Phil_P

If you take any responsibility for 'sending someone up' then I would expect that you are equally taking on liability. Even saying to someone 'you look ok to me, you'll be fine' might be construed as giving someone the green light to fly, with all the attendant risks involved. Unless you are 110% confident in your own ability, and your ability to communicate your knowledge in a clear and unambiguous way, I wouldn't get close to giving instruction, not even ground handling. In this litigious society, you are sticking your head above the parapet. I would expect an instructor to be carrying some pretty heavy duty insurance if they are doing the job.

Wheee, I might even manage to be airborne by then Came very close on Friday evening. I think if I had had casters on my bum, I still would have been in with a chance. As it was, at least I managed to prevent a wing/prop interface this time.

Wings and motors are very much 'mix and match' with folks choosing both to suit their individual needs. Remember, in the beginning of paramotoring, there was nothing BUT homebuilt gear to fly with. So if you are competent and methodical, I cannot see why a home built solution should not be totally adequate. As long as your wing remains secured to your body, no matter what else fails, you should have the means of getting to the ground safely, the one possible exception to this would be in the event of an in-flight fire. Many people make quite wild modifications to their stock equipment, so my feeling is, from a technical point of view, go for it. Make sure you get training however, as the man who teaches himself has a fool for a student.

Wonder if SWMBO would let me escape.........

I would be interested to know if the problems that have been encountered with the tracking page have been due to the 'SPOT' system, or the way we are distributing the information. I am tempted to spend on 'SPOT' but if these hiccups are symptomatic of system issues then I might reconsider and have a blow out on a s/h satellite phone instead.

Francis' reason sounds the most likely, however, the most likely 'victim' of the high loading would probably be porosity of the fabric, so a trip to one of the service centres for a check might be worth having in terms of cost and saleability. Although paramotors tend to fly overweight, we are only talking about by perhaps ten to twenty kilograms. However, most of us tend to fly much lower 'g' manoeuvre's than paragliders, as, for instance, we don't have to circle tightly to stay in a thermal. If a paraglider flies only a 1.5g turn with a 75 kg pilot, then you are already increasing the load on the glider to 112 kg. I would therefore suggest that the concerns (if the above is in fact the reason) are a little exaggerated. There might be a grain of truth in the comment about 'smelly' petrol, as paramotor wings are much likely to have been in close proximity to petrol/oil and therefore the chances of damaging contamination are relatively quite high, even though we all take great care of our wings.

Is it just me that can't see a map scale on the tracking page? Have tried zooming but it makes no difference. Would be nice to tell distance.

Dave, it's the negatives as much as the positives that I'm interested in. I have heard it said that there are two types of people in the world, 1) Problem orientated & 2) Solution orientated. Both are needed to create a balance. As it happens, I tend towards being solution orientated. I did however discount the legal aspect as that is already set in stone so discussion on that is pointless. The 'two beams' approach (pun?) strikes me as interesting. Kill two birds with one stone, provide light AND give a reliable height indication.

Well I thought this might have given it away; As for why, I have read about it being done, and I have seen videos of it, so my curiosity was piqued to the extent that I'd be interested to know the best way of doing it. Perhaps I'm the only weirdo who wanders into a bank and thinks to himself 'now how would I rob this place?'. Funnily enough, I understand that to do so would be illegal.

Problem would be that the brightly lit area would be all you would see, night vision in the surrounding darkness would be zip - if for any reason you were prevented from landing in the illuminated area (bit of sink, engine problem, cross wind gust, misjudgement) you would be in a much worse position re safety. How about landing light/s on the motor/harness as a solution to that?

Thanks for your input.

Now this is a purely hypothetical question (it would have to be, I'm not even flying in daytime yet), so please don't get all moral or legal on me. If one was going to make a flight at night on a paramotor, what practical aspects would you consider, and how would you work around them? Ie, would you use navigation lighting, or go stealthy, how would you light your landing spot to make it easy to judge your flare, etc. ? Whatever you can think of as difficulties, and preferably how you personally would work round them.

What does FAA Part 103 have to do with what we do in the UK?

AIUI, if you make the wing extremely tuck resistant, then it will continue flying in all circumstances, including those where you wouldn't want it to, ie with a strong surge, instead of just partially collapsing and recovering, the wing will continue to fly straight down, leaving you to fall into it.

Oiz goter owd gardin zwing. Twoo rachit ztraps and yers a goodun

I was wondering about this the other day with my Adventure F3. The Super harness that mine came with has a set of low hang points which I believe are actually meant so that you can use the same harness for free flight. The webbing all seems to be just as tough/well stitched as the high hang points, so presumably wouldn't mind the weight of the motor etc. The hang points are in as near as dammit a vertical line with each other. Now whilst it would never be recommended by the manufacturer, I wonder what the effect would be if you did hitch into the low points whilst using power. Too unstable to use? Thrust line so far out it becomes un-flyable? Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

I came across a site where they were developing a lightweight transponder. I left my email for update info, but not heard anything to date. I'd agree, that apart from the cost aspect, every paraglider/motor should have one. 'See and be seen' is ok as far as it goes, but there have been too many documented airprox's with aircraft of all shapes and sizes for us to be complacent. I was wondering about one of the proximity warning devices that uses the transmissions from other aircraft's transponders to determine collision risk, they might not notice you, but at least you'd be able to act if you preceived them as a threat. I must admit, I wonder if I would have gone to the trouble and expense of getting a FRTL if I didn't have one as a PPL. That said, before I completed my PPL course, and therefore was granted my FRTL by that route, I did actually study, pass and get one issued so that I would be able to use the ground end of the radio at a small private field that was in the process of opening up near home. Really unfortunate that that site never got off the ground, (scuse pun) because it could have been a good PPG site. I really think that one of the biggest problems people have with R/T, is a sort of fear of the radio. They become very timid as soon as they press the PTT button, and turn into a gibbering wreck. Practice and reassurance is good. Another thing that can be helpful is group organized visits to ground facilities so that pilots can see that controllers are 'human' in every sense of the word, that they are there to help us and are more than happy to do so, as long as you know the right way to talk to them.

It's OK Norm, it's a great piece of work and I applaud any effort to improve RT comms. I in no way meant to be critical, only to provide additional input. I really get a bee in my bonnet when I listen to some of the sloppy transmissions to Waddington and Cranwell that I listen to at home, they sometimes make me cringe. More umms and errrrs than useful information. I always try to sound as professional as possible when talking to an equally professional controller, I consider it common courtesy. My point about requesting service on initial contact is the correct procedure (CAP413 2.7.2.3) "An aircraft should request the service required on initial contact when freecalling a ground station" ie 'Westbury Approach, G-ABCD request Lower airspace radar service' Nit picking I know, sorry.

Full chat I'd expect about 210C on a two stroke air cooled, dropping off to maybe 180C at cruise YMMV

Looks like a bit of a bargain to be had here; http://www.paraglidingforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=19463 HTH

If you will accept a little advice from a PPL; The initial call to an agency should include the nature of the service you are requesting. i.e. 'Brize Radar this is Tipper Formation requesting flight information service.' The rest of the transaction will continue as described, except the likely initial response from the agency will be; 'Tipper Formation, pass your message' Do not be surprised if an agency takes quite a while to respond to an initial call, or if they ask you to 'stand-by'. They may well be working military traffic on UHF that you will not be able to hear. Often under these circumstances, as the formation have a slightly unusual call-sign, ATC will ask you to repeat your call sign; i.e. 'Formation calling Brize Radar, repeat your call-sign.' If you experience problems, i.e. engine failure, although not an emergency as such in a paramotor, do not be afraid of using a 'PAN' call to alert ATC of the situation. i.e. 'Pan-Pan, Pan-pan, Pan-pan Tipper formation, one aircraft experiencing engine failure, descending under full control.' Once the situation is sorted, ie aircraft landed safely, then tell ATC of the fact, and what the contingencies are. eg aircraft being recovered by ground support, no further assistance required. This information can be passed by radio direct or by telephone via the D&D cell. And one small point, although frequencies do exist to allow paramotors to communicate on airband with each other, it is not for chat. The radio should only be used to ensure the safe operation of the flight.

Does memory map work in Garmin devices Simon, specifically a GPSMap 295?

I'm not sure if GPSDash works with your phone, but check it out, it's great VFM. Scan in, calibrate and use any map including UK CAA charts. Ace bit of kit in my book.

You'll need some sort of adapter to be able to use the K&N filters. The adventure mounts it's air filter as a simple bolt on plate, so you need to create a flange that the K&N will fit round and get clamped up onto with the jubilee clip. I made one out of Delrin for mine, that doubled as a much better shaped intake trumpet. Regarding that Solo exhaust on Ebay, be aware you will probably have to redo the mountings, and perhaps even rework the shape to get it to fit. The standard 'Adventure part has the expansion chamber doubling back on itself down the right hand side of the engine, with the silencer then going horizontal underneath the engine. The pipe on ebay looks like it's designed to go pretty much full circle round the motor,

I've got an F3 with some extra designation. It's got the oversize head and tuned pipe, and I've just fitted a new air filter system. Compared to me, you are a bit of a lightweight, so I'm hoping this will be up to the job of hauling my a** skywards. I'm going to be flying an XL swing arcus, which seems huge compared to some of my mates wings, so should generate bags of lift. Just because it's the sort of guy I am, I am going to let Mr Stan Stevens breathe a little extra life into it over the winter. I, after all, enjoy tuning my archaic tractor like Moto Guzzi and hustling it round a race track, rather than taking the much simpler route of buying a Ducati.