can this be converted to a kite, its made of ripstop nylon its designed that there is a hole in the center and its lines goes similar stitching and center hole to these images

it has a lot of pull power on its own already at 28 feet diameter, but is there a better way to utilize the rip stop nylon. also for safety, at $15 dollars I think it was a good buy either way

Everything about this question is a bad idea. There's no way to build a power kite out of 60 year old ripstop and have it be safe. I wouldn't even make hammocks out of ripstop that old.

Lots of possibilities. It could be made into a lot of kites, or a parasail.


A lot depends on the quality of the fabric. If this is really a 1958 parachute, the fabric could be degraded. I suggest doing the thumb test on it. If you can force your thumb through the fabric it is shot, and would never hold together well enough to make a kite. Even if it passes, more rigorous testing should be done.

NASA designed and tested parawings as an alternative to parachutes for space capsule returns. They never made it into space, but decades later hobbyists figured out how to make them into kites, now called NPW's. They are fairly easy to make and it seems you would have all the material you would ever need. To be honest, however, it would probably take a lot of work to make it work, as the gores already have been sewn into a canopy shape and would have to be disassembled and new panels sewn together. Might be cheaper and a lot safer to just buy some ripstop. The link below gives plans to build NPW's.

I don't know much about parasails, but they do seem to be normal canopy's with part of a gore removed, and maybe some other modifications.


https://www.kiteplans.org/cat_3/sub_34/

Anyway - erratic winds is probably right........a prop for movie is probably the best bet.