Joel Scholz  Butterfighter

Butterfighter

Presented by Joel Scholz  Adrian, MI

TYPE OF CLASS:  Sew

CLASS SIZE:  12

SKILL LEVEL:  Intermediate

CLASS LENGTH: Half Day  *Class Participants will get the information to complete their kite during class, but may not get the kite complete during class time.  Class time will concentrate on completing a plain sail which can be appliqued later.  Follow Up questions can be asked Sunday Afternoon during "Aspects of Kite Design"

TIMES OFFERED:  Once

ART/COLOR CHOICE:  Sail color will be selected in class.  

KIT PRICE: $50 - $75 US

****Joel is experimenting with the Butterfighter to make a more maneuverable kite for the Midwest winds.  This kite project may have some changes and evolutions as Joel continues to make changes to get the "perfect" kite.*******

A brief history of the Butterfighter from Joel.....

       I attended my first AKA in 1978. I hardly knew anyone and few knew me. On the first morning I went to breakfast and saw a distinguished looking gentleman eating alone and asked if he would mind if I joined him. His name was Joe Vaughn of Grandmaster Kites.

     It was the beginning of a long friendship  and my first introduction to single line maneuverable kites or fighter kites.

     Joe taught me the basics of flying a fighter kite and for that I will be forever grateful.

     I returned to Texas with my Grandmaster and taught myself to fly it. Over the years I traveled many places with Joe. He was the father of indoor kite flying and I can still hear the flute music he flew and danced to.

       I soon discovered that fighter kites came in many forms and almost every country had its own indigenous fighter design and virtually all were made from paper and bamboo.

     I thought that maybe I could invent an American Fighter kite but made from modern materials. I designed my fighter using ripstop nylon and fiberglass. I felt the heavier materials would require a larger sail to keep the wing loading down, thus the Butterflyer and Butterfighter were born.

      I took this kite to Long Beach and asked Mel Govig, a fan of  fighter kites if he would like to fly it.

      I knew I was on to something when everyone flying kites took shelter from the rainstorm that had blown in and there was Mel still out on the beach flying my Butterfighter.

     He later reviewed my kite in Kitelines magazine. (Kitelines Winter 1988-89) (See below)

Facebook Post July 22, 2026 by Joel Scholz....

I have been revisiting the Butterfighter design after 3 decades after reading a review describing it as more of a dancing kite than a fighter kite. It struck a chord with me as it gave me the idea of developing a dancing single ́line kite.  I had my friend Nathan cut me four icarex sails on his laser. I made a yellow one and today was really the first day I had any wind to fly it in.

    I find the Michigan wind in my area to be particularly trying . They go from 7 to 20 in a few minutes and often change direction by 30 degrees or more. They were like that today.

    The Butterfighter has enough weight and inertia to fly in virtually zero wind as it's movement thru the air creates its own lift. The slow speed also allows the kite to turn even with the attached decorative tails.

      It is a truism that wind drag increases as the speed of an object increases. In fact it increases by a factor of the square root of the windspeed. If the wind blows twice as hard the drag increases by a factor of 4 times as much.

     This is something I am experimenting with because I think tails add to the dancing whimsical effect of the kite in the air. At some point they become too long with too much drag to allow the kite to turn easily.

     The first 87 second video shows the Butterfighter flying in virtually no wind with Bonnie filming the result. This was taken in my backyard.  The other videos (2, 3) shows test flights today in winds above 10mph. I am flying it as a single line kite tied to a goalpost. I was alone and it is virtually impossible to film and fly a fighter at the same time,  (Click on above underlined passages to see these flight videos.)