Lynn, together with his wife Elwyn, established a kite business at
Ashburton, New Zealand, in 1971, producing single-line kites for children. In 1974 he developed the Peter Lynn Triangular box kite, a framed triangular form cellular single line kite. Beginning in 1984 with the Centipede design, he then developed large creature-themed display kites for the growing number of international kite festivals. These large-scale sparless kites include the manta ray, octopus, puffer-fish, gecko and trilobite. In 1987 he began developing
power kites for traction uses, and designing boats, buggies, boards and snow sleds to use with them. The sport of kite buggying in its modern form began from a kitesailing craft Lynn developed. It was equipped with three 'skis' and was quite unsuccessful on the water. In 1990 he converted it to a land buggy by replacing the skis with wheels. More than 10,000 of his buggies are now in use, and there are also many other kite buggy manufacturers. Kite buggying has become a popular worldwide sport. In 1994 he developed the 'super-ripstop/thru cord' ram air kite construction system for large display and traction kites. This is a technique of strengthening
ripstop nylon by sewing high-tech
dacron or
spectra/dyneema cord across the material, and providing an adjustable cross-sectional
aerodynamic profile by the use of variable length cords rather than the fixed rib used in a conventional wing or ram-air
parafoil such as a
parachute. In 1995 he designed the ram-air inflated Megabite, a kite. It was accepted as the world's largest kite by Guinness in 1997. When on the ground, more than 1,000 people can comfortably stroll around inside it. He also designed the current Guinness record holder, a
Kuwait flag, which took over the world record from the Megabite in 2005. That same year, he built two additional identically sized kites (Mega Flag in the United States and Mega Moon in Japan), allowing for more exhibitions of the World's Largest Kites around the world. In 1997 he developed the first 'hybrid' traction kite. It is referred to as hybrid as the form is a single skin kite supported by a combination of both aerodynamic forces and a flexible frame. Conventional traction kites use either a rigid frame inflated with a pump prior to launching or ram air inflated cavities. In 1999 he developed the first bridleless arch style ram air kite, primarily for kitesurfing.
Arc style kites are generally more efficient (better upwind performance) and are more resistant to
luffing (more stable and reliable in gusty conditions) relative to
leading edge inflatable (LEI) sled kites but have slightly lower
lift coefficient (less power from the same size kite). Lynn developed the KiteSled (see image), for kite-powered snow expeditioning. It steers by bending its skis, which are constructed from multiple longitudinal elements dovetailed together. Using KiteSleds, in May 2006 Australians
Patrick Spiers and
Ben Deacon completed a trans-
Greenland journey that they believe was 20% faster than would have been possible by
kite skiing. , 2005 Lynn also contributed to the theoretical underpinnings of kite flying through a series of scientific papers. ==Other fields==