A slow-burning fuse later released the instruments, which plummeted to Earth. The scientists' big challenge was to quickly find the thermometers that survived the fall before they warmed up. However, modern designs and materials, sophisticated electronic instruments, and inexpensive, lightweight cameras transform a simple toy into a data-gathering system with broad applications.
Kites are light, portable, and easy to launch, and their only power requirement is a steady wind.
They can soar at altitudes too high or in winds too strong for tethered balloons, and they can be flown at levels so low that aircraft would be impracticable or unsafe. Besides meteorologists, many other scientists have been employing these most simple aircraft for answering an ever more diverse range of questions. Atmospheric chemists, entomologists, agricultural scientists, geologists, and others now rival children in their love of kites. To explain complicated atmospheric phenomena such as turbulence, scientists need to gather data at specific altitudes for extended periods. So, when researchers swept into the flatlands near Wichita, Kans., last October to take part in the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study, some brought along rectangular parafoil kites.