IN just two years 15-year-old Freddie Oldfield, of Longley, has gone from enthusiastic novice to one of the brightest up-and-coming stars of the fast-growing extreme sport of power kiting.

This year in his first year of competition, Freddie has won the first two rounds for junior buggy riders in the National Freestyle Championships 2006, organised by Airvents.

One more win in the remaining three rounds and he will be the junior champion. Freddie could clinch it at the next round at Weston-super-Mare over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

But he says that regardless of that result he wants to compete - and win - at all five rounds.

And his happiness has just been made more complete with the award of a sponsorship deal with Extreme Kite shop, one of the biggest kite shops in Britain.

It's a remarkable success story, although Freddie, admittedly, has two big advantages.

One, he lives near Castle Hill, where two years ago he caught the kiting bug after watching members of the Castle Hill Flyers with their kites.

Two, mum Georgie Oldfield is a physiotherapist who handily runs the Pain Relief Centre close to Castle Hill!

This year the Pain Relief Centre is sponsoring both Freddie and the Castle Hill Flyers. "It just seemed appropriate as it always seems to be left to me at the Pain Relief Centre to pick up all the pieces when they injure themselves!", says Georgie.

But she says that although power kiting is very physically demanding, Freddie injuries so far have been confined to bumps and bruises.

In two years Freddie has gone from flying the smaller kites and learning to control himself and the kite using the wind power to best effect, to flying kites over eight metres in length and doing aerial stunts while strapped in a three-wheeled buggy.

Freddie pays great tribute to the Castle Hill Flyers who were very helpful to him when he started.

He says he was easily able to cycle up to Castle Hill and often stayed from 5pm to 8pm. He says: "I could have spent seven days a week there."

Mum Georgie was equally grateful that the Flyers taught Freddie many of the essential lessons about kiting safely, taking account of things like wind speed.

Freddie says power kiting is a very friendly sport and he has made friends round the country with lots of other keen power-kiters who meet up at all the events and competitions and, along with the Castle Hill Flyers, they often take him off to kiting events.

Kiting is even involved in his Saturday job, at Robin Hood Watersports in Heckmondwike, where he now advises customers about the pros and cons of different kites and the various equipment they may require.

Georgie says: "Freddie is completely hooked on this sport and he has really excelled himself this year. His talk about kites all the time might drive us mad, but we are very proud of him!"

Freddie says the attraction was the combination of speed and danger, the thrill of flying at perhaps 20mph.

"It's a thrilling sport and also a very dangerous one."

Surprisingly, perhaps, most of his friends have not been impressed. "They laugh at me," says Freddie, "and think it is a triangular kite."

One mate has tried it and become interested but not to the same degree as Freddie himself.

You might think it would be a young man's sport but Freddie says the best kiter in the country is 38. Yes, the main buyers in the shop are from the mid-30s down but one active kiter in Dubai is 60.

As for Freddie, he's wanting to go on to get coaching qualifications but he's under no illusions about this providing the route to a full-time job in his favourite hobby.

A young man with his heart in the clouds and his feet planted firmly on the ground!

* Peter Lynn, of New Zealand, introduced a stainless steel kite-powered buggy in the 1980s.

* Flying with a buggy is just one branch of power kiting which also includes snowkiting, kiteboarding, kitesurfing, relaxed flying, extreme flying and landboarding.

* In the South Sea islands examples of kite traction on sea-going canoes exist in drawings and oral history dating back to early times.

* The famous Japanese hero Minamoto no Tametomo, exiled to the island of Oshima in the 1170s, was said to have constructed a huge kite to bear his son back to Japan.

* The earliest picture of a kite in England appeared in the book The Mysterys of Nature and Art written by John Bate, issued 1635. The word "kite" was not used and the device was thought of as an aid to fireworks displays.

* George Pocock, a Bristol teacher and inventor, in 1825, lifted his young daughter, Martha, 90 to 100 yards high on a chair attached to one of his larger kites. Later his kite-drawn carriage reached an estimated 20mph and overtook a horse-drawn carriage belonging to the Duke of Gloucester.