KAPtery rigs at Ennapurna

Starting this week there is a new place to buy some KAPtery rig kits. Ennapurna is an online store based in France which has a huge selection of kites and other gear for playing in the wind and sun. It has some very good lifting kites for aerial photography, and now has two kits to build camera rigs for KAP. Ennapurna is now the best place to buy a Redstone Rig Kit or Aerobee Rig Kit in Europe. You can also get a Picavet Kit or Pendulum Kit to attach your camera rig to the flying line. Shipping is free if you buy at least one rig and suspension pair.

I enjoyed seeing the descriptions of these KAPtery products in French and I have learned a new word from the translation. The camera rigs are referred to as nacelles. This is the French term for the gondola under a hot air balloon, so it seems like a very appropriate word. But nacelle is used in English for several other things. In aviation, a nacelle is a subsidiary hull separate from the fuselage, for example the pod-shaped housings for engines. In 1949 the term was borrowed for the aerodynamic headlamp housing on the Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle which integrated the instrument panel. It was later borrowed for the generator housing on wind turbines. Nacelle is also a nautical term for secondary hulls, and is a term used for the part of a catamaran between the two main hulls. The salon on a catamaran is sometimes referred to as the nacelle. 

I didn't know that I made nacelles, but now I'm glad I have lots of reasons to use the word.

From Old French nacele (“small boat”), from Late Latin navicella, diminutive of Latin navis (“boat”).

We call the basket under a balloon the gondola, but the French word for this is nacelle.

In aviation, a nacelle is a subsidiary hull separate from the main fuselage. Jet engines on commercial airliners are housed in nacelles.

Everybody knows that the warp engines on the Starship Enterprise are housed in nacelles.

1951 Triumph Thunderbird nacelle.

The housing of the generator in wind turbines is called a nacelle.

The salon or nacelle of a luxury catamaran.