avoiding further shame and violence from other men even though it takes a lot of work to continually affirm to myself and others that I am free from any sort of vulnerability or susceptibility to beauty or passion."

Busy this Friday, sorry Stabbs, and as for warm and tender, you have to earn that good stuff - until then I'm cool, even distant, and well able to assert my boundaries. And at the risk of adding insult to injury, to Stabbs and my more closeted fans, I'm also pretty darned straight - sorry.

Back to the topic - Ray has mad skills, he's an artist, a model of dedication, and hopefully we can admire his work and that of other artists without being harassed by those for whom admiration of beauty is somehow difficult or threatening.

One of the best comebacks I've read on here ever!

@ Chris 6791
Refuel is the move he does where he parks two and then three kites together and then flies them as if they are one - BUT there are now 6 lines connected to this delicately balanced 3 separate kites flying as one, aircraft!
The kites are "tuned" specially to do this, the first kite, on the longest lines (approx 1.5M difference in line lengths) is tuned to fly slightly, I mean very slightly slower than the second kite, and then once those two are refueled the stack of two flies slower than the third, so that the third can be flown up from behind the 2 that are refueling and then park and refuel itself.
Sounds complicated to do - it is. Looks awesome and sort of simple yep, and thats the magic of what Ray does.

And to those that make fun of him, I've seen some young and middle aged guys come off very second best when they've tried that in person. Rays hands and arms are still incredibly strong, don't let the leathery skin fool you!! He can also just walk away from fools too, and usually does, as they don't deserve a response.

The third kite is controlled from his waist, he has made a special belt and clips the lines directly to his belt with shackles like we use on our leashes. The pull from those 3 kites is quite strong, and Ray is not a little guy, probably still weighs in around 90+kg.