The term “Spidermill” was used to designate the crosswind Laddermill version that is represented in the figure 4 of the pdf available on Comparison of concepts for high-altitude wind energy generation with ground based generator | TU Delft Repositories :
Title
Comparison of concepts for high-altitude wind energy generation with ground based generatorAuthor
Ockels, W.J.
Lansdorp, B.
Feb. 16, 2021, post by Dave Santos:
Wubbo’s LadderMill Patent, that JoeF links to here, is a good case-in-point. The basic LadderMill idea was overlooked public prior art by Doug Selsam, in the 1970s. It was not very workable. Ever the resourceful astronaut, Wubbo continued to work the problem, and turned away from the vanity of patents. His final AWES vision, of synchronously networked kites he called a “SpiderMill”, was fully open-source [AWEC2011]. Many other AWE academics have not yet made the transformative Open-AWE journey Wubbo accomplished before his untimely death