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In the tinytach the cable is already a coax type, with the white cable and ring connector being connected to the outer shield braiding. The red wire is the conductor cable which runs down the middle of the coax. I only know this as I carelessly managed to nick the cable when I recently connected it temporarily to my motor during a tuning session and the inner conductor wire got broken. The wire was simple to splice so no harm done. I find for temporary installation that I don't even need to connect the sheild cable to ground as the cable is routed away from any interfering cables and it works fine. Invaluable bit of kit though. Best regards, Ian.

I almost pi**ed myself laughing when he overtook that car! Seriously considering digging my old mountain bike out of the shed. Do you think that this would this be considered illegal on British roads? Ian.

Have you got an old black pushbike that you ride to market with the onions around your neck and a beret on your head, and then come back home with a baguette tucked under your arm? Haw-He-Haw!!! Best regards, Ian.

How French is that??? You've gone native!!! Ian.

Is that a solid bar up to and accross the leading edge to hold the wing in place? If so, that's a clever way to save a bit of wear and tear on the wing, make sure it inflates centrally and significantly reduce the chance of collapses. Am I the only one thinking that the ITEC site should actually be the IPTEC site? Ian.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Do you mean that someone is risking the freedom of our sport for some cheap marketing of a building development in Dubai? That REALLY pi**es me off! It's gone from some idiot just flouting the law to someone deliberately low flying so that everyone can get a good gawp at his logo for commercial gain. They say that there's no such thing as bad publicity (we've all looked at their website now), but if bad publicity awakens the sleeping CAA giant who wants to squash us then that saying could quickly become very untrue for us all. I hope that some of you local boys can catch up with this bell end and read him the riot act. Ian.

Looks like eagle eyed Dave is onto something!!! The ropes should be attached to the bars and not the shoulder straps. Ian.

It looks like the motor is dropping back from your shoulders. Can you tighten the shoulder straps any more? Ian. Here's the pic -

.............Because they can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why did man spend untold cash to put 2 men on the moon? Because they could. I agree that it is completely impractical and the task is more efficiently achieved with the good old internal combustion engine, but I think that it's a gloriously impractical idea and if someone has enough cash to blow £9k on this mad project then why not! You could just use the machine when the wind is strong enough for a reverse. This will keep hot gasses well away from the wing and lines. Get the wing up over your head turn, then apply power. Any lag will also be of no consequence as you can time your run to coincide with the thrust coming on. Simples I hope that this project gets off of the drawing board/fag packet! Good luck, Ian.

LOL!!! Don't want to upset you or spoil any long held beliefs but wee jimmy cranky was not all he seemed to be. Ian.

A bit vague but I have looked into this kind of thing before and I seem to remember that the small (but not too small!) turbine of choice is one which is used to start larger jet engines. Don't recall what they are called but a quick google brought up several options. (APU Auxiliary Power Unit/JFS Jet Fuelled Starter?) Cheers, Ian. p.s. Simon, you are a proper English eccentric crackpot!!! It sounds like the kind of thing that you could easily rope Gilo into?

Hello Mike. I thought about paragliding only as a way of getting experience of flying the wing ready for motor flying. You didn't say where in Kent you are but I am near Maidstone and knew that I'd soon get bored with driving all over the county (and further) from hill to hill chasing the wind! Paramotoring is the closest thing you will get to riding a motorbike in the air, so I'm sure you will love it. If you wanted to meet up when we fly you can borrow my small training wing and harness to see what ground handling is about. Best regards, Ian.

Cheers Simon. Seems I WAS missing a trick after all! Refuelling!!! (why hadn't I thought of that?) Still interested in other peoples thoughts on the subjects though. Cheers, Ian.

That'll do it! Mystery over!! Cheers, Ian.

Not rude (would you ever be?) - I know that I'm a fat b****rd and near the top of the weight range!!! It's just that the differential between 1 hour 25 and 2 hours 10 is so large that I didn't want to be missing a trick. Do you think that fuel could do that to the cap? Cheers, Ian.

I saw shaggydec's post about having a 2 hour 10 minute flight on a Parajet Volution with a Revolution 28 which is the combination that I use, and it got me wondering what duration others get with a similar setup. Interested to know because with the tank filled above the filler cap right to the top I only manged 1 hour 25 minutes at the fly-in (and landed out as I ran out of fuel!). I do weight 95Kg in my socks. I have since stopped filling the tank over the cap (gives me 1 hour 15 minutes). I had a lack of power on climbout and the only possible reason I could find was when I tested the one way valve in the fuel cap. The airflow in was restricted, possibly causing a vaccum in the tank. I thought maybe the petrol was reacting with the rubber in the valve causing it to swell up. Could over filling the tank do this? To conclude - 1) What duration do you get on a similar setup? 2) Can over filling the tank possibly cause a vacuum to develop? Cheers, Ian.

Sounds perfect! Interested in how you get that kind of duration? Have started a seperate thread. Cheers, Ian.

Coming on here is a very good first step. Well done with the saving but I'm afraid that unless you get very lucky then as Phil said you need to be very careful what you buy with your hard earned £1000! Have you considered joining up with someone else close to you who might be in a similar boat and sharing the equipment and learning experience together? £2000 goes twice as far! Or maybe a local pilot might let you buy into the sport and share their gear and wisdom with you for £1000? You could spend the money purely on training with an instructor who has school kit for you to use, that way you get good tuition, get to know whether this sport is for you and it puts you in the right environment to pick up any bargain kit that pops up. There are many ways to skin a cat and if you've taken on additional jobs to get this far then you are obviously committed to the idea paramotoring, so I wish you good luck! Best regards, Ian.

Hi Simon Interested in the tip mould as it's probably a case of when rather than if I'm gonna need it. If you don't manage to mass produce kits for everyone to do their own, at least it will make it easier to do your props or earn some extra cash for fixing other peoples for them. Hi Jeff It might take more than a tip repair to fix your prop!!! Hope you're closer to getting the motor going again? Ian.

Sorry Mark, if you've given it your best shot with a hammer then I don't know what else to suggest!!! (usually works on my landrover) Ian.

Brilliantly funny! At least he had the sense put a waste paper basket over his head for safety!!!

Yeah, Ivychurch is a massive, open, flat turf field with closely cropped grass. It's in the middle of the Romney Marsh which is also billiard table flat and makes for nice laminar winds. You are welcome to fly from there with me whenever you want. Andy is fine. I had a nice hour long flight with him yesterday morning from Sheppey. If I can help with the cage bending then just ask. Best regards, Ian.

You can look here - http://www.meteonet.nl/aktueel/brackall.htm Ian.

I heard about this on the radio today and thought at the time that it was strangely relevant to this topic! Very glad that nobody was killed either in the plane or on the ground. Ian.

The sheep have been gone for quite a while (the cute fluffy little ones are probably already on peoples dinner plates!). It usually gets cut before the Kent county show mid July as they use the field as a giant overflow carpark (we took off between some of the straglers cars at the tail end of last years show!), so it will hopefully be on line again soon. Be wary of your long grass when you replace your big prop. I have heard that long grass can take out props? Thanks for the offer of flying from yours. You are most welcome to come down to the field in Ivychurch when have your new prop fitted. Do you still have my number? Cheers, Ian.