The video recording shows a successful launch of the TU Delft V3 kite from an upside-down hanging position on 2 August 2012 at the former airfield Valkenburg, Leiden, Netherlands. The GoPro camera is placed on the ground next to the launch mast. Following the upswing of the kite into an upright position, the tether suddenly disengages from the mast head (10 s into the video). In contrast to the previous flight, the resulting lash of the tether does not lead to a breaking of the weak link, just below the kite control unit, but instead, the kite accelerates and, while reeling out the tether, performs a crosswind sweep past the ground surface, before climbing to higher altitude. At 1 min into the video the kite disappears from the field of view, after which it reappears shortly several times, before eventually leaving it at 4 min into the video, when flying to the landing site. This launch was also covered by a regular photo camera and by a second GoPro video camera that was taped to the leading edge tube of the kite, looking down at the kite control unit. Unfortunately, the data recording did not work properly. Because the time of the GoPro video camera was incorrectly set, the time information of the photographic footage was used for synchronization, knowing from the previous test flight that this footage runs 2:21 min ahead of the correct time. The creation date of the video was set to the launch time 19:26:29.50 such that the tether disengages from the mast head about 10 s later, at 19:26:39.50. |