AndySV1K

Welcome! Another Bailey owner here and im yet to actually fly it. been totally crap weather recently, I was hoping to get up before the end of the year but it didnt happen. I'm hoping for the same this year! What part of the country are you in? Andy.

If i get truly stuck i'll be sure to put out a call to local chaps to see if i can try their helmets By the time the weather sorts itself out it will probably be summer and I'll just get along to a fly-in and try some then. Over the last couple of weeks I went to about 6 different shops trying on ski helmets, lots of them at quite silly prices too. £200+ for a piece of moulded polystyrene and ABS!! None of them were as comfortable as the Bolle one in Costco and at just under £50 i don't think it was too bad money wise. The goggle strap thing on the back will definitely come off. Andy.

No i fully appreciate your comments and I was only jesting about bodging it. Being a biker, I appreciate the importance of a helmet and doing a bad job of it could make it more dangerous than not wearing one at all. I may well still stump up for a paramotor helmet one day but not without being able to try one on and that's not easy in this sport as far as I can tell. The ski helmet i've just got is so comfy and being Bolle appears to be very good quality. I paid £20 for peltor ear defenders rather than the £50 or so that most paramotor stores are asking for them. I have a plan for mounting the ear defenders which will be similar to how you describe the mounting of the visor, i'm even hoping to refit the polystyrene back in place so it's completely invisible mounting. I wear glasses so that's my main reason for preferring a visor. Although I may use goggles to begin with as like you say I think the visor will be the tricky part. I need to match the radius and get the mounting spot on or it won't work properly. I'll check out those links, did have a look at Flybubble last night and it appears they'll probably have what I need to do it. If I really can't mount a visor then so be it. Ear defenders are the main thing and I think I have those sussed. The helmet was from Costco by the way in case anyone is interested. Andy.

Hi Hamishdylan, Thanks i'll give them a try. I have some rusty 2" nails in the garage, i'm hoping they will be fine to hold the ear defenders and visor in place. i jest, yeah i appreciate what you are saying totally. I have no plans for anything to protrude into the helmet at all. I have a plan to mount things in much the same way they would be from the factory. If it doesn't work out or i'm not happy with it then it will get stamped on and binned. Eventually I will also add comms/bluetooth to it too, but for now it's just ear defenders and visor. Andy.

Hi, Does anyone know where I could purchase a helmet visor, like the sort of thing found on the Icaro helmets. Ideally im after a full face clear version, but even a shorter one would do. I'm looking to make a suitable helmet from a ski helmet. I'm not too sure on where to find a visor that I can retrofit to it though. Thanks Andy.

I assume there is a starter relay in there? Sometimes these fail by the contacts effectively welding together, it could be that you trigger the starter with the button and the contacts in the relay are holding on. Andy.

Here's the link... https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/www/wps/portal/!ut/p/b1/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOKNjSxMDA1NjDwsjM3MDTxN3dyNDUNMjQ1MjPWDU_P0C7IdFQG9k5Tz/?_ga=2.178413799.214155082.1510063563-643691615.1430316838 If you google land registry, be careful as you will get lots of sites purporting to be the gov website and will charge way more. It's possible to use a map to pinpoint a field or piece of land to find out who owns it so you don't actually need an address. Andy.

You can find out who owns land from the land registry website. It's very easy to do and costs £3 per enquiry. As for actually approaching land owners, i'm all ears on that one as i've never done it yet. Andy.

Sit and drink coffee until you're desperate to go to the toilet.... Then carefully defrost a small patch of soil.

My business partner had a tandem flight last week so got him to try a 360 camera. It's not great quality as I think Youtube has messed up the resolution a bit but gives an interesting perspective! The camera moves position later in the video to a higher point which looks a bit better.

Ah lots of familiar place names there! I think I may have even seen the same balloon if it was Friday afternoon. I wasn't flying, but was out in the field in Northampton doing a bit of kiting and practice launches on new kit. Nice blog and great pictures. Keep them coming! Andy.

I spent most of my weeks training with Deano back in 2007. Top guy, really nice person and very good communicator too. I remember him chatting to me while prepping for my first solo and he did a great job of keeping me calm while i probably wanted to freak out! Andy.

My 'other' hobby.... Andy.

Hi Randy, Whatever you decide to do I hope it's very successful and you're up and flying and enjoying it soon. The fact that you're discussing it here is a positive as it shows you're switched on and considering your options rather than just blindly jumping in and having a go without a care. Just like you, i've come across scenarios in life where people are 'training' me and i've quickly got to the point where I thought you're simply not good at teaching! Being able to do something well and being able to impart your skills to other people are quite different things. But there are some great people out there offering training so go meet people and don't rule out the professional training just yet, see if you can find someone who you gel with, you trust and who's willing to fit training around your budget. As mentioned above, another factor is kit costs, if you slip and break a prop, that's probably two-three days in training costs with a pro who is likely to have perfected their training methods to minimise the slips and trips etc that cause little mishaps. Andy.

If someone is a naturally good teacher then those skills can be transferred to lots of disciplines for sure. There's no reason why someone with flying experience couldn't do a great job at teaching someone else to fly. In fact if their teaching skills are good, they could probably do a better job than some professionals in the industry......however.... This is about learning a skill that could injure you or worse. Are these people ready to take on the responsibility for your safety and your life? Are they insured to do so should you get injured in the process? Personally, if it was me, the angle I would approach it with is to learn from them some skills in ground handling, learn to control a wing on the ground. Get as accomplished with that as possible, then look for professional training to get you up in the air. Things you may encounter with this method is that your ground handling skills may differ from how the professional instructor will want you to do it, but it won't take as long to alter your habits as it would to learn from scratch. This way you'll have a head start on a fresh student and you may be able to make your official training quicker and cheaper. (that will be down to finding an instructor willing to train in this way though rather than just selling you a fixed fee training package). But whatever your route, I believe you can't do too much ground handling so it's certainly the way I would go. Andy.

Some skilled stuff there! I'm a biker and hoping to maintain both hobbies (Although I totally get the lunacy of having two hobbies that ideally want good weather windows to make them fun) I don't think I'll ever scrape a wing tip on the ground and I'll certainly never need elbow sliders! Knee sliders i'll keep though Andy.

Not sure about importing data to it Simon, will have to check it out. Is this because you've already got relevant airspaces on a file? I'll have a search through and see what I can find out. Andy.

Not sure if anyone else has tried this but I tried it out the other day and it worked quite well. There is a phone app called IF (Used to be called IFTTT) and is called "If This Then That" It can do a huge amount but is basically a way of using logic to take in variables and carryout actions accordingly. What I did in about 5 mins, was set up a recipe (Thats what they refer to as the programs you can create) that was based on geo-location of my phone as the input and a phone notification as the output. It allowed me to make a 3 mile radius around my local airport and state that whenever my phone enters the area, send a push notification to my phone and watch. You can write custom text for the notification....like "Turn around you bloody idiot!" As I don't drive to the area all that often I will leave it switched on permanently, but if you often enter an area when not flying you may need to turn it on and off accordingly to avoid lots of notifications when you're in your car etc. It's obviously not meant to be a primary means of keeping you in the correct airspace but should work as a nice little back up way of warning you if you fly with a smartphone and/or smart watch. Andy.

Hi Vince, I'm just starting the same process of sorting a helmet out. I have various ideas and much were along similar ideas to yours by chance. I actually already have the same bose headphones as you, quick question on those, do you suffer any popping or clipping with them? When i've used mine in such situations as on the tube, loud noises like the doors closing make the headphones clip as they can't cope with the noise level. it's quite distracting. i wondered whether paramotoring would be better with it being a more constant noise level? I've got some ear defenders on order to play around with and may end up with the sena setup eventually too. Great idea on the ski helmet as there's loads out there available. Paramotor specific helmets are so pricey for what they are, I'm guessing it's a small market for them so they are bound to be. I'm also hoping to experiment with a smart cycle helmet that my company sells, It might prove difficult to mount the ear defenders on it, but if it works then it's got built in bluetooth and a hd video camera. Andy.

Hi Guys, I'm in Northampton, just getting back into this. I flew 10 years ago but stopped. Don't have all the kit yet but won't be long and then i'll also be looking for sites to fly from. my office is near Earls barton so finding somewhere east of Northampton could work for me for post work flights. Also another +1 for Clive, haven't trained with him but got my motor through him and my wing is on order and great service so far. Really nice guy. Andy.

Has anyone ever had this sort of thing happen with the engine on their back and stood up? I totally agree with the safety of only ever starting it on your back, but just wondering what the effects would be for it to start and immediately go full throttle while you are stood up. They pack a serious punch and I'm wondering whether I would actually be able to stay on my feet! Andy.