Phil_P

Well, nothing is going to actually make things brighter, although yellow does tend to make it look so, and is really good on slightly duller days. Whatever you use will always be reducing to some extent the amount of light that is transmitted to the eyes, although what the value of this is for these particular visors I couldn't say, but they won't be quite as effective as a neutral tint visor at a similar sort of apparent density as they will be removing a narrower band of light wavelengths. Different people tolerate differing amounts of bright sun, so it would be quite subjective as to whether the density was sufficient for an individual. One option would be to use the yellow visor, but to add a strip of the sort of filter material used on car windscreens (or even the mirror film) along the top edge, much like a tinted car windscreen. It is fairly easy to position it so that in normal use it doesn't come into your line of sight, but a small tilt of your head forward will make it do so. Phil

Yellow/orange visors block blue colours so enhance contrast between sky and clouds. Your eyes/brain soon adjust and you are just aware that the day looks bright. Other than a neutral tint, it would be my number one choice for flying.

And as I'm sure all pilots are aware, we shouldn't use GPS as our primary means of navigation, should we Just playing Devil's Advocate a little there, so don't get stressed.

You can bend quite accurate hoops by the suitable application of mild brute force, at least on 0,6mm water pipe (stainless) (Good enough to get a compliment off Paul Bailey. ). For these sort of wall thickness's, I've also been thinking of knocking up a ring roller out of some ply and three bicycle wheels.

Sorry Simon, but I thought I had recollections of you discussing a new up and coming insurance for Paramotor Club 'members' back in Dec. '08. Perhaps this was purely instructor cover, although I thought there was talk about flexibility of cover. I didn't mean to imply that two weeks was a long time, it's just I thought this had been on the cards longer than that. Phil

Come on Simon, you have been making 'almost' promises for some time now, but nothing has yet materialised. If you want to catch the proverbial worm of the jilted On Risk clientèle, I suspect your bird may have to show up pretty early. There are many, myself included who want to get back on the insurance wagon (mine lapsed due to fubared hip making it pretty superfluous). Phil

I like my Crispi's. There are some who will say that proper hang/paragliding boots are an unnecessary luxury, personally, I like to stack the deck in my favour.

And just for future reference, the ratings are in kN (kilo Newtons) or Tonnes (alright, one is mass and the other is force, but in our application they are pretty interchangeable. (sorry, pedantic autistic side coming out) Oh, and they are called 'D' shackles. And if we assume a pretty hefty 200kg weight of pilot, motor etc, we would have to be executing a 5G manoeuvre to reach the max. safe working load of a single 10kN shackle (1 tonne). Even then, this is likely to be way below the likely failure limit which is probably 1.5 to 2 times the safe working limit.

The tube is 15mm 0.6mm (not 100% sure on wall thickness, it was the thinner offering). MIG welds fine, no exotic gas required. Bending the main hoops was slightly problematic without a ring roller, but by the judicial application of brute force between several large heavy objects, a roughly circular shape prevailed. Will try and get a picture or two Oh, and made it in two, rather than four segments to increase strength. Phil

Unfortunately it's the result of NO medication! Been off all my pain killers since Monday trying to get this damned monkey off my back (over 3 years of opiates). Almost total insomnia at the mo, check out the times of some of my postings I've had the full spread of withdrawal symptoms including mild hallucinations, so I might have just been hearing an echo...echo...echo... Last night it got VERY silly when I was considering cranking over my motor in a very crowded utility room (I didn't).

Dude, think (covert) PLEASE don't tell the world you have your kit in your van!!!! Look what happend to Pete B!! You remove yours, and I will remove this one SW Best tip I've seen if you leave a wing in a vehicle, is don't bag it up. Let's the air circulate, and can you imagine trying to do a runner with it like that?

Hi Mark, the Thule backrack has a removable 'A' frame almost directly above the tow ball, which you would normally use for support and anchorage. On my Ford Maverick (Nissan Terrano) all I did was dispensed with the 'A' frame and used a ratchet strap round the spare wheel, plus another to the trailing edge of the rack. If you're lucky, you won't even need to pad the spare, as the tyre makes a brill shock mounting for the motor. Not sure, but I think the Thule is larger in the fore aft direction than the other well praised brand on here, so plenty of space to work with. If you'd like, I'll do some measuring tomorrow. and could perhaps do a pic or two. Phil Phil Phil

Wonder if I could make up a frame out of stainless water tube, similar to the Bailey frame. Worked a treat on the cage I knocked up, but those anchor points would have to be good. The cage cost me about £30 including the strimmer line, and even PB himself said nice things about it (bar the pigeon sh*t welding).

Simplest solution to this one, is to always thread the loop on one riser into the loop on the other when packing away (join them as soon as you take the wing of your motor on landing). Then lay your risers on top of your wing when packing, unless you have the advantage of a little pocket to tuck the risers in. Worst that can happen is that the risers will drop through a few lines, but the tangles are inconsequential and easy to solve Phil

I felt like that for the first twelve months too. The missus complained though, cos I wanted to do it in the house!

Ah, I understand. Do you not however feel that now OnRisk are moving to a different underwriter for aviation, that his reply might be tempered by the new economic climate? Or is the small amount of business that we generate just not worth the hassle to cover us? Phil

Or... pick up a no brand headset off ebay to gut for the mic. Buy a set of the best Peltor ear defeders. Aquire a set of Heasets inc ANR speaker modules and spend a bit of time and effort fitting them together. If it work out right, you get a headset that is visually almost identical to the micro-avionics stuff, has as good a noise reduction factor as the very best MicroAvionics one, but will hopefully cost you not much more than £100 or so. Not a solution for everyone, but if you're good with a dremel and soldering iron it can work VERY well and cheap as chips (well, almost). Phil

Simon who? And what is his involvement with the underwriters who I think are based in South America? If he is part of On-Risk, then does he have power over the underwriters, given that O/R are just acting as brokers? Just wondering

I have emailed 'Albion' the underwriter that On-Risk use, to find out if they will insure us directly.

So Simon unless I'm reading your comments wrongly, do you not feel then that a dealer has any responsibility to his customers to ensure that some pretty basic and verifiable information is correct? Stuff like size, weight, perhaps even thrust (although once you start moving into areas like power, thrust, fuel consumption etc. I understand that verification becomes more difficult). Given that if someone buys an item from you as a dealer, their contract under the sale of goods act is with you rather than the manufacturer, I'd have thought that it was in your best interest to make sure that info you were quoting was accurate to make sure that they don't come back requiring a refund (and in this day and age, consequential damages). Also, notwithstanding your allegiances to some brands, would you personally not feel pretty angry if a large slice of your wad was taken in exchange for goods that didn't come close to meeting their description? Lets say for instance you bought a car with your purchase motivated in large part by the advertised top speed of 100 mph, wouldn't you be more than a tad bemused if it turned out not to do more than 70 mph? Just playing devil's advocate here, with no major axe to grind. Phil.

It will almost certainly be due to there being variations in the plug connections that are used for each task (phones/mic/PTT). There can also be issues with the way that the PTT actual commands the radio to go into transmit mode. These connections can be manufacturer specific, and it can be a bit of a pain to work them out. T'internet can be your friend, as once you know the connection pattern, it's usually pretty straightforward to rearrange the wires. Google on the radio brand and something like 'headset connections', as the chances are someone will have done it before. If you aren't prepared to rewire a generic headset, or make up an adapter, then you can be stuck with radio manufacturer specific headsets. Phil

Well checking the calibration of your scales is no problem, just check weigh with a known volume of water. I don't think anyone is going to get too uppity about +/- half a kilo or so. Modern bathroom scales are actually surprisingly accurate and consistent, and many will let you 'tare' so water containers could be excluded from test results. I'm all for kicking the BS into touch, and as long as we are honest and accurate, the manufacturers that end up with egg on their faces (sorry Jean-Christophe, that's an English euphemism) have no-one but themselves to blame. It'll be doing the flying community a great service, so lets not have any of this 'oh we mustn't upset anyone' attitude. Phil

I find with my rack, that I only get a bit of dust deposited on it, although it's pretty rare that I take it anywhere if it's actually raining. It's on the back of a Maverick/Terrano, and anyone who owns a similar slab backed vehicle will tell you that muck gets sucked into the space behind them. Given that the only bit that is likely to suffer from the dust would be the engine, via the air intake, I made up a small nylon bag with a draw string, that goes over the air filter when in transit. Bright orange, so difficult to miss in the pre flight. Keeping the cage all assembled is a big plus for me, as it avoids any issues with some of the extra wires I've got routed for lighting and antenna's. Taking the harness off the Bailey is dead easy, and literally a one minute job, so even in the event of an unexpected downpour, I don't end up with getting a soggy bum next time I fly. Having said all that, my motor has suffered it's worst 'mucking up' during a slight detour into a certain French ditch during 'that' take off attempt (if you've not seen the video, ask someone else). A hose down sorted the grime aspect, despite the electrics not being rated as waterproof, so I'm not too 'precious' about it, and all worked fine later the same day (once the prop and cage were replaced ) There is, for me at least, the bonus that the load platform can be used to hold the motor while kitting up and getting into the harness and standing. I have got a big roll of 'Cordura' type material, and I did make a full cover for my Adventure that turned out pretty well. Maybe the poor old sewing machine will get pressed back into service sometime soon. I would quite like the functionality of a van that would take the motor in fully assembled form, but I can't justify the expense over a family motor. So for me, the best compromise is the rack (Thule in my case, YMMV). Teamed up with a roof box, the Mav can be all but empty, but still have all my kit on board. Phil

I am not sure how UK consumer law would apply in a case where the item was presumably shipped to France. But if it were a UK consumer who had been misled by erroneous advertising claims, then you would be entitled to a refund of your money, if the item was not as described. Does credit card purchase protection include such circumstances. Jean-Christophe, I would be tempted to check all of the advertising claims made by the company involved, and in the event your purchase did not match the claims made, I would look into legal recourse (unless of course the vendor is prepared to rectify the situation themselves). Phil

Although you can't alter the timing, is it possible to move the ignition trigger head closer/further away from the rotor (assuming it uses this sort of system)? With the wear and tear yours has experienced, could the trigger have been knocked further away from the rotor? Fag paper thickness gaps are not uncommon. HTH, Phil.