Patrick1

Mm, it does doesn’t it.

Hi Randy, I second that. Jeff Goin and the bible is the best place to start. Jeff is a highly experienced and respected paramotor pilot but he is also a commercial airline pilot and helicopter pilot and aviation journalist. He has dedicated a lot of time and love to progressing the understanding and safety of this sport. With regards to training and buying gear, alarm bells should be ringing - if you do some research you will quickly discover that there are two well known knob jockeys in the USA who offer either ‘super’ training or ‘free’ training and they both think they sell the best gear.. they are both rather discredited I’m afraid. Enjoy their entertaining videos on YouTube but I’d suggest going elsewhere.

Every now and again, I have a flight where my imagination runs away and I get the ‘fear’, but it passes after about ten minutes and the next one is always better. I find it only happens when I have time to let my mind wonder so it helps distract myself with a task. Its the fear of dropping and falling rather than height. But let me reassure, you can’t fall out of a harness. Paragliders like a nice loose harness so you can use weight shift more effectively but when I was learning, my instructor encouraged us to tighten things up if it makes you feel better and loosen over time. Incidently, my main belt buckle once popped open at nearly 2000 feet in the alps but it was no big deal, I had leg straps and my arms behind the risers

It could be worse, at least you didn’t buy a flat top. Let Laura’s experience be a lesson to our American cousins, there are two people you just don’t go near, Mr Fister and his arch nemesis, Dell Schanz’ - turns out they are both utter cunts. Who’d have thought..

http://www.footflyer.com/Safety/Incidents/incidents_and_analysis.htm Some interesting analysis here on risk and comparison with other activities.

I’ve been flying mine for a few hours now with a full inch missing from the tip of the blade on one side and it’s hardly noticeable. I am sending off to get repaired this week but I can’t imagine you’d notice any difference from a tiny nick like that. I’d ignore it.

I was flying a microlight on Thursday evening at Popham Airfield, another pilot had what he thought might be an airprox with a paramotor at about 7pm in the popham circuit. I explained to him that paramotor pilots are sky gods who have right of way at all times and I think ‘airprox’ is overstating it to be honest but I said I’d post on here in case the paramotor pilot picks it up. If it was you, you have done nothing wrong, you had every right to be where you were BUT if you are flying near Overton/Popham regularly, it’s worth being aware of the circuit pattern at Popham so you can avoid it, either PM me or have a look online. For the uninitiated; the airspace near an active airfield gets busy so is slightly more hazardous than elsewhere. Airfields have developed their own systems to avoid collisions - usually this takes the form of a one way ‘circuit pattern’ and corresponding ‘joining instructions’ of how to get into the pattern. Popham for example, has planes circling to the north of the airfield at 800feet agl so a ppg pilot giving the airfield a wide birth to the north could inadvertantly fly right into the pattern without realising. Airfields usually have a map/diagram posted on their website so you can check your local area easily. Having said that, in uncontrolled air space this is all done on a voluntary/etiquette basis and there’s no law against ploughing through the middle semper fi style ??

Great vids, nice to watch that on a rainy day. I think this came up a couple of weeks ago here: I think I saw it as I was laying out my wing at the time - wind kept reversing and basically, you had a tail wind which meant you were going like stink and as you got to the crop field you were going too fast to do a controlled stop but not fast enough to leave the ground. To be honest, I was quite impressed you managed to keep the wing up at all with the tail wind, you nearly made it.

Top post, I share the fear of heights/falling and I think most people do. The more you fly, the more you desensitise and the irrational fear reduces but I still get the odd uncomfortable moment every now and again.

Hi Bev, Miniplane is a great machine but not very forgiving, I seem to recall having to get a few spare parts after one of my early flights! Russ at www.miniplane.co.uk is a star and was extremely helpful indeed.

I think I saw it but didn’t get any footage, was this the broken prop guy? Wind was all over the place on Sunday morning, from where I was, poor guy did a perfectly good launch and everything was nice and balanced but he had a tail wind. He was accelerating faster than Hussain Bolt and was well over take off speed over the ground but the tail wind meant his air speed wasn’t there - with another 30 feet of field to keep running over he’d probably have made it but the crops were coming up fast. He did damn well to get as far as he did with a tail wind if you ask me.

Thanks Simon! Btw, credit where it’s due, Russ at www.miniplane.co.uk is on the ball, very helpful, parts sent out v quickly, top service.

I seem to remember seeing someone posting on here who set themselves up with a small business providing a travelling workshop servicing paramotors..? My mini-plane is due an annual dig out, I did the last one myself but I’d quite like someone a bit more professional to do the next one (i.e. someone who doesn’t just use a leatherman and an oily rag like me). Is there such a service or was I imagining it?

Ha, bang on. Approx 4 people die every day on UK roads and around 40 seriously injured. That's the same as one major terrorist incident every day. I wonder if we will look back on that in 50 or 100 years and wonder why we put up with it. Okay, so statistically, your chances of death on the road is relatively low, it's still far more hazardous than people think. Maybe that's why old folks drive so damn slowly? They've simply got more life experience of the perceived risk/actual risk matrix?! My relationship with risk changed slightly after I had a small compression fracture in my spine in a paragliding accident. I was assessing the decisions I was making and my surgeon summed it up nicely - he told me not to stop flying as 'everything has risk' and the actual risk with what I was doing was not too far from driving a car or slipping in the shower. I took that on board.. I still fly but I drive a little bit slower and I'm a little bit more careful getting into the shower. (...and my paragliding accident wasn't random bad luck, it was avoidable self inflicted hubris)

Put another way, rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools..? Good post which probably sums up how a lot of us feel.

At least he didn't mong it like that guy in France a few years back - for those who haven't seen it:

Maybe you could get the Daily Mail to start a campaign? In your keen attempt to appear professional and clever, you are coming across as the opposite. Looks to me like you joined this forum in 2016 then sold your kit 12 months later, sounds about right. I'll try once more; you are absolutely correct insofar as intentionally breaking air-law is bad and accidents are bad. You are wrong if you think that more regulation will stop people having accidents or stop greenpeace from protesting. You lack critical thinking - you have come on here to demand the wrong solution to the problem. By the way, on another note, I don't think you are in a position to comment on the mid air collision and I find your use of language ignorant. Experienced pilots who actually go out and fly (rather than talk about it) willingly expose themselves to a level of risk - which increases or decreases depending on their decisions (like flying close to another wing). Like the majority of mid air collisions, both the guys you call stupid were flying completely within the rules and both were a lot more experienced than you. They were doing something that I suspect you do't actually do - flying. I'm glad to hear you aren't flying a paramotor but I suspect you will disappointed to discover that all GA - regulated or not - have exactly the same issues as Paramotoring if not more so. Midair collisions, notam errors, airspace incursions are much more common in GA. If golf isn't for you, why not become a free mason? Or the parish council? Or you could be one of those people who call in to radio talk shows to complain about how we're all going to hell in a handcart.

...hang on, I’m calling it, you are standing to be the next chair of the BHPA aren’t you? Simon, do I win £5? I think you are probably in the wrong place, no one here is going to defend a green peace protester abusing our sport (or other infringements) - on that, I agree 100%. However, if you think that means we should all be eagerly queuing up for more regulation then you are, I’m afraid, a bit of a tool. Im sure you will have more luck inflicting your high levels of professionalism elsewhere. Like a golf club.

I’ve been doing some fixed wing Microlight flying over the past year and hanging out with GA crowd, I can assure you, busting airspace and being incompetent isn’t only the preserve of paramotors. Paramotor pilots have to follow the same rules as everyone else and by and large, self preservation and staying very close to take off fields means most stay well out of trouble. I believe this is still the safest form of amateur powered aviation? We cause less trouble than you think. I think regulation is a long long way off, the direction of travel is pushing more responsibility to the pilot for light weight aviation and away from CAA - single seat micro lights are now mostly ‘ssdr’ so don’t require CAA approval, the 70 kilo rule means that there is more machines available to ‘unlicensed’ pilots. We aren’t really where the focus is at right now. However, some people are desperate to find rules they can follow and enjoy the power trip of forcing others to conform. I don’t condone breaking air law but if you want extra rules to follow, can I suggest joining a golf club? You’ll be more at home there.

Hi, I don't know many people who worry about metering anything so I'd forget about that for the time being. I would recommend some training though, $4K sounds a bit much if you already have paragliding experience. Don't just think you can work it out from YouTube vids, that's a bit foolhardy. Personally, I learned to paraglide and then did an intensive one week course to learn how a fly with an engine - backed up with lots of reading and I wish I'd done more - took me much longer to gain confidence than it should have done. In terms of reading, take a look at Jeff Goin ppc bible, seems well thought of and whatever you do, steer clear of any USA egomaniac YouTube stars who sell either 'free' or 'super' training - they are dangerous and unethical. If you need to ask why then use google. Hope you enjoy it!

Where do you live? It's well worth getting a couple of lessons with a local instructor or at the least find someone with more experience to fly with.. seriously. I'm NOT an instructor, I'm a relatively low hour fair weather pilot and I must stress the need for proper training, however, to answer the questions: Firstly, you don't lean back as such; most people have a tendency to lean forward with the weight of the motor which means the prop is less efficient, once you are ready to apply power, Aim for a straight back so your thrust is pushing you forward but not leaning back as such. Secondly, with regards lifting your legs - don't. Not until you are well of the ground, in fact your legs should still be running like a cartoon character in mid air as you go up, lifting legs early will result in your arse hitting the ground and your prop hitting the turf and breaking. Thirdly, once you have speed, in order to take off, it helps to apply a little break, equally on both sides and smoothly. Too much and your wing wont fly (or can actually stall after take off) so don't overdo it and force the takeoff. I'd guess around 10 inches, I pull down about level with my ears, but it may be different on your wing. Once you are off the ground, gently release the breaks (avoid a sudden release of break at low height). So, in summary, check wing level and lines clean, run, check wing still level, add power, run, full power and add gentle break, keep running into the air, gently release breaks and wiggle into seat when safe. Oh, and avoid trees.

Hi Simon, I'm planning to finally get across to a club fly in this summer - do you require pilots to have insurance cover to fly at the event?

I had this exact problem early on - I was left dangling at 500 feet which isn't the best confidence builder. For me, it turned out I had the leg straps too tight, I loosened them and that solved it.

Absolutely agree, learn to fly first then look at kit. Speaking personally, my shopping list changed the more experience I gained. I started the first couple of years with a robust powerful parajet but as soon as I got a rough handle on take off and landing with out falling over, I got a mini plane simply because it's very light and doesn't make too much noise and vibration in flight - and it starts when I need it too as well. Love the mini plane now. Just don't buy a flatop.