1/2 Finally enough wind on kite days, but too much for hot air balloons
Hundreds of kites in just as many bright colors give the cloudy air above Rijsbergen a cheerful face. They dance on Saturday afternoon against the gray background on the occasion of the fifteenth edition of the Rijsbergse Vliegerdagen: a weekend full of color and cheerfulness. Moreover, luckily there is a lot of wind during this anniversary edition, that has been different.
It is cloudy, yet visitors and kite people walk enthusiastically across the site of the Rijsbergse Vliegerdagen. Fortunately there is enough wind, so that there are constant dozens of kites in the air.
“Nice kite weather,” says Twan Aarts from Steenbergen. Together with his wife Vienna, he is in a row of eight pilots. High above them make all kinds of movements. “This is team flying, or formation plane,” explains Twan.
“The first man on the right gives commands that everyone knows, and then a kind of ballet of kites of pilots is created in the air. Very fun to do.” A woman next to Twan has to concentrate so that the lines of the pilots do not get troubled, that she cannot say a word about what she is doing.
“Tonight is night flying, I think it’s most beautiful.”
Most kite people who visit the Rijsberg flying day make their kites themselves. On Friday they already arrive on the site, with campers and tents. They are set up along the kite site, where there is also plenty of flooding.
Frans Geerlings from Veldhoven has been a regular guest at the Rijsbergse Vliegerfeest for fifteen years. “Tonight is night flying, I think it’s most beautiful,” he says. “I made a kite with a thousand lights. In the dark that looks beautiful.”
The night flyer is just one of the hundreds of kites that Frans made himself. “I used to be here all weekend with my wife, but unfortunately she has not been there for two years. Fortunately everyone knows me here. It is just one big family, those kiteers. That feels very nice.”
“We don’t mind that the sun is not shining now – as long as the wind blows.”
“We are very lucky this year,” says Petra Baremans, who has been involved in the organization of the Vliegerfeest for fifteen years with her husband René. “There has been almost no wind for the past three years. We don’t mind that the sun is not shining now – as long as the wind blows.”
Twan from Steenbergen agrees: “We haven’t had such a nice breeze in years.” From the distant circumference you see the colorful kites dancing in the air. “Rijsbergen is proud of this event,” says Petra. “Many people from the village cooperate and pilots come from far and wide here. We have brought together the most beautiful parts of all the kite parties here: a beautiful field, lots of fun and good facilities for everyone who stays here the entire weekend.”
“The wind is blowing too hard, and the wind from the wrong direction to safely let the huge balloons go up.”
The nice kite wind also has a downside. Especially for the fifteenth edition, eighteen hot air balloons would take off on Saturday at the end of the day. But mid -afternoon it sounds through the speakers that the balloon fiesta cannot continue due to the strong wind. “The wind is too powerful, and moreover the wind comes from the wrong direction to safely let the huge balloons go up.”
