In the 60 years that followed, few but children flew kites. Then came the space program and with it, a renewed interest in the art of building and flying kites. He developed the sophisticated parawing that permits the safe return of space capsules. In a text the famous Chinese engineer Hungshu Phan of the fourth century B.C. is credited with the invention of a wooden bird that flew for three days without descending. This is generally accepted as a kite.
Chinese folklore abounds in stories of kites flown for both pleasure and purpose.
The more outstanding were military needs. General Han Hsin used a kite to gauge the distance between his forces and the walls of a palace, in order to figure out the distances his sapper's might have to dig, so his troops might gain entrance. Whose army was surrounded and threatened with annihilation. He had them build quantities of kites fitted with sounding devices and flew them in the dead of night above his opponent's army. On hearing the mysterious wailing in the sky, his enemy fled in panic.