Flying Sites (Kent)

St Mildred's Bay Devil's Kneading Trough Wye Playing Fields The Ridge St Mary's Bay Camber Sands Blackheath Tonbridge Sports Ground Capstone Country Park Mote Park Rough Common

These sites are publicly accessible ones that have some suitability for sports kite, or single-line kite, flying.

Devil's Kneading Trough

The Devil's Kneading Trough is part of a nature reserve on the Wye Downs between Wye and Hastingleigh (MAP).

It is more suited to single-line than sports kites as the ground is poor -- the vegetation is knee-high in early summer before it is grazed. It's usually tolerable from mid September to March or April (but watch out for grazing cattle and their "eggs"! If you are flying sports kites, do not expect to be able to do much, if any, ground work and realise that a high speed unintentional landing may result in a punctured sail. The best flying spot is on the hill on the SE side of the valley; most people tend to go to the head of the valley itself, but the wind there is very lumpy if it is coming up the valley.

Parking (where shown on map) is free, but can be crowded when the weather is fine. There is an alternative car park, not shown, on the NW of the site, opposite the entrance to the Devil's Kneading Trough restaurant. You can get refreshments at the restaurant. Be wary of dogs whose illiterate owners cannot read the "Keep Dogs on a Lead" notices.

St Mary's Bay

St Mary's Bay is midway between Hythe and Dungeness (MAP)

The beach runs several kilometers from SSW to NNE; the region between Hythe and Dymchurch is taken up by miliary firing ranges, but the bit between Dymchurch and St Mary's Bay village is a nice sandy beach, shingle above high water, with a wide concrete footway above and a low sea-wall (sittable on) between the footway and the car park. At low tide there are a couple of hundred metres of reasonably flat sand between the shingle and the sea ( ). The beach is sports-kite flyable when the tide is below about 3m (at which point the shorter groynes are completely exposed), grockles permitting.

Although the beach is popular, it is sufficiently large that it rarely gets over-crowded and there is usually somewhere to fly. Except for a couple of hours either side of low water, the presence of groynes makes it less convivial for "communal" sports kite flying than, say, Camber Sands W of the café, but it is excellent for solo visits. The combination of groynes and grockles also makes it entirely unsuitable for PKs, so one is not continually dodging mattress-powered buggies -- they tend to go a bit further west to Greatstone or Camber. It is excellent for sports-kite flying when the wind is from N clockwise to SSW.

Use the car-park at the centre of this map (80p/hr; £2.30/3hr), and park well north of he entrance (car-park extends almost to Dymchurch) -- the grockle-density is usually greater near the kiosks near the car-park entrance, and you probably don't want to land a kite in sand around the sluice outflow. In summer, you can get refreshements at the kiosk.

My recent experience is that the winds here are usually very smooth; on warm days when the prevailing wind permits, there is a good sea-breeze in the afternoons.

St Mildred's Bay

St Mildred's Bay is N facing, just west of Margate (MAP).

The wind is usually reasonably smooth above about 30 feet when it is coming off the sea, but is a tad lumpy at low level. Park on the Royal Esplanade and fly on the patch of land that is arrowed on the map.

If the weather is nice, expect an audience and do not feed the chavs.

The Ridge, Kennington, Ashford

The Ridge playing fields are on the N side of Ashford. (MAP)

Despite this being an urban location, there are usually very few people there out of the soccer season: a few dog-walkers (usually very considerate of flyers), sometimes some youths playing soccer, the occasional parents with young children, and a few people chilling out on the mound under the large tree. (During the soccer season it is covered with goal posts and tends to have lots of soccer matches on Sundays, making it unsuitable for flying.) Fly on the raised area to the NW of the site, away from any turbulence caused by the tree on the mound. The wind is never ideal, and is very fickle when light, but this is still relatively good for an urban flying site.

Park here (free).

Camber Sands

Not actually in Kent, but one of the best places to fly, especially when the wind is from the W to S quarter. Power kiters are confined to the east (Jury's Gap) end. The best place for sports kites is the west (Rye) end of the beach, where the crowds are usually less dense. Watch out for horse-riders in winter and early mornings in summer. Also, this end of the beach is a "dogs off lead" zone, so beware of the dogs whose moronic minders think that this also nmeans that they don't have to exercise control over the animals in their charge.

Mote Park

Situated on the outskirts of Maidstone city centre, there's a lot of space to fly.

Capstone Farm Country Park

The home of the annual Kites Over Capstone festival, and a bi-monthly venue for KKF. The wind is usually very lumpy for sports kites, but SLKs are OK above the tree tops.

Rough Common

KKF monthly meetings (2nd Sunday) are held here. OK when the wind is from the east.

Blackheath

Lots and lots of room and wind is usually smooth. Possibly one of the best sites in Greater London.

Tonbridge Sports Field

Just near the castle. East winds are lumpy.