Hodders

This web page seems to sum up the key differences. http://www.scoutparamotor.com/the-complete-guide-how-choose-a-paramotor/do-you-need-a-clutch/

Great smile at the end - looks like you were having a ball

Put a small chute on it. At the end of the day it's little different to me chucking my non-steerable reserve. Except as you say it would be a small inescapable ball of lithium fuelled destruction. Oh also, I was looking at your Radial Engine project - totally amazing, any updates you can add to the thread ?

Wow - look forward to seeing it all come together !

I can see 'battery jettison' handles being a good idea. I can't imagine much worse than being strapped to a high energy density battery with it's temp sensor going into the red.

I also think that one of the huge benefits of electric will be reliability. No more holed pistons, no more bogging down at low rpm due to carbs drifting out of tune. It's not quite there yet, but it will get there, can't wait.

Ok, I'm very much still a novice, but the idea of flying over a stretch of water scares me silly. The idea of an engine failure where you have no option but to land on water with a 25kg metal lump strapped to you - eeek. Even with flotation devices I still wouldn't fancy it. The Philippines would be an amazing location to fly over, but I would always want to be close to land.

Very, very nice. Love the drone footage of the fireworks

Great - I even posted about RASP the other day and forgot all about it.... Thanks for reminding me Looking at Swindon at mid-day there is a difference in dew-point and temp of about 2.5 degrees. Which would imply a estimated cloudbase of about 1000ft :-/

Is there a decent online forecast for cloud base ? Or is there a resource that gives me the dew-point and surface temperature forecast so I can estimate it ?

I'm going to think aloud on this - point out any mistakes. With a belt drive the prop spins the same direction as the motor output shaft. With a gear driven motor it spins the opposite way. Both the motor and the prop will create a torque. The motor against it's mountings as it works to spin the output shaft and the prop as it works against the air. Now the motor and it's torque is contained by the frame structure, the only force acting externally to the paramotor is the prop against the air. So a counter-clockwise prop (viewed from the rear) will try to spin the frame clockwise and will put more force downwards on the right hand riser. This is why the risers on the arms are offset to the right (looking down) in order to counter this by using my weight to put a bit more force on the other riser. I'm guessing that the "bend" in the arms is to the left or right (looking down) to achieve the same thing. NB I am totally ignoring angular momentum and gyroscopic precession..

I'll be the first to admit I am scared of my paramotor. It gives me the ability to fly which I love, but there is something about the prop that just leaves me so aware of the damage it can do. Being scared is a great place to be. I will (hopefully) never be complacent. I start it on the ground, left knee on the seat, left shoulder in against the seat back, left hand holding the frame rotated such that if my hand slips it cannot go through. I'm lucky that I have an electric start so my right hand can be throtle/kill/start with the kill switch covered at all times. The instruction I have received from Simon and Colin have left me in no doubt about the vital element of risk management when it comes to the motor and the prop. Hope the injured guys above recover fast and well.

Just that if the parts supply is problematic to the point that Polini can't make new 190s it would seem to infer that parts will be a problem for existing motors.

Slightly worrying for those of us with 190s !

Is there any truth to this ??

Cool - watched it a couple of times. For others a quick summary. RASP is a linux tool that uses public domain data to generate forecasts useful to glider pilots (and by extension PPG). Leeds university make their data available at: http://rasp.inn.leedsmet.ac.uk/RASPtableGM/RASPtableGM.html Well worth a look !

Watching the weather has made me curious about gusts. Recently in the area where I live, the forecasts have shown winds such as 5 gusting 20+, normally they would show 5 gusting 10. I can (in my limited knowledge) think of the following gust creation modes: 1) Localised thermals and cumulus clouds - as they are created and die, as they move around they will cause the wind to rise and fall. 2) Rotors from smaller local structures and obstacles. As rolling rotors form and break away from trees, buildings etc they will cause winds to rise and fall. 3) Rotors from larger obstacles - mountains, large hills etc 1 and 2 are very localised and therefore can't really be 'forecast'. But I want to understand what it is the met office looks at in order to determine the gust strength that is likely to be present in a particular area. Can anybody explain to me ?

Engine outs at 2, 4 and 8 ! Wow, what were the failures? I had an engine out on my 3rd ever flight and I don't ever think I'll be complacent about always having a landing zone in mind.

I wanted to post a similar level of encouragement - good stuff Simon.

Looked v.nice. After about 6 or 7 flights I still find watching peoples approaches very useful. Thanks for posting.

It's to do with the way firefox handles SSL "stapling". The tech details are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCSP_stapling The problem is likely to be with the web server. But it only shows up in firefox as the other browsers don't implement stapling in the same way. You can 'fix' you copy of firefox temporarily by disabling security.ssl.enable_ocsp_staplingin Firefox's about:config

Rob, I'm based in Aldbourne halfway between Swindon and Marlborough. I've been trained (7 flights, last 2 with no radio so still very much a novice in training) by Simon and can thoroughly recommend him and the team up at Membury. If you want to meet up for a beer or give me a call about the view from the trainees side of the fence feel free to drop me a message....

Nice. Looks like a blast - really pleased you got the weather to go along with all the effort you guys put in.

I think the problem here is that most of us can only report on one engine. I seem to remember that when I spoke to ParaJet about the Moster/Thor question the answer was that there is very little to choose between them. The big difference is down to if you want electric start, if so then the Thor190 is the only option. I weight 110kg ready to fly and have certainly never felt that I needed more power take off and climb out feels easy and quick - having said that I am still very much a novice.

Thinking about it - mounting it to the caribs would mean one line would have to be attached/detached everytime you get in or out of the harness. By having it go to the harness reserve points you can "fit and forget" other than keeping it part of you pre-flight safety checks.