Flying planate arch- or pear-shaped Kites kites with tails had become a faddy pastime, mostly among children. The first recorded experimental application of a kite took field in 1749 when Alexander Wilson of Scotland given over a kite train (two or also kites flown from a common line) as a meteorologic device for measuring temperature variations at colorful altitudes.
Three years after, in June 1752, in what is the most famous of kite experiments, the American inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin, with the comfort of his son, lofted a flat kite fitted with a pointed wire and silk sail on a hemp line during a thunderstorm. Somehow both father and magdalen avoided electrocution as a metal key attached to the flying line became electrified. Franklin proved that lightning was the natural phenomenon called electricity. One immediate and practical outcome of the experiment was Franklin's invention of the lightning rod.