peter_6095

Funny - after these emails I had a comment on two of my videos by mysterious users with only a handful of other posts, asking me about the safety of Paramania, would I recommend them for beginners etc. One of them asked me what I thought of Dell's advice on flat-tops and K2. Needless to say I sat on the fence and told them to talk to an expert. To be fair the guy makes good videos which are fun played with the sound turned down.

Amazing story. Confirms in my mind that I will remain a 'fair weather' flyer!

Very cool - but I reckon that there is a lot that could go badly wrong there! I think that there is a reason that he didn't go for a forward launch (apart from the camera set up on the back), probably a danger of burning what is behind you with the jet. I think the consequences of a bad launch or take off would be pretty serious with this set up. Sounds awesome though!

I recently posted a short clip on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/pb6095) and shortly afterwards I got a PM through that site's messaging service from a guy called Dell, who I had never heard of before. I was so amazed at what he had to say about my equipment, and the directness of his tone, that I thought that I would share the correspondence with you. I have done some research on him and it seems that he takes this line regularly on the forums. Has anyone else had personal experience of him getting in contact with them to say that they are flying a 'death-trap'? I have done lots of research on the kit I fly and I am happy with it, so not too interested in getting into the old debates in too much detail, I am more interested in what people think of this guy's mission (last email suggests it is a mission from god) and the way he is going around rubbishing the competition's gear, while plugging his favorite brands. Have you ever heard someone so confident of their own ability either? First message - from Dell to me, out of the blue. I saw your last video there. I would highly recommend updating your equipment the first change you get. You really have none of the latest safety features working in your favor. You are on a totally uncertified glider with no crumple zone. Do you fly with a reserve at least? This sport is super fun and safe as long as you get the right gear and training. For sure your gear needs updating. Where did you get training? If you send me a link to a video of you kiting I'll be happy to give you some input on your skill level and any safety concerns I see. Hope this helps. This sport is a total blast but too many people die on paramania without crumple zone or reserves. It's easy to fix. Let me know if you ever have any questions you need help on. Thanks, Dell My, slightly surprised, reply to him Thanks for the message. I wonder if you are referring to the same glider? I use a certified paramania fusion 29 - here is the certification test report: http://www.flyparamania.com/images/stor ... _29_en.pdf I do fly with a reserve (front mounted). Thanks for the offer of checking my technique - I fly with three certified instructors and get all the tips I need off them, including recommendations for kit. Two of them fly parajet and paramania fusion wings, the other a Dudek. I did a google search for the subjects that you talk about and found that you had made some posts on other websites talking about Paramania wings, saying similar things. I guess that you must be referring to the Action GT. Presumably you ought to add to these posts that the fusion does have certification, and that the test pilot said that he couldn't make the wing enter a frontal stall at all when it was on the fastest trim settings. Having tried a few paramotors I decided that the most important thing of all was reliability rather than crumple zone. Parajet is made by a local company to me, the best after sales of any company I know and they are ultimately reliable so I went with them. So along with a wing that doesn't have a tendency to collapse, a reserve and some good training, I think I am flying safely. Peter ...and his cross reply to me: Yes it might pass EN-C certification at trim speed ONLY but that isn't the whole story. Just based on that though whomever you are dealing with are incompetent morons that are trying to get you killed. What kind of freaking idiots would put brand new pilots on EN-C gliders???? Then let the trims out and it goes from horrible to freaking nightmare. The part about pulling on the A risers in flight is total BS. Just look at my latest video of the side by side with the Nucleon they try to suggest is stable. You are about 1000 times more likely to take a collapse on that glider then any certified quality beginner glider. Then to top it off you have no crumple zone under your butt to absorb impact when you do pound into the ground on that death trap. You are not in my area. Financially I don't really give a crap what you buy. I'm just giving you advice from an expert pilot that you will appreciate either now or after you find out I'm correct. Watch your so called instructors fly. Can they do anything that I do? No. They do not have the skills or experience or competence. I cannot hardly believe they put new pilots on such a setup. It is a terrible nightmare and the reason so many people are dying on those gliders. Even the safety test pilot for the Nucleon just died doing some very basic safety tests. Get yourself a certified glider in your skill range. DHV 1 or 1-2 at worst. Not a freaking EN-C at trim and nightmare death trap beyond trim speed. Now you can ignore this if you like and that is totally up to you. It is my moral obligation to share it with you. Now it's totally up to you what you do with this accurate information from one of the best and most experienced pilots in the world. I still love you either way. Look at the facts. Forget how rude this might be and just look at the facts. Beginners should NOT be on EN-C. Only a freaking idiot non instructor would suggest they should be. Love, Dell Reassured that he loves me, I reply: Dell, Again, thanks for the advice - very kind of you to offer it, though unsolicited. While I am relatively new to the sport I am not a brand new pilot and I didn't start out on this wing as you suggest throughout this message - I am not sure why you thought this, except perhaps for the poor quality of my first few attempts at filming my flying. I am working on this! As you will see from my channel I have been posting for a little while which should give away the fact that I am not a complete novice. I have been flying for two years and I started out on a Paramania Revolution. I have never had anything approaching a collapse on either wing. It is clear from looking at your videos on youtube that you are very experienced indeed and passionate about the sport, which is really great. As such, you are in the position of being somewhat of an ambassador and a subject matter expert on paramotoring. That makes it rather surprising that you would make a claim that the wing that I fly is "1000 times more likely to take a collapse" than another one you would recommend. What tests indicate this? It seems rather too round a figure to be the product of a proper analysis. To claim that it is a "nightmare death trap" has to be an emotive exaggeration, surely you can not be serious about this? A large proportion of the pilots I know fly this wing, many who have been flying for years on all sorts of different makes. Again, as I say below, I have been looking once more on the internet about this and you seem to be somewhat of a lone voice on this issue. I am a member of a uk paragliding forum and have nothing bad about this wing at all, in fact I have heard very positive reports, backing up my own experience. It is also odd that when I mention that I fly with three certified instructors you say - without any knowledge of who they are or how they are trained - "Watch your so called instructors fly. Can they do anything that I do? No. They do not have the skills or experience or competence". This would be like Andre Agassi telling me that as my tennis coach isn't as good as him then I should buy a Head racket that he recommends rather than the Prince that my instructor thinks is right for me. I looked at your recent clip of two wings flying together and I question whether bumping them into each other and finding that one fairs less well on impact really means that it flies any worse. I am pretty sure that this is not part of the certification process - and if it is, then I will try not to fly into anyone else (not that I don't avoid doing that at the moment). I know that we come from different cultures, and I recognise that in email correspondence it is difficult to judge another person's tone, but bearing in mind, and considering that I have already shown some deference to your clear skill in the sport that we both enjoy, I hope that you won't mind me remarking that your comment that you are "one of the best and most experienced pilots in the world" could easily be misinterpreted as being somewhat arrogant - I am also not sure that you further your argument with this approach. I am a rational guy and I will be persuaded by good arguments. I don't want to be argumentative about this and I would certainly like to continue the discussion - which you started by commenting on my movie. Regards, Peter ..and he replies with following: This isn't tennis fine sir, it's not about winning or loosing a match. It is about life & death. I personally tested the Paramania Revolution. I let the trims out just 1.5 inches and pulled an asymetric collapse. I instantly lost all control of the glider, all the lines went slack, the glider shot straight at the ground in the opposite direction of the way I was going leaving me with riser twists. Anyone selling paramania is an incompetent moron. That seems like very simple logic to me. It might sound a bit broad to you but when you know what happens with those gliders and WHY they can't pass even DHV 3 certifications with trims out you start to realize how insane it would be to actually put a beginner on them. Yes 1000 times more stable. That is an educated estimate. I have about 9000 flights and fly in some of the craziest air you can imagine when thermaling or selling cross country records like the 280 miles on 4 gallons. I know exactly what it takes to keep a glider open and would bet anything that in crazy air you would take about 1000 collapes on a paramania wing for ever one collapse a skilled pilot would take on a quality wing. I really don't care if I sound arrogant. This is about your life. The fact is that I am who I am. You can see from my videos that I obviously have some above average level of skill. I'm telling you with absolute confidence that you are in a freaking world of hurt. Yes collapses are quite rare. They do happen though. If I flew paramania I would be dead as would ANYONE that put thousands and thousands of flights in. Crap happens. If you have a quality glider and crumple zone under your butt your odds of survival go up drastically. Nobody that flies Paramania can fly for crap. No good pilots would fly that crap. Now you can take that as arrogant or you can listen. It's totally up to you. I've taken quite a bit of my time to warn you about what I know from personally testing those gliders. The "instructors" you went to are complete fakes and have no clue what they are doing. All I need to know about them is that they would sell a paramania glider to a newbie. That's all I need to know. That makes them completely incompetent morons that don't have a single clue what the heck they are doing. Bumping one glider into another is actually a pretty stupid simple test. What it shows is the collapse resistance. The more stable and solid glider will resist collapsing more than the less stable glider. It makes it super simple to show clearly which one is less likely to collapse. Yes that is a very good test for what happens in the air. When you get hit with rough air, which you will if you fly long enough, then your glider wads up like a rag compared to any brand of quality certified glider with a real pilot under it. Anyhow I think I've shared enough input. You can do what you like with it. You might end up maimed for life or dead but what you can't say is that I failed to warn my neighbor of pitfalls that lay before them as God as commanded us to do. Love, Dell And on that bombshell I give up. Corresponding with him that is, not flying Paramania / Parajet of course. If I do have an accident I may get in touch with him to see if he can heal me though, he would probably be able to walk across the atlantic to get here.

I have been missing my weekly hit of paramotoring videos while the site has been down. Anyone got any clips or photos of flying over the last few weeks in the snow? Here is my effort, experimenting with foot-cam, playing around between Banstead and Reigate a couple of weeks ago. [youtubevideo] [/youtubevideo]

Well done on getting it up and running again. I've missed the forum! Did everyone enjoy flying in the snow?

Looks an awesome trip - one of these days...

I'm only using the term as a joke! I would love to do some free-flying without an engine every now and then - looks cool. Would also like to do some decent ridge soaring and thermaling with the paramotor (but switched off).

One of these days I want to 'convert to the darkside' too - i.e. try free flying my wing. The horror - no engine! Probably best to do it with someone who can give me some tips rather than just lobbing myself off a cliff though. Only problem is that the clip board nazis seem to have baggsied all the possible flying hills in the world (and possibly the hills in other worlds too) for their club and don't like people rocking up and doing their own thing. There is a reason that I paramotor...

I was having all sorts of problems editing my GoPro footage ... until I bought a Mac. I edit the movie and save it in 1080 (as per the raw images), then upload using the magic built in youtube uploader. What I will start doing, however, is once I have saved the movie at 1080 making another copy at 720 and uploading that instead as it will be quicker. The only problem I am still having with the GoPro is the way it adjusts from high to low light, particularly when you turn into light. On the video below you can see what I mean. Any tips on what setting I might adjust would be useful, I am currently on the automatic metering mode, rather than spot. At one stage it gets so grainy I put it in black and white (which is actually quite cool). You can't expect it to do everything though so all-in-all I am quite pleased. You only need a couple of minutes of good footage from an hour's flight anyway. [youtubevideo] [/youtubevideo]

Steve, Good idea, lets look at the forecast tonight and decide. Banstead would be ideal - pretty close for me. Peter

I am hoping to fly early on Sunday morning - around 8.30 for an hour or so. I have to be back home before lunch. The forecast is looking pretty good, north westerly 6 gusting 13 mph in Basingstoke @ 0900, and 5 gusting 12 mph in Guilford. Maybe a bit of sun and not too cold either. Anyone else planning to fly Sunday morning? I am keen to discover a site slightly closer to London - Barry's field? Otherwise it is over to Basingstoke again for me.

Yup - initial optimism has gone, it's just started raining here. Going to spend the afternoon with the kids (thereby getting some credit in the bank for the next flyable day!)

...and forecast not looking too bad. How are the skies looking - likely to rain? Anyone still thinking of trying to fly this afternoon? With an easterly do you still need it to be low tide to take off from that site or is there room along the beach?

Forecast looking pretty pants. Shame - hopefully another time! Looks a site to fly from.

I would be up for it if the weather stays good - the forecast on Weather Pro indicates rain though... I'd probably have to combine it with a day out for the family though - I am sure that they could find something to do to amuse themselves for an hour or so while I fly, walk the dog maybe! Obviously weather dependent but what sort of time do you think that you will go for?

Seconds after posting that I thought of an easier solution - I could just velcro a small map holder to the top of the flap of the flight deck / reserve container (which is normally folded back to see the instruments). Simples. Easier than a leg-mounted map holder?

I was wondering if anyone knew where I could get a leg mounted map holder? Of course I could easily make one with an Ortlieb map case and some velcro straps, but I would be interested if there was something cheaply available. Normally I fly with a photocopy of the relevant part of the CAA chart in a map case attached on a short cord and stuffed in a jacket. However with my front mounted reserve (with GPS and iPhone on the deck) it is a bit of a phaff to get it out and it flaps around - though not enough to get caught in anything. I rarely need to consult the map as I study it well before flying and I have the GPS and iPhone as two different forms of navigation, but it is useful as a backup and as I start flying slightly closer to London there is lots more restricted airspace to worrk about. I might also start doing some longer x-country flights soon. I thought that a leg mounted map holder would make things a little easier.

I hadn't realised that it was in the US - I thought that it was the UK initially and was surprised that there was not more of a fuss. This is my favourite comment from the blog below the article: Article comment by: hoppity hop These gliderites act like they own the airspace and nobody else matters. It's a lot like bicyclists who ignore rights-of-way, and practically beg motorists to hit them. It's a good thing the serious injuries occurred to the gliderite, rather than the innocent folks in that balloon.

Well done!

What a nightmare - it will be interesting to follow this one. I am glad that everyone is alright. Presumably given it's a trike, it is not 'foot launched' so the pilot has (is supposed to have) a microlight / ultralight licence, so is already regulated.

A Saudi friend has just passed on to me the sad news that Capt Ahmed al Zahrani died in a flying accident this morning. I don't know too many of the details except that he was taking a passenger on a tandem flight - the passenger reportedly survived. Ahmed taught me to paramotor in Riyadh. He was the most enthusiastic, charming and thoroughly likeable guy. He had a deep love for flying, piloting everything from a Tornado down to a paramotor and most things in between during the course of his life. Always up for adventure - he once flew his paramotor through the hole in the middle of the most iconic building in Ryadh (at 3am, secretly) - he once flew from Riyadh to Jeddah, setting a record in the process, as reported here: http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=8&sec ... m=7&y=2004 Rest in peace 'Abu Nawaf'.

Interesting to be able to see your track Peter. No critisism of your flight but an intriguing point comes to mind. When you were following the M3 it looks like you were to the left of the motorway, Air Law says when following a prominent landmark you should follow it on the right of the landmark. Looking closer on the map shows it to be built up on that side of the M3, which would present me with a quandary. Not wanting to fly above the built up area, particularly to avoid causing a noise nuisance, how far away from a prominent landmark should you be to comply with air law when on the wrong side Admittedly at the height you were flying it is going to be unlikely to meet any other traffic, other than PPG Cheers, Alan Interesting points! As you say Alan, in this instance I kept the motorway to my right because I thought it better to be over the fields than the built up area. I did cross over some built up areas later on, clipping the corner on the SE of town and then again approaching my landing field, but at a good altitude. A few weeks ago I was approaching Membury to land, flying with the M4 on my left when two Army helicopters (Lynx) came towards me at high speed with the motorway on their right! Fortunately they were higher and no evasive manoeuvres required by either party - and one would hope that with two of them flying at least one of them would have seen me and told the other if we were on course for an airborne RV. I suppose it is debatable whether you are actually following a road or feature or not. In this case I was actually just boxing round the urban area to get in a position where I could make a clear line to my objective, rather than using the motorway as a navigational aid. I suppose that the rule would apply nevertheless. I would certainly prefer to see a fast mover coming towards me so that I could take evasive action, but then again do you run the risk of increasing the chance of a near-miss (or worse) and then being the party at fault for not obeying the rules? An interesting dilemma - I would be interested in other's views.

Had a really good flight today around Basingstoke, taking off from the common just east of the town, near Old Basing. It is a good spot to take off from, clear of obstructions except for some wires running across the south of the field parallel with the A30. I noticed some recent cow pats so presumably it is used for grazing on occasions which would obviously make it no-go. After takeoff I followed the M3 south west and then did a big clockwise circuit of the countryside around the town. Once out in the sticks I did some cool hedge hopping and circles around trees. GoPro was not recording which is annoying! Such lovely conditions - steady gentle wind and excellent visibility. Plans for a morning flight fell by the wayside and I left London after lunch and took off at 1645 for an hour's flight. If I had more time I would have flown all the way to Andover to buzz a friend's house but while I had lots of fuel I don't think I had the daylight hours to make the round trip. My hands were getting pretty cold by the end - time to bring out the winter gloves... All in all a great place to fly from and one I will use again. I would be keen to fly from Barry's Field at some stage though - I pretty much passed it on the way there going along the Hog's Back, even if you have to pay I would probably go for it to save time. Steve - we talked about this on the phone, do you think that he would mind another paramotor taking off from his field? Here is a trace of my flight. http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=853379

Would have loved to but have to be back for lunch... I'll fly a bit closer to home early on, with down jacket and thick gloves- looks like it's going to be freezing! I would live to fly down your way one of these days though - thanks. Peter