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"  As a kite boarder, zipping back and forth across the surf, Corwin Hardham experienced firsthand the power of wind. As an engineer, he wanted to harness that energy with the ease and flexibility of the sport. Makani Power, which Hardham co-founded, now leads a small pack of startups eagerly attempting to tap into an unexploited resource\u2014the strong, consistent winds blowing above 1300 feet. To do so, Hardham, with engineers Kenny Jensen and Damon Vander Lind, did away with 90 percent of the mass of a conventional turbine\u2014namely, the tower\u2014and instead mounted Makani&amp;#039;s technology on a glorified string. But rather than resembling a kite, the sleek, 20-kilowatt Wing 7 prototype is equal parts airplane, helicopter and robot.  Weighing a mere 130 pounds and spanning 28 feet, Wing 7 takes off vertically with rotors up, rotates into horizontal flight and autonomously flies in swooping circles. Wing-mounted turbines generate electricity, transmitting it to the ground through the tether. A first-of-its-kind vertical tail wing allows the craft to transition through the various flight modes, Hardham says: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a whole new take on aviation.&amp;quot; Eventually, fleets of autonomous, power-producing craft may be tethered to land or to buoys at sea.  With funding from the Department of Energy&amp;#039;s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)\u2014as well as from venture capitalists such as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin\u2014Makani plans to develop a 1-megawatt unit by 2013 that can fly above 1800 feet, with hopes of taking it to market two years later.   1. Carbon-Fiber Rotors Spin at 4000 RPM 2. Motor Pylons Hold Most of the Wing&amp;#039;s electronics and avionics 3. Carbon-Fiber Wings Generates 20 Kilowatts of power in 22-MPH winds 4. Stabilizer Allows 90-degree rotation from vertical takeoff to horizontal flight    &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; 10 Brilliant Innovators    A Tiny Cell Tower &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt;    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a7181/a-turbine-to-tap-the-high-winds-at-1300-feet/>