The kite made its appearance only late in West. Tartares used it on the battlefield in 1241 to frighten their enemies ; mid-banner, mid-kite, the tool spat flames and smoke which frightened the Polish soldiers.
Later, in XVth, XVIth and XVIIth centuries, one finds kites which have the shapes of rectangles and rhombuses and are used as games for children. They are also used for fireworks : it can be a dragon-shaped kite filled with gunpowder or a rhombus with a firecracker tail.

The XVIIIth century marks the beginning of a new era : at instigation of numerous researchers, the kite is transformed into a flying machine and an instrument of scientific research, the most famous example being Benjamin Franklin who, during a storm, thanks to a kite made of silk handkerchieves, demonstrated the existence and the effects of electric currents.

If during all this period, lots of people looked actively for new uses of the kite, we'll have to wait the following century to see new models appear. The scientists are then the most fervent adherents of the kites ; some of them want to see which altitude could be reached , which weight it could lift, the others use it to study more particularly the possibilities of a flight in the open air, already thinking of the aeroplane. The searches for these last ones will settle the first basis of the aeronautical research .

The researchers looked into the conceptions of the kite, trying to create new models : boxes, tetrahedrons, flexifoil, parafoil…But if with the appearance of the plane, the kite lost its utility as an experiment element (although it is still useful for the aerial photography) one attend its revival as a sport or a leisure. The old human dream of flying being now realized, the kite became as initially, a game that takes advantage of all possible technologies.