Adam Papa, a 23-year-old freshman from Thibodaux, can be seen flying a large kite on windy days near the Nicholls stadium on Audubon Drive — a kite, he says, that can lift him up to 20 feet into the air.
Papa, who was a diver for the U.S. Navy, came to Nicholls to study pre-engineering. Papa said he has been flying his big kite for about six or seven months. His mother originally gave him a small stunt kite, and his brother later introduced him to the idea of much larger kites. Papa’s brother told him that there are kites large enough for people to ski with and be lifted high into the air with. Papa began looking on the Internet for one to purchase and eventually bought the Flexifoil Blade II that he currently owns.
Papa described his kite as being shaped like a rectangular parachute with the edges rounded that takes up 4.9 square meters in surface area when deployed. The kite itself is made out of a thin nylon material, and there are four lines, two on either side, connected from the handles in his hands to the kite in the sky. The entire kite including lines weighs approximately four to six pounds.
“[Flexifoil] makes different size kites for different people,” Papa said. “It really depends on what you want to do. ”
Papa said there have been many times when strong gusts of wind have ripped the handles out of his hand, but the tension from releasing the handles causes the kite to lose its shape and fall back down to earth. Papa has never lost his kite or had to replace it. He recalled that he once thought that he had lost his kite over water, but he found it before it sank too deep to be recovered.
“You really can’t lose [the kite] if you let go of it,” Papa said.
Papa describes flying the kite as having the entire power zone in front of him. When flying his kite, Papa has to lean back almost even with the ground and pull strenuously to keep from being pulled across the field by it. When wind currents change to the proper bearings, Papa can jump and be lifted anywhere between five and twenty feet into the air.
“Getting lifted off the ground is the most exciting part of flying (the kite),” Papa said. “Everybody likes to do some sort of physical activity, and this is mine. Some people like to play basketball; I like to fly my kite.”
Papa said that when he first began flying his kite, his dad thought it was a crazy idea because Papa tore the ligaments in his left ankle coming down from the air after a jump. Most of Papa’s friends think that it’s an interesting idea, and they often want to try to fly the kite and try to do the powerful jumps themselves.
“[His flying the kite] is awesome,” Nicole Bourg, Papa’s girlfriend and a nursing senior from Houma, said. “I’ve tried (flying the kite) before, and he makes it look so easy.”
Emily LeBlanc, a freshman from Houma, said: “I think flying a kite like that is awesome. I want to jump up in the air too.”
Papa said: “I’m trying to find other people to get into the sport of flying because I want to get into kite-boarding and stuff like that.”
Anyone interested in gaining more information about flying kites or getting involved in the activity with Adam Papa can call him at (985) 856-8479.