And then we always forget to mention good ol' George Pocock and his 1826 patent....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pocock_(inventor)
BTW I love these kinds of threads, I relatively recently starting kiting, and wish to relive to past. WHY are todays kites better? So I have a Naish Aero, North Rhino 2005, North Vegas 2006.
Try to try all the classics....
Still stoked on my 2005 rhinos by the way....Smooth machines.
As a sidenode: I flew my 2006 Cabrinha Xbow lately, and wondered how much the shape looked like the 2008 Bularoo/Waroo. But the steering line is connected by a pulley to the front line bridle (pulley close to the kite, not the bar pulley!). While the modern SLE's have it all separate. So I adjusted it (30 minutes work), and now I have a perfectly fine flying SLE version of the XBow that turns 3x as fast has a small bar throw and still depowers decently (all 1:1 on the bar of course).
What did I miss? Is it just a obvious modification because I had seen the right examples?.....
What did they think when they advertised the Naish Aero in the 2001 magazines as having awesome water relaunch capabilities?