adamjedgar

Whilst not a motoring video and only short, it does have some information that is useful when bombing out near water that is certainly relevant to all paraglider pilots. If i had known of these things 2 years ago a 45 minute spell in cold ocean waters and a rescue helicopter ride would not have been necessary. One thing to note, this is a high performance 2 liner wing with a 7:1 aspect ratio...so milking lift in light conditions whilst looking for a bombout is much easier to do than on lower end gliders. The critical points remain the same though. Hope this may be of use to others in the future who may encounter a nasty water bombout option and in the heat of the moment are required to quickly plan the final descent and landing. If i were faced with this particular spot landing in a motor, i would unbuckle my harness and attempt to land in the water crosswind, however free flying, whilst scary, its much easier and a lot more doable than you may think.

I should have also pointed out, those high rise buildings one can see in the distance are the Sydney City. International Airport is just beyond that (all up about 35km as the crow flies)...so its not a long drive to this lovely flying spot!

yep for those without tandem ratings...a monkey might pose a problem. In any case, i am dead set against the use of animals for testing

Hi guys, whilst not a paramotoring image...it is a place i paramotor regularly. Anyone considering coming down under to Sydney should always make sure they bring a wing with them. Its a great place to fly! Paramotor launch is in the dog park right next to the tennis courts, about 400m to the west of Long Reef.

Big! Props is a difficult one...its dependant on a number of factors beyond my experience. Things such as torque, power curve, rpm, cruise speed, cage diameter limitations, number of blades, efficiency, material its made from... You could probably find a similar size existing paramotor engine and within reason, if technical and performance specs are similar (eg hp and torque curve), copy the reduction ratio and prop used on similar engine as a starting out point. If there isnt anything to compare with, prop manufacturers are quite good at working out a reasonable starting point based on the engine performance specs amd redrive ratio. Chances are they have already made a prop for that engine.

That is so true...first time i ever flew my icepeak 2 liner free flying wing i absolutely shit myself...the feedback was so much i was sure the glider was going to simply fall out of the sky at any moment. I remember being told once, women have to learn to enjoy sex (whether this is really true or not i dont know...im a bloke), however it certainly rings true for going up in wing performance. After flying the Icepeak i get back on even high EnB wings and get frustrated very quickly.

I dont really have any experience with retrofit but from my limited understanding often paramotor engines have a new crankcase fitted to allow for reduction drive mountings (eg gearbox or belt). Even though within usable limits, 250cc is getting rather large for footlaunch, but would be fine for wheelbase. I am assuming that the motor you have doesnt have provision for redrive? I think a second consideration is weight saving design features. Finally, is the atv engine water cooled or air cooled?

I think ozone build this feature into wings to improve climb performance...but i think this is at the expense of torque induced riser twisting safety...just my opinion and others with "high hang point paramotors" may have different experience. On low hang point units you can simply fly with constant weightshift to offset torque steering...but not for high hang point, so these features become extremely important for me, especially on wings that like to lag back to get good climb performance. I am not sure how ozone do this, perhaps line lengths?

I should have said i like Tucker because i really do. My only complaint is when someone pushes wings because they are told too. Tucker flies Ozone because he is part of paradigm team and they give him wings. I have flown on ozone sirrocco and buzz pwr z4. Neither wing had any technology built in to offset torque steering issues and this made them almost unsuitable for ppg with high hang point units. Tucker harps on about how great Ozone wings are, however if that were really true, I would have expected a decent ppg wing manufacturer to include at least offset riser loops and torque steering tip lines in ppg wings. Neither of Ozone wings i have flown had them...both wings suffered badly from torque steering because of this, and add to it the tendency for both wings to lag back way too far under high power settings (risers almost touching cage) and my assessment of said wings is damning...unless newer models are better and include such technologies, i wouldnt touch them with a 40 foot pole...such wings for ppg are lacking 2 very important safety and xc features. Dudek include both on their wings. I have flown the Ozone buzz pwr z4 and Sirrocco. Focusing on sirrocco because its a reflex wing, its a fantastically easy wing to launch, but in the air my Dudek Universal is by far the better wing, not because of speed but because of the technology used in it and the way the wing flies under power. I found that the Ozone Sirrocco, just like my old Buzz pwr, lagged back badly under high power settings from any speed (trimmers open or closed)...so much so the risers were almost touching my cage. This made it susceptible to torque induced riser twisting. I have never had thus happen with Dudek Universal and am sure its an inherant design flaw in both ozone wings i have flown. Now i will admit i fly a high powered 200cc unit whilst being quite light myself but i still dont like Ozone wings because of this issue and the lack of other technology Dudek automatically include in their wings to counter this and improve pilot comfort on long xc flights. On the topic of Tucker Gott winning ICARUS, i dont mind that he did win (not that he had any real competition, Aussie 2 time winner David Wainwright wasnt there this year), i watch all of tuckers videos and think what he does is generally great advertising for the sport and he is a talented pilot but his technical knowledge of important wing features is shithouse. If newer ozone wings have resolved above said issues...than i take this all back. I will stop my rant here.

I have free flown with split leg...i found them quite comfortable in the air, but they have limited weightshift and are difficult to get out of into hang for landing. Its probably wrong to say one gets out of them, you dont really, its just that i found they resist the pilot trying to get more upright for landing and there is a tendency to want to push against brakes and risers to stay upright (which is not a good thing). I notice my mate who owns the harness demonstrates the same problem when he flies in it too. I had a mate of mine take one on an siv course...i am convinced the lack of weightshift is too blame for his locked in spiral/sat entry into the water. He was doing a stall, got a crevate and wasnt able to weightshift enough to help prevent escalation into a sat...and hit the water in that configuration, blowing the entire side out of his harness and coughing up blood for the next few days. I know weightshift is a double edged sword, however, I am not a fan of split leg harnesses for free flying. i havent tried one motoring. I dont say no weightshift just not as food as seat board style. Having said that i wonder if split leg wouldnt be worth a try on high hang point paramotors...the ability to use leg movements for a little weightshift, where there is zero side to side weightshift, might be useful on those type of units?

My wife's nagging at me oddly enough seems to correlate directly with good paragliding/paramotoring weather. I for the life of me dont know why, i gave up playing golf for her...she is no longer a golfing widow!

I tried to wqtch it but im not a newbie anymore...to long for me. These guys are well known instructors in ppg,however i lost all respect for them after they changed exclusively to ozone wings for ppg. Prior to that they said dudek dudek dudek. I fear they were not as honest in such things as i previously thought, clearly ozone roped them in with free or cheap wings,and now all of a sudden tucker gott is flying free ozone wings too (also raving about how good they aparently are..he too is full of complete marketing crap). I am extremely dissapointed in these guys for this kind of trickery...they are no better than Dell Schanze when it comes to marketing bullshit! The reality is, kiting is almost useless for learning how to control a paraglider in the air...and this is essentially because one of the real biggies in paragliding is learning how to interract with dynamic stability ...ie controlling the pendulum. In my view this cannot be learned on the ground. Having said that, prior kiting skill does make the first day of ppg training much easier, no doubt about this. Sorry for the rant...it just really touches a nerve with me.

There is another consideration that hasnt been mentioned...speed system. If you are flying cross country you most definately want a ppg wing that has speed trimmers with a decent speed range. Some ppg wings dont have them at all, and a lot have them but with a very limited range....thus forcing pilots to use speed bar for long periods of time(which is going to burn your legs out real fast). Some wings have light speedbar pressure and others are quite heavy. I personally prefer wings with a long speed trimmer range. As an example the dudek i have has a speed trimmer range of 240mm. I also think you want a wing that is going to cruise for long periods of time trimmers out above 55km/hr. I prefer high trimmer out speed rather than sitting on bar, its far more comfortable for me.

Thing is,when forward launching one has to apply brakes once wing is overhead...how can that be done without dropping the A's? You have to let them go to drop hands down to do this, otherwise your takeoff speed will be 35km/hr (glider approx trim speed). Brakes are applied to bring the launch speed down to minimum flying...which is roughly between 23 and 28km/hr depending on glider and weight). There is no specific need to worry about when to let them go, just focus on braking as wing is overhead and power is applied and it happens automatically. One thing i believe is important is to err on the side of applying brakes a little bit too late rather than early. I often see guys letting go of A's before wing is flying overhead.

I have found that daisy chain works nicely on sheathed lines but is terrible for knots on unsheathed lines. Since i have gliders with both line types i use both techniques spoken of here.

The most problematic time with wing collapses for me whilst motoring has been when hitting thermic activity...i have had some doozies in this regard. I think that the solution is simple...if that sort of stuff is outside ones comfort zone (which also tends to be outside ones ability too i might add) avoid flying in such conditions. If you want to fly in the middle of the day and there is thermic activity around its best to be coastal i reckon. The reality is that wing loading and collapse resistance is to some extent a double edged sword. If you are heavy on wing....remembering most paramotor wing loadings are significantly higher than free flying counterparts on similar sized wings, then the amount of wing dynamics is significantly higher You mention gift wrapping....most often happens when you get a very large wing surge forwards after something like a stall, wing going down underneath you before deflating into a bedsheet...then you fall into it. I have very nearly ended up in a gift wrap whilst free flying a Niviuk Icepeak 6 2 liner competition wing...i can tell you from experience that seeing a bedsheet directly underneath you whilst falling towards terra firma is not a good feeling...especially if you dont have a reserve at the time as was my case that day (i was flying coastal at lowish altitude and some of us coastal pilots dont use reserves under such circumstances..so i recovered from said situation about 100 feet above ground counting my lucky stars) If you are light on a wing wing then it is far more likely to collapse, however, since you are overloaded by around 30kg compared with similar free flying wings, you can afford to be quite a way underweight before its a huge huge problem. Also, a lightly loaded wing is not as dynamic in recovery when compared with a heavily loaded one. Finally...heavier loaded wing has different speed ranges when compared with lightly loaded wing..and for me the light wing loading becomes a pain in the ass if you encounter headwinds...it wont cut through them anywhere near as well. I think gemerally most paramotor pilots prefer to be heavy rather than light and im in full agreement with this veiw. For me this is because with a heavier loading comes an inherant stability making collapses and parachutals and stalls less likely in the first place. Its i.portant to remember though that this can give one a false sense of security and then an overly confident attempt at advanced manouvres such as big wing overs, spins and sats becomes ones undoing when all of a sudden the pilot finds themselves on an out of control "bucking bronco"!

My advice for motoring is a simple equation...i weigh 70kgs. Wing ...good efficient not too heavily loaded wing (mine is a 25mtr dudek universal) Motor...the lightest, most reliable, most powerful available. I did well for the last two...but lucked out on the first...simo mini 2 plus...reliable and grunty as hell...does tend to also make a certain pilot grunt like hell picking it up though! Having a lot of extra power has saved me a few times...more is definately better than less! Btw i need to adthis...4.5 to 5ltr per hour fuel economy is nothing short of absolutely woeful...i easily maintain 2.5-3ltr per hour on the simo 200. If your engine is blowing 5ltr per hour you are clearly propped wrong, or on the wrong wing.

I am suprised to read guys new to paramotoring flying enc wings...these wings should be only used by more experienced/intermediate to advanced ppg pilots not ppg beginners. I know an experienced paragliding instuctor with around 1000 hours free flying who broke his leg motoring on a siroco (lightwieight version of speedster) because he really didnt have the ppg experience for this wing. He had barely any motor time before choosing this wing and paid the price for it. I have flown the sirocco...its a nice wing, however from my own experience flying a dudek universal i can openly say that when rough air is encountered...even my low end ppg wing can be hellishly nasty with the motor on my back (even though its a complete pussy cat free flying). I have had times where i have hit thermals or turbulence landing and really struggled to keep the thing above me. Those flying En C ppg wings with little air time motoring are going to shit themselves if the wing gets out of shape...with the high wing loading recovery becomes extrmely dynamic and much more difficult...not good for inexperienced motor pilots and a very bad job on the part of the salesperson who sold said pilots these wings....very poor form. To give some real perspective on my flying...my main free flying wing is a Niviuk Icepeak En D 2 liner comp wing (i have 500 hours total pg time...about 100 on Icepeak). And here i am 100 hours paramotoring and still on a en a/b Dudek Universal.

eh??? That means that without fuel, your new unit weighs 18kg...oh my goodness thats so light its almost unbelievable. I went to the airconception website and was amazed at the engine weight...just over 11kg. Thats really really impressive, I am sold on that engine. I need to look into the Nitro as the only comparison for weight that comes close is my DLE 200 engine is its very light weight 12kg. The trouble with this engine is that is also very noisy and hasnt got as much torque as i would like due to the short stroke (its a model aircraft engine). On a paramotor i love the lightness but its way down on thrust compared to SImonini mini 2 plus. This Nitro engine on the other hand, looks fabulous

Hi Simon, i dont wish to make any criticism of this website this is purely a querying observation. When one attempts to enter the URL for this website, i note that in your zone file records for the domain, it appears that you have not set the "www" CNAME record to point to "paramotorclub.org (or vice versa whichever you want to be the main URL). Essentially this means that if someone enters just paramotorclub.org in their web broswer, and have not edited their local desktop pc hosts file to do this automatically, a "forbidden" error is returned in web browser. You may have done this on purpose, although this particular situation is not a usual method of setting up URL zone file records...so it may be something you were not aware of how to fix. I am not familiar with your registrar interface for reseller domain management on the Tucows registry, or you may be under the complete management of biziserver internet solutions (are they a reseller for tucows?), however, generally the solution is as simple as the following example shows... To keep your main URL as www.paramotorclub.org, either you or biziserver internet solutions should go into your domain registrar administration area, select your zone records and add the following record HOSTNAME RECORD TYPE DESTINATION paramotorclub.org CNAME www.paramotorclub.org this will stop the "forbidden error" when paramotorclub.org is enterred into a web browser, instead displaying www.paramotorclub.org URL in users web browser. It is essentially telling the web browser that paramotorclub.org is an alias of www.paramotorclub.org and will go there instead. If you ever need website and or hosting help, just drop me an email or private message. Hope i am not overstepping boundries here...just that i run a small web hosting business of my own and tend to dabble a bit in these things as a consequence. kind regards, Adam

Hi Greg, this is an interesting question and i for one am glad someone asked it. I agree with one of the other answers in that i believe it is rather difficult to nail down to a specific amount of time. Having said that, i can say that for me, being able to fly the motor is the easy part...its the launching and landing that i have most problems with when i dont fly the motor very much (or have a long break between flights)...even if i keep right on free flying throughout it doesnt help keep the launching and landing up to scratch. A few thoughts that come to mind after i recently had 3 months off from all flying due to an operation...and didnt get back into flying the motor for a few weeks after i started free flying again. 1. confidence in oneself tends to wain somewhat and as a result ones commitment to launching in the heat of the moment is not as good as it should be. The wing lift is not a strong one, then the wing has barely enough energy to want to come up straight and thus tends to go offline, pilot doesnt apply enough throttle...etc. One very quickly starts to second guess the launch if it doesnt miraculously end up perfect immediately, (and considering the lack of confidence, real commitment and effort), a failed launch usually results. 2. Fear of landing speed and/or descent angle on final approach has one shitting themselves. Since this was one of the last things in ones mind after a previous motor flight, your second and third motor flights after a long break are less likely to even eventuate (ill go free flying instead is mentally an easy option). I think no matter how many hours a pilot has in total, our personal level of ability is never as good as it should be if we dont fly often. Personally, i would say one should at least try to do a launch and land every week or fortnight if weather permits. In terms of hours per year...i dont think this really matters as your flight experience may be biased towards particular environmental conditions...go outside those conditions you are used to, and your currency for said conditions will be limited. A personal experience that i hope illustrates (for the flying part at least) I fly a Dudek Universal ppg wing (a very low end reflex glider, often used for training) and general, i fly a lot (over 200 hours per year...about 150 hours free flying and about 50 per year on the motor). Over the last couple of months since my operation i can handle the weight of the engine better when launching and landing so consequently, my last 20 hours on the motor have come relatively quickly by my own 3 year average. Anyway, on a motor flight a few days ago, i was approximately 1000 feet above the tops of hilly terrain when I hit some thermic activity that had me absolutely shitting myself. I suddenly lost both outer wing thirds repeatedly in full reflex and didnt have time to attempt to pull in trimmers as my hands were full down to my butt on the tip steering trying to keep the center of the canopy flying, realistically not having a clue how to achieve that using only tips which were deflated at this point simply flapping almost completely limp a few meters above me. To be honest the tip steering was barely doing anything for directional control and the glider almost immediately started to yaw left and right violently for what seemed like a very long time. This happened twice over a distance of about 200-300 meters. As soon as i got through the first one i quickly reached up and hauled in the trimmers, the second one wasnt nearly so bad but still had me very very worried when i hit it although now that i was flying on brakes my free flying experience helped a lot. In full reflex mode I had unexpectedly encountered strong thermic conditions heading inland back home from a round trip to the coast and back that i was not used to flying the motor in...although am very happy to, and regularly do, free fly in such conditions. Whatever hours i have flown the motor since my operation (which is about 20 motoring and similar free flying), they were not enough for this encounter whilst in full reflex mode. Not sure about other gliders, but for me this is where the Dudek Universal paraglider does produce a very awkward situation...almost all of its speed system is allocated to the trimmers (only about 5km/hr of its approx 20km/hr speed range comes from the bar). The moral in my view...currency is relative to the flying environment one is used to flying in. Had i had more experience recently flying in shit paramotoring conditions i would have reassessed changed inland conditions i was returning too and would have been far better prepared, indeed even expecting of, what I encountered and would not have been flying with trimmers all the way out.

If that was your first landing ever, i dont think you should be too concerned. It was just a steep descent followed by a late flare...as one other commentator mentioned, ground a few feet lower would have resulted in a perfect landing. Speaking mostly for myself, I have made that mistake...well after having completed many landings let alone my first one. It is one of the downsides of a non powered approach with trimmers closed. Paragliders simply dont have enough forward energy and airspeed variation in that configuration to convert the steep non powered descent into a flare that low to the ground. Its a fine line between perfect and heavy touch down as you found out. I am only now (After flying motors for 2 years) deciding to let the trimmers out a little and come in faster with a flatter approach. Looking back i think the lesser of the two evils is a difficult one to judge...slow and potentially heavy, or fast and go ass over head at lightspeed

Ah yes i see what you mean about a little trimmer out flaring. Up until recently i had been avoiding that technique...often to my detriment. Even on my wing better landings are made with some trimmer out, however most often i need to do that when landing into a headwind to take the tendency of the wing to balloon out of the equation. The universal likes to pop up about 6 feet on its own just before you touchdown when one comes in hands up...then leaves one with that awful drop as it then runs out of airspeed. Letting a bit of trimmer out resolves this issue a lot.

Woohoo so my observation is not a lone ranger one. Also, i have two paramotors. One of them is about 6kg lighter than the other. Both units are high hang point. I find that the lighter one seems to move around a lot in turbulence (and in general)...both the motor about the risers and wing itself. I find this movement a pain to be honest, it seems to make the machine unstable and am looking for ways to reduce it. In addition to the paramotor movement, the wing doesnt feel as solid either. I am wondering if the problem is that the recline angle of the propellor is to great thus tending to unload the wing and cause motor to twist and move around more? What i dont understand is that even when i feel more upright in the lighter unit it remains unstable. This leads me to this question, typically do your paramotors have an angle between thrust line and the rear of your harness (mine appears to be a 90 degree angle). My suspician is that if rear of seat is a right angle to thrust line, when one is setting up hang point positions for flying so that one feels comfortable there is too much "upthrust" unloading the wing and also causing the power pack to move/twist around a lot on the risers. Now i can already here some minds thinking "setup hang points more vertical" but my body is already more vertical on the unit in question than the heavier one which does not have any issues. When landing i also feel that the vertical angle is changing a lot more on the lighter unter as i flare(it leans back significantly more than the heavier Nirvana Rodeo) Essentially i am saying i feel this is a geometry problem with the frame design and harness angle. I also geel as if the angle between my legs and the seat board is "acute" (less than 90) on the lighter unit. My gut tells me that the vertical distance between the upper harness anchors and the fixed jbars is not far enough.

Hi guys, I have been reviewing my igc files and i have begun to see what i believe is a consitent pattern. With trimmers left alone my glider appears to produce faster ground speeds (via gps) when engine is at idle and i am descending than it does cruise speeds. I have compared a number of flight records and this has been a regular occurance. Anyone else experiencing this? Any thoughts on why? My theory is that its due to the following When descending at idle, thrust is essentially gravity...vertical Flying straight and level, thrust is from engine and is horizontal rather than vertical I feel that perhaps the pendulumn angle is different between the two and so is the angle of attack. Someone has suggested to me it may be due to the way in which lines are loaded when engine thrust is increased? Any thoughts? Anyone else checked their igc files to see if they also experience this?