The 85-year old-kite flier that’s become an online hit

Jim Nicholls was “a young man of 69 “when he started flying kites.

Now, 16 years on, the 85-year-old is one of New Zealand’s hottest influencers with thousands of fans tuning into his YouTube channel.

A kite day in his home of Christchurch hooked him in, Nicholls told Summer Weekends.

This video is hosted on Youtube.

. And I thought, ‘oh, I want to do that’.

“So, I bought a kite, put it up in the air, and I was hooked. I haven’t stopped since.”

As he became more engrossed, he discovered there was very little information out there about kite flying so started his own YouTube channel.

“I was so disappointed with the information that was available about kites. There was nothing. Kite companies were doing nothing to promote their kites.”

Soon his kite flying videos started to take off.

“The first videos I made, I just put up a short video of each of the kites, firstly, without any commentary at all. And then I started putting captions to give a bit of information about them.

“And a little while after that, I started thinking, well, people might like to see more than just a single kite. So, when I went to the beach and put up a few kites, I’d take a video of that display and put that up. And that’s what I mostly do these days.”

Any kite is a good kite if it flies well, he says.

“People don’t seem to realise that you can buy a kite for $10 that’ll fly well, and you can have a lot of fun with it.”

But, he says, “almost nobody” flies kites anymore.

“We have over 400,000 people in Christchurch, and there are, I think, three of us who fly kites fairly regularly out of 400,000 people. It’s a very minority interest.

“But when we have our annual kite day, which is coming up on the 24th of this month, we get thousands of people come down to the beach.”

As interest in the hobby declines so do the places would-be fliers can buy kites, he says, with very few outlets remaining in New Zealand.

“It used to be that places like Farmers sold kites in their toy section. But they don’t anymore because there’s no demand. So finding a kite is quite a difficult thing. You have to go online.”

But avoid the $2 bargain shops, he says.

“You might find a kite, and it’s probably plastic, and even if it’s not, it’s not going to last five minutes in a strong breeze.”

If you want to give kite-flying a go, start simple, he advises.

“Don’t go for anything too fancy. Get something simple like a nice Delta kite.

“People, when they think of kites, usually think of diamond kites because of Charlie Brown and the cartoons, and his diamond kite. But they’re not the easiest kites to fly.”

Jim Nicholls flowtail kites fill the sky

Jim Nicholls

Bigger kites also fly better than small kites, he says.

“Get something of a reasonable quality and just get out there and fly. You need a fairly smooth wind, don’t fly next to any trees or buildings.

“Get the wind behind your back. Put the kite in the air. Let it go up and just glory in the miracle of flight.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand