Growing up in northeast Brazil, we did air combat, too. Of course, ours was
with kites. The kites in that area were quite small, made with the spine of
a coconut frond as sticks (about the diameter of a toothpick), tissue paper
and sewing thread. You used sewing thread to fly it with, too. The kite
itself was only about eight inches to a foot tall with a tail about twenty
feet long consisting of sewing thread with tiny bits of bed sheet tied to
it. Before flying the kite you had to treat the thread... this consisted of
taking a burned-out light bulb, crushing the glass, and putting glue on the
string and running it through the powdered glass. You now had a saw for a
kite string ;-) The kites were quite aerobatic and capable of interesting
manuevers and were armed with a saw to cut down other kites. Materials to
build the next one were quite cheap, so it was no great loss financially.
You can't believe how tempting it looks every spring when I see all those
kites sitting in the air just waiting for the shark...
David Lieb
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