aljken

Dropped price to 1200 now. See advert in classifieds.

Thanks Simon. Will drop it in there too, A

Asking price £1400.00 Ozone Sirocco 22 paramotor wing (basically a light weight speedster). Less than 20 hours (not used much as I mostly do free flight paragliding). Owned just less than 3 years (since April 2015). Condition excellent. Flies fantastically. Lightweight wing (4.5 kg in this size) makes it super easy to launch. Risers have trimmers and tip steering. Sheathed lines. Comes with the instruction book, inner bag and ozone speed bar. More information at the Ozone website. http://www.flyozone.com/paramotor/en/products/previous-gliders/sirocco/info/ Also advertised here with photos. http://www.skyads.aero/ads/ozone-sirocco-22/ Prince included if sent to UK (additional postage cost can be negotiated if it’s a lot more to another country).

If you can fly a mentor 3 in thermic air, you should get an intermediate ppg wing.

Is the Zenith or Maverick stronger Simon? And what's the difference between the two really? Weight, etc...

The thor 130 evo has either a Walbro WG8 carb (same as the thor 130) or a Polini float 24. I personally would get the Walbro one just becuase parts are so easy to get for it and it's very straight forward. Getting parts off Polini can take around 2 weeks typically. Not sure about performance differences though...

What carb have you got? and have you got a thor 130 or thor 130 evo?

Polini have upgraded the Thor 130 to an evo version now. It looks almost identical just with a slightly different exhaust. Can't tell the difference otherwise - same power, same weight, same everything else it seems. can anyone else spot any differences? and can you "evo" the old Thor 130? What would the difference be?!

You can get a cheap 2nd hand paragliding harness off skyads or paraglidingforum.

Hi Alan If you have a certified wing the the distance between the risers is often published in the certification report. It can vary somewhere between 40 and 46 cm if you read the recent reports (try https://para-test.com/reports). Elbow to fist is a reasonable distance which you can use when setting up a paragliding harness (you'll probably find your elbow fist distance is about this). If you make it a bit narrower you'll reduce the bumpiness when flying at the expense of more twist probability if it goes wrong. In a paramotor it doesn't really matter does it? The distance is fixed unless you can somehow adjust the distance on your harness. Cheers, Alex.

Why do you want to kite the wing without any inputs? Whatever wing it is you want to be able to ground handle it with the brakes (and probably also weight shift and back risers too). Knowing how to control a wing when it overshoots you is an essential core skill.

I share Vince's view. I think flying way overweight on the official weight range on a wing is fine if you're aware of what you're doing. I do it and find the wings handle more to my likely as Vince described.

It looks very nice. You look well clear of all the terrain below and visiting in light winds is definitely the thing to do. Rotor and turbulence can extend a long way from a tall object (like a mountain) so avoid lees. If you're thinking of landing on a mountain be careful about katabatic winds forming towards the end of the day. The wind direction may be in the completely opposite direction low down compared to high up. I've been caught out and was lucky to get away with a downwind landing on the side of a mountain - albeit at the expense of a chipped prop.

Another point about WG8 carb. It has a fixed high jet (tuned to be deliberately slightly rich), and an idle screw and low/mid screw. It's parts are easy to get hold of. I don't know much about polini cp carb but i wouldn't bother changing it if it works on your current motor.

I'd just say that be very cautious of where turbulence and rotors could be forming downwind, especially behind spine backs and in increasing wind speeds. A good idea would be to read a free flying book on wind / weather in these environments. The wind increases as it gets higher usually although in the mountains you can also get very strong valley winds down below and it can be safer to land on the top sometimes instead. You haven't said what mountains you're talking about or how tall they are. The flat lands will be easier and less stressful for you in terms of meteorology and also landing options. Perhaps others who have learnt to fly paramotors in mountains can comment too.

Boxyboy - The cheaper option is to get into free flying using a paraglider (not paramotor). Cheaper mostly as there's more of a club mentality generally and lift sharing is really easy to the local hills. You'll get more club support from joining a paragliding club and won't need a car either necessarily. You could then later graduate onto paramotoring if need be but at least you'll be airborne this way and also know how to fly without a motor. In terms of costs you basically will need to spend £1000-1500 on tuition I'd have thought, plus paraglider & harness & kit £1500 for something reasonable to get flying. Good luck.

I think it depends where you live - you haven't said. I really enjoy both free flight and motoring, and you learn different things from flying both. I live in South Wales close to paragliding sites so it's not too far to drive to the hills to go paraglide and that's easier than getting the motor out when I know it's definitely flyable at short notice. If you live somewhere flat like East Anglia it would probably make more sense to learn to motor first. Costs - well it's an expensive hobby, whichever you take up once you've added in a reserve, wing, radio, helmet, harness/paramotor, instruments, other stuff... Starting with a paraglider wing is fine on a motor and often recommended by paramotor instructors as can be easier to learn compared to a paramotor (reflex) wing - any one of the main brands would be fine.

Perhaps someone else who knows about radio can contribute but all i know is 136 to 174 is fairly standard for the radios we use. It obviously won't get 135.475 which falls into the airband section (108 to 137). I don't know how you go about getting an airband radio (I suspect it could involve a license). Correct Rich h- most people don't call airfields or information services, but I'm sure there are some out there that do.

I've been flying paragliders and paramotors for about 9 years in the UK. I've never met anyone who has a license for their radio. Everyone I've met uses the frequencies around 144 which is tolerated by the radio monitoring police / radio hams, although not strickly legal. You can get an unlocked VHF radio very easily - either from ebay for less than £30 or from a UK radio seller (just request they open up the frequencies for you) - it's much easier than bothering to unlock/hack the radio yourself which may require soldering. Even the low powered ones work for miles when you're up in the air. Also if you use a radio you'll probably want to use an resistor type spark plug (if it start BR and it's made by NGK then it is) to minimise interference.

Problems that I fixed by doing a butterfly mod are: 1. Doesn't work well when idling. The mod means a small jet of air passes directly over the jets and means the engine idles indefinitely without bogging or 4 stroking. 2. Poor control of mid-range. The mid range control improves dramatically, and it feels like the throttle response is much easier and smoother to control. This isn't surprising when you see how the mod works, you are never shutting the butterfly valve completely. The other issue which can be fixed is the wire through the high jet described by casper above. I've not bothered doing this, but the mod basically restricts fuel flow and will lean the engine a bit, only for the high end. The default with this carb is to run rich at the high end (and there's no screw to modify it). Sadly the carb is not tuned specifically to the paramotor engine when you buy it, but it's easy to mod to make it run way better.

The Bailey website hasn't been updated since 2013 either!

Cheers, will do. Alex

Just saw this. I often go back to pangbournr to visit my parents where I grew up. I often take the motor and would be keen to have a beer sometime!

I've owned a gopro hd hero 2 for about 4 years . My advice is if you've got a macbook, then imovie, certainly if you're just starting out. It's really really easy to use. You can drag and drop itunes music (or other mp3s in). Also, I'd advise, keep the video under 2 mins, definitely 3 if you want people to watch it. I step my recording down to 720. I really can't imagine why you'd ever need 4k, i don't have a tv big enough to show the difference, although you can get a cheap chinese knock-off off amazon for less than 50 quid which records in 4k. If I was buying another today, I'd get a cheap gopro knock-off ideally with a built in gimbal. That way it doesn't matter if you break it. The search terms action camera will bring up loads on amazon for dirt cheap. It's mostly not what you use to film, but content and editing.

Just to feed back, this was an error in the CHT. Basically a loose wire. If the polini DRS wire gets cut while in use the temps jump massively. Also I fixed it and tried the putting the ring in boiling water - no temp change even after 5 mins. On the motor it worked fine though. Again I think this is because the cut thermocouple ring only works if you have a temperature difference across it (one hotter side eg cylinder head and one colder side spark plug). Google seedbeck effect and you'll see why. Also worth noting, taking the exhaust muffler off and looking in is a great way of inspecting the side of the piston head. I did this while changing gaskets recently. You get a much better view than looking down the spark plus hole and can also see the piston ring. Thanks for all the advice. Cheers Alex