ptwizz

Using a cheapy hand held Alesis VideoTrack. No editing, no background music, no camera skills, but here it is [vimeo] [/vimeo]I get quite a lot of torque steer with the Bailey, so I can park the right brake and fly on the throttle and left brake, conveniently leaving my right hand free to hold the camera. Pete.

A pilot who I will not name has explained to me how to achieve this without landing - although I'm sure such a practise would breach the rule about not dropping anything Pete.

'Sense and avoid' systems are in use already. The Google autonomous car has been driving around the roads for some time without incident. To my mind, the requirements for an autonomous car are considerably more taxing than for an autonomous flying vehicle. The car must travel within a few feet of other, unpredictable vehicles, pedestrians etc. and can only avoid them within the confines of the road (although it does have the 'stop' option). A flying vehicle can afford to maintain several hundred metres from anything else in the air and has the benefit of the third dimension (altitude) to avoid obstacles etc. I have to say I'm not keen on driverless cars using public roads. While Google have shown that one of the world's foremost technology companies can successfully operate one or two vehicles, that is a long way from a production vehicle owned by Fred Bloggs and maintained at Joe's Garage. A small error leading to a 1° course change in a road car is a potential disaster within seconds. In an aircraft, it's a navigational issue. Apologies for the digression - interesting topic. Pete.

As Simon has illustrated, the current levels of fuel duty are just about enough to make electric power appear to break even on paper. This is in a comparison between a 2 stroke at 4l/hr and an electric motor running at considerably reduced power to stretch the battery out to 1 hour. If the popularity of EV's grows substantially, I foresee seperate meters for charging, with fuel duty applied. Our govt. has to raise the funds from somewhere, if petrol isn't selling we can be sure they'll tax the alternative. A very basic figure to keep in mind in any electric vs IC comparison: Petrol has 13,000 Wh/kg energy density. Currently available Li-ion batteries have up to 160 Wh/kg. The most optimistic predictions put future batteries up to 600 Wh/kg. I am not against the use of electric power, but I believe there are some applications where it's useful and some where it is not. Pete.

Very nice I wanted to use valves for the control board on my Panther motorcycle, but couldn't find anything that was likely to tolerate the vibration. I ended up with relays (on show through a window in the electrics box) and solid state electronics (hidden away so as not to offend the brass and copper rivets). Pete.

From the figures on their website: At lightest weight (20.5kg) you get 30 minutes MAX battery life by running at an average of only 5.6kw. (presumably on a light, floaty wing, skinny pilot etc.) To get 1 hour MAX the weight goes up to 28kg. You can only use the full 15kw for short periods (no 10 minutes climbs) Recharging takes upwards of an hour and a quarter. This requires a mains supply (or a generator!) Working in the automotive industry, I see a fair bit of the smoke and mirrors used to sell 'green' technology. I also have a reasonable handle on the physics behind it. Pete.

I did most of my training in the winter months. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of the stable weather. The added bonus was the absence of heat. I'ts easy to add warm clothing. I actually passed up the opportunity to fly this weekend, just because it was too hot Good to hear you're pushing on through the heat and getting closer to flying Pete.

<> Ganers, When ground handling, you don't have any momentum and you are reacting drag through your legs against the ground. As soon as you leave the ground, you will tend to swing towards the wing (i.e. downwind) and lose airspeed and therefore lose lift. Yanking on the brakes will give an instantaneous burst of lift, but the wing will quickly move down and lift will be lost. To get airborne, you would need the ground to get out of the way, by sloping down at an angle greater than your glide angle. I believe this procedure is familiar to hill flyers, where there is the added advantage of the wind moving parallel to the slope. Pete.

Not neccesarily Steve. When landing, you are aiming to exchange forward momentum for lift, with the aim of becoming stationary. So long as you time it correctly, you could apply any amount of brake because you will be on the ground and the wing unloaded before the stall manifests itself. In the air, you can only sustain a limited amount of brake before the wing loses forward speed and stalls. Braking increases the wings angle of attack both by changing geometry and by reducing forward airspeed. Geometry change is a rapid effect while airspeed change is delayed as you lose momentum. Both effects can be easily observed while ground handling. You can quickly pull the brakes all the way behind yor back and let them back out, giving a brief increase in lift. Pulling the brakes back slowly will have the wing stalling (or dragging you across the field if ther's enough wind) before your hands are very far back. Pete.

Anenometer? You already have one: If you can pee into the wind without getting your feet wet - it's OK to fly I found some excellent light gloves in a govt. surplus shop - I believe they are intended as driving gloves - thin leather, I can feel everything through them and they kept my fingers warm through training in January and February. Good to hear you're making progress. I look forwrd to reports of your first flights. Pete.

Unfortunately, you're stuck with the big, ugly, noisy tuned pipe. The pipe helps to scavenge the cylinder (remove exhaust and draw in fresh air) and accounts for a significant proportion of the power of a modern 2 stroke. I'd be interested to see how the gain in power balances against the extra electrical requirements and weight. I can see it working out OK for something with an existing high capacity electrical system and not too weight sensitive (i.e. scooter) - not so sure for a paramotor. The Ecotrons system is manifold injection - not direct cylinder injection which can give more significant advantages. Pete.

The difference with plug electrode materials is mostly related to fouling. If your engine is running too rich, too oily, too hot, too cool or with the wrong grade plug, then an exotic plug electrode material may well be able to mask some of the problem. In extreme cases, such as drag racing, the marginal benefits of exotic plugs can make all the difference. The rest of us should be looking for the problem that causes the plug to foul and fixing that. Pete.

How about: The Grand PMC "Best Idea for a Competition" challenge? Pete.

If you're generating (say) 2 G in a spiral, then the pump needs to generate double the normal pressure to get fuel from the tank to the carb. This is true for both float bowl and diaphragm types. Pete

You might suggest recon units could be sold to new pilots through flying schools and training schemes. This is broadly similar to what the publishers of CAD software do, allowing 'student' licenses to circulate so plenty of people become familiar with their product and it becomes the natural choice when they upgrade. Pete.

I blame the chocolate cake gags.

"Your weight is not an issue as there are lots of small wings and light motors...." That was a risky response to the delicate matter of a girl's unspecified weight There were a couple of girls at Beeston last weekend, I believe both just passed their EP (on the tow, not power) Pete Bailey 175 Ozone Indy

Had a couple of flights Friday and a couple more Saturday. These were my first out of circuit flights, so all the more special. Pete Bailey 175 Ozone Indy

Saturday promised some sunshine and little or no wind. Arriving at the Beeston site, it soon turned into motor problem day. Airways motor had a broken wire and my Bailey had developed an intermittent lack of electricery. A piece of wire from the boot of my car fixed the Airways motor problem and after some searching I found a loose plug on the Bailey. With these minor issues out of the way, we were flying again. Already, the sun had started doing it's thing and thermal acivity was giving an assortment of wind directions around the site. After a couple of aborted attempts, I managed a smooth take off and climbed out from the site in the general direction of Wendling airfield. Rick had said I could spend a while bimbling about before landing, so I took the time to identify the relative locations of some landmarks and begin to create a mental map of the area. Beeston is my local BHPA site, so I'll need to know my way around. Coming back to the site and lining myself up for a northward landing, I still had plenty of height and there was another paramotor in circuit below. I kept the motor on tickover while I waited to see what he was doing. Still some way from the strip on along approach, the other glider made his final turn into approach ahead of me, so I powered up and went round again. On the second attempt, I came in too low and caught some rotor from the trees to one side of the south end of the strip. I sqeezed on a little throttle with the intention of straightening up and landing further along the strip. by the time I was straight, I was running out of strip, so rather than trying to make a good landing out of a bad approach, I went round for a third go. This time I managed to judge the approac just right, passing the trees just above their tops, all was straight and smooth so I got out of the seat and cut the motor. Despite a slightly early flare, I landed and stayed on my feet, turning around to see the wing standing on one tip. A tug on the brake and the wing came down in a reasonably tidy manner. Finally a decent landing! Rick was evidently overjoyed at this event, as he came running toward me cheering! I felt it would be rude not to join him. After lunch I made another flight similar to the morning's expedition, but with the added entertainment of some stronger thermals. Clouds were building causing a bumpy ride as I flew through one thermal after another. Another misjudged approach saw me making one more circuit before getting the height just right and achieving another quite acceptable landing With two decent landings under my belt, Rick had seen enough and I am now signed off as a club pilot. Thanks to Rick, Andy and the rest of the Airways staff for a very enjoyable adventure into paramotoring. Thanks also to Pete the Greek for advice and encouragement this weekend. Time to start reading the syllabus for the full pilot qualification.

With the Airways guys in Norfolk again, I booked one of my few remaining holidays from work to take advantage of the opportunity. The Beeston site of the Norfolk Hang gliding and Paragliding Club is quite different to Airways Darley Moor site. Paradoxically, the Norfolk site is on a hillside while the Derbyshire site is perfectly flat. I set up at the west end of the east-west runway, and after watching a few other students making their in circuit flights, I was briefed by Rick to make my first out of circuit flight. This was my first launch without direct supervision I would be flying to a location I was not familiar with and finding my way back to the site to land on one of the runways which cut through the crop of wheat. Wind was virtually nil, so a forward launch was in order. With the motor warmed and ticking over smoothly, I started forward and was relieved to feel the wing come up quickly. A little too impatient, I pushed too hard on the A's and the wing collapsed to one side. I re-arranged my wing (and the scraps of my pride) for another go. This time the wing came up and stayed up as I started running. A quick look up to check the wing was where I thought it was, then squeeze the throttle. Since making the mistake of leaning forward during the take off run on my first flight a fortnight ago, I kept myself as upright as possible. Even so, the zero wind conditions made for a long run followed by a smooth take-off. Climbing away from the site, I started making a mental note of places to land in the event of an engine failure. As far as I could see in every direction were large, flat fileds only occasionally interrupted by narrow roads, few hedges and the odd group of trees. Finding a safe place to land out was not likely to be a problem. I kept the power on until I had identified my destination - Wendling airfiled, now disused with some large chicken sheds on what remained of the concrete runways. At my altitude there was some wind and I was flying into it. It took some time for me to reach Wendling airfiled and I now had some considerable height. Easing back to about 1/3 throttle, I made a wide turn around the airfield to face back in the direction of the Beeston site. Scanning the countryside ahead of me (i.e. much of mid Norfolk) It occured to me that I couldn't identify the site. I remembered some landmarks and started back the way I came. Just as I ran out of landmarks, I spotted the Beston site directly below me. I had been looking too far away. After shutting down the engine, there followed several minutes of circling to lose height. By this time, there was enough wind at ground level to lift the windsock away from it's pole. I lined up to land on the north-south runway about 30° from directly into the gentle wind. As I approached the ground at abot 50ft, my wing tipped slightly to one side and I over corrected, inducing an oscillation. Hands up and let the wing stabilise - too late! I was at the bottom of a lateral swing when I flared, took a couple of sideways steps and sat gently down on my arse - again! Suitably reprimanded for failing to stay on my feet, I carried my wing the Bailey to the south end of the runway, where the other students had moved to now that we had a few knots of wind. Rick estimated that I was at 3,500 to 4,000ft overWendling airfield. I have not yet learned to estimate my height above about 500ft. An altimeter is on the shopping list. A break for lunch and a short wait for my dear wife to arrive with the spare batteries I had forgotten that morning, and I was ready for another flight. Despite the very gentle wind, I was in the air in just a few steps. Rick later pointed out that I had kept the prop square to the ground and that it makes a lot of difference. Heading towards Wendling again, I backed off to about 1/3 throttle at about 1000ft (at least somewhere between 500 and 1500ft). This time, I counted the fields between the Beeston site and Wendling airfield. Rounding the airfield I immediately located the Beeston site and kept 1/3 throttle on all the way back. Arriving back at the south end of the runway, there was another paramotor in the air, turning to and fro to lose height before landing. I was much higher and it occurred to me that I had been gaining height through the whole flight on 1/3 throttle. The diet pays off! At the south end of the runway, there are a few trees and a hedge immediately to the left side and the wind was from about 30° to the right. At 50ft I was out of the seat and determined to get this landing right and stay on my feet. An over-cautious attempt to keep to the right of the strip ended with an undignified landing in the wheat. Rain brought the day's flying to an end around 5pm. Back tomorrow for some circuits and landing practise.

I also built a pulse jet, when I was younger and more stupid. With the benefit of hindsight, Sifbronze #1 brazing was probably not the best construction method. Started it inside the place I was working, in a vice on the bench, fuelled with acetylene and started with the airline. It ran for as long as it took me to pull the fuel pipe off. My ears (and my assistants) were ringing for days afterwards. A brief but informative exercise; not one I would repeat. Pete.

"Anyone recommend some goggles" How about the traditional Stadium mk8 (see left). Designed for the purpose and very comfortable if your helmet will accommodate them. Pete.

Apologies if I'm hijacking this thread: As manufacturers look to improve power/weight ratio, one factor which will always suffer is the strength and stiffness of the cage. The cage is something we really can't do without. While it may be possible to fly without one, I doubt anyone would want to. So... I wonder what the trade-offs are with a ducted fan design. A fan requires a fairly rigid duct which could be made as a carbon monocoque. The smaller physical size would be inherently stiffer and would not require dismantling for transportation. A smaller diameter fan can run at higher RPM, perhaps removing the need for reduction drive. An added bonus of high fan RPM is low torque reaction. Ducted fans appear to be reasonably effecient at low velocities, only losing out to open propellors at higher airspeed. Some data here http://www.hovercraft.org.uk/showthread.php?18868-Fan-Thrust-Calculator shows a 900mm fan generating around 82kg thrust from 33HP. If one were looking for 40kg thrust, the fan diameter could be reduced, possibly to 500mm or so. I feel a weekend of CAD coming on.... Pete.

Hi Lee, There are a number of instructors on this forum, so you will get plenty of good advice on how and where to train. I started in January this year and I'm now 1 flying exercise away from Club Pilot qualification under the BHPA scheme. This would have happened much quicker if it weren't for unpredictable weather and my prior commitments. I have done my training at Airways Airsports in Derbyshire. A long trip, but I've done all the training in 6 weekends and you only do it once, so do it in a way that you're happy with. Airways offer all training using their kit. Full details in my training blog. It is my opinion that you can't be reasonably expected to commit to buying kit until you have at least some understanding of what you want - and that means fly before you buy. Hope to see you as a regular on this forum and later in the skies. Pete. Bailey 175 Ozone Indy

I've not taken off in zero wind yet, the weekend was quite variable but I'd say I had at least 5kn each time. Once I remembered to lean back on the run, the Bailey pushed me into the air quickly and I would be happy to try a launch into zero wind. At 6' and 75kg I can achieve a good ground speed for my weight. "5-6kn sea breeze genitally picks them up" - they might want to loosen their leg straps Pete.