Phil_P

I bought my kit a couple of months ago, and I've not had a sniff of getting to use it. Thankfully someone has given me a little ground handling tuition, so at least I feel confident enough to go and ground handle (boy, does it make you sweat). Only down side is that the motor is sitting in the hallway, smiling quietly at me, and begging me to take it into the air. I can resist almost anything except temptation!

If you are prepared to run your electrics as 'total loss' effectively, then you can get away with running quite a lot of gear. A battery pack slipped into one of your rig pockets is probably not a bad idea, and it has the added advantage of being able to isolate your avionics electrics (radio, gps etc.) from the interference that the engine often generates. You should easily be able to make up a pack of ni-cads, or run the smallest 'Odyssey' sealed lead/acid battery, that will run your accessories for well in excess of your fuel reserve time. Keep a spare set on charge in your car, and swap them round when you get back to the field. Putting a ferrite ring choke in your strobe power feed will help prevent nasties making their way to your radio.

Treated myself to a pair of Crisspi's, and very nice they are too. Removable stiffeners in the ankles let you walk comfortably when they're out. As an aside, I remembered I had a pair of expensive heat moulded insoles in my Salomon ski boots that get very little use, so a bit of messing about transferred them to the Crisppi's which gives loads of arch support.

And a couple of tricks of the trade; 1). If your battery or magneto are poor, make the gap a bit smaller so you get a spark 2). If your mixture is a little out, make the gap a bit bigger. The fatter spark will ignite a less than perfect mixture better.

I've bought one of the cheapo dual head ones designed for the 'custom' car crowd. Cost me about £12. I've machined some perspex bar into domes for the bulbs rather than the little rubber 'socks' that the manufacturers provide. I intend to mount them at 3 and 9 o-clock on the cage, should be visible from any angle. With the control box set to alternate triple flashes, it's pretty good. It's much brighter than my dive strobe. Plan is to set the electronics into resin once I'm certain I've got the settings I want. That should then fit in a space about 5"x3"x1", although it does include a heatsink that I'll have to mount on the surface of the resin so it still dissipates waste heat. It all runs on 12v so will run on the motors electrics. One thing to bear in mind is that there is very little that interferes more with radios than a high energy strobe. As a PPL, trust me, everything you can do to make yourself more visible is WELL worth it. I've never had to file an Airprox, but I know how easy it is not to see another aircraft, especially if it's on a reciprocal heading and effectively stationary. It's not until the last second or so that the brain notices the rapidly increasing size of the oncoming object.

It's what Black and Decker Workmates were made for )

Simon, why do you make a downwind landing on water?

I stand by the points I made insofar as the project management seemed to fail on many levels. If you are not prepared to be criticised for what is seen on the screen, then don't televise it. Why should I have to go and research what they are doing before I can make an educated judgement on what they were doing? If what you are showing to the general public is NOT a true representation of what you are doing, then either distance yourself from what is shown, or show it as a work of fiction. I base all that I said on what I saw, not on those bits that may or may not have ended up on the cutting room floor, either because it wasn't suitable, or it just wasn't juicy enough for the viewing public. Project critical tools (weather monitoring, communication and data measuring) should always have had back ups in place. I guess it is a small step from idiocy to heroism, but when there seem to be so many systems failures both in terms of management and actual physical resources, I personally get the feeling that too many steps were taken on the wrong side of the line. Yes, they were putting their lives on the line, but analyse the job they were doing, and other than cold and hypoxia (both of which should have been well catered for or they should never have stepped outside the front door) what major risk factors were they facing beyond those experienced by any paramotor pilot at say, a thousand feet or more? As for Grills 'giving his point of view', I should darned well hope that he defered to the safety officer, or what the hell was the point of him being there? If you read my original post carefully, you will find there is no criticism of the development work that went into the project, partly because I missed the start of the programme where you got to see it, and partly because I think the actual mechanics produced were outstanding. Maybe as established paramotor pilots, others among us can see many plus points in what we got to see, but as a novice to the sport, I would class myself as an educated outsider, and there were too many points that upset my sensibilities to simply keep quiet. I suspect that complete outsiders to paramotoring, which lets face it, the programme was targeted at, will have viewed things from closerr to my viewpoint than yours. No I haven't been in the same environment or done the same thing, with or without adequate funding, but when I take part in say, diving Scapa Flow to fifty odd meters, I make darned sure that my project management is of a standard to minimise risk to myself and my diving buddy, and also that the resources I have available are sufficient to ensure that the both of us can get to the surface safe and well. If I was going to televise the event, I'd want to make sure that I couldn't be criticised for getting the basics wrong.

Well, what can I say. I missed the start of the programme and only came in at about 9.45, and quite frankly, I'm glad I did. Whilst there were no doubt all sorts of bits of information that I didn't grasp, these guys convinced me that they were a complete bunch of idiots. They were up with the lark on the first flyable day for about two weeks, although I got the feeling there had probably been a fair bit of daylight before they surfaced. It was at this point that they started to prepare equipment that should have been ready for the off with just minutes notice, with the result that three hours later they were still on the ground and now debating a go/no-go situation. The safety officer saying 'no' and Grills still arguing the point. You could just see the chain of errors forming, with no-one strong enough to step up, break the chain and save lives. On the day they finally got airborne, I heard them say that one of the motors had never been flown before! WHAT? Launching to 29K feet on an untested motor? I really don't think so! Then they begin to wonder why their radio system was so crappy. If they'd taken five minutes to put up a decent antenna instead of relying on the 'rubber duck' on a completely inadequate hand held set then they might have had a bit more success. I also wasn't sure if they had actually rehearsed the 'three clicks for yes and two for no', or whether they quickly used it before they lost all usable radio comms. completely. Oh, and I forgot about the computer running the radio-sond data telemetry that kept crashing, and was clearly untested immediately prior to it being needed, and without a back-up system. Wasn't much of a surprise to have the untested motor fail really, was it? And just to top it off, they didn't get proof of the altitude reached because the recorder failed in the cold! As if that wasn't predictable in an environment like that. Did no-one think to stick an extra vario. in Grills' inside pocket, keeping nice and safe and warm with body heat and padding? Whilst the achievement managed is no doubt impressive, and the fact that money was raised for charity is laudable, it struck me as a catalogue of errors, and I won't be following those guys to the end of the world any time soon (even if I did get the chance). I'm not sure that it even did anything to improve any public perception of paramotoring as a sport/pastime. Whereas previously I thought of Grills as at least competent in a pressure situation, I'm afraid his credibility has taken an enormous dent. And before you all pounce on me and tell me that I know nothing, just think for a moment if you are being objective or whether your love of paramotoring is clouding your judgement a little. I'm completely new to this branch of aviation, but I've done my share of risky stuff, flying, alpine ski-ing and scuba diving to mention three, and I've tried my very best to be objective and look at what happened without the rose tinted glasses of success and achievement.

The 'fluffy' half of self adhesive velcro is good for this.

The very best battery you will get are the 'Odyssey' type. They are completely sealed, can be mounted any way up except inverted. They have extremely good deep discharge characteristics and will deliver very high current, especially when compared to their size. They like to be charged hard and fast rather than trickle charged, and retain their charge better than just about any other kind of battery. Unusually, they retain charge better when cold too. The electrolyte is completely captive in glass matting, so even if the case is broken, they won't leak any. I'm thinking of using one of the smallest ones (PC310 I think) as the battery for my motor. I use a slightly larger one on my motorbike, an 1100 cc twin, and it spins the engine extremely well. Why not run a small microwave? That way you can heat water for tea, or reheat some proper food.

Well I've bought one of these; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Car-Vehicle-2X-Hi ... dZViewItem and machined a couple of domes out of clear perspex rod, to cover the tubes. I'm going to pot the electronics in resin I think, although there is a heatsink on the circuit board that would be best to leave exposed. When set to flash alternate tubes with a triple flash on each of them, they are pretty good. Again, not massively bright, but probably as good as the self contained 'D' cell units. Anything to help conspicuity where there are fast jets bimbling about has got to be a good thing.

Well at the moment I'm working round a turned aluminium grip with knurled diamond check strips round it, and using a mountain bike brake lever for the trigger. I want to mount start, stop and transmit buttons on the grip and am trying to devise an orientation that can become intuitive and will prevent accidental operation of the wrong button. This will probably be in a delrin insert in the grip end. Thoughts at the moment are split between having start or stop as the easiest to access under the thumb on the top, although there might be space for both. The transmit button will probably fall under the index finger Coming up with an elegant housing for even the small dimensions of a tiny tach is quite tough, and I'm thinking of having the tacho on my rig as a flight deck item instead of throttle handle.

I'm supposed to be learning to fly a paramotor over the Easter fortnight, and up till now, there has not been a single day suitable for training. Next week isn't looking much better from the forecasts either. This is just SO frustrating. I've not flown on my PPL for about 4 years because of the cost and this was going to be my route back into the air, a place I truly love to be. That quote, often attributed to DaVinci, about once you've been in the air you will forever live with your eyes turned heavenwards has more than a taste of truth for me. I don't know whether it is more or less frustrating for you guys and girls who can already fly, but at least you can chin wag about your experiences, I don't even have that luxury. At least my workshop is providing a little respite, with the new throttle assembly taking shape (would there be a market for nice turned aluminium throttles?). As I'm not working this week, having taken off the time to fly, the forums are getting more than their fair share of browsing. What do you lot do to stem those pangs of longing (other than resort to sex)?

One thing to bear in mind is that their statistics are based on incidents per 1000 persons indulging in it per annum. So the figures that compare motorcycling to paramotoring should be examined a little more closely. I'm probably a middling motorcycle user, perhaps doing 5000 miles per year, so perhaps 6000 hours on the bike. I should think that any aviator doing that number of hours (as a hobby pursuit) would be doing rather more than the average. This would suggest that motorcycling on a hour to hour, or even trip to trip comparison with paramotoring, is far, far safer rather than comparable.

Hi Sam, I'm just starting out on the paramotor life, having held my PPL for a few years, and hopefully doing my training over easter. If you manage to get yourself trained on rental equipment, then perhaps you could drop in my place before or after work. I've managed to sneak a motor and wing pretty much under the spousal financial radar, and once you're trained, perhaps you could scrounge a flight on my gear sometime. I'm sure you understand I wouldn't want you to train on it, but once you're airborne it might work out. I'm only about twenty minutes from Waddo, so maybe a cuppa and chat is in order. ATB, Phil

An aviation based GPS device (Garmin 96C), so you don't bump into controlled airspace, an airband radio (plus a course to get your airband licence) so you can talk to those nice boys and girls in ATC. A nice comms helmet, perhaps with bluetooth built in and a base model vario so you can soar and save your fuel Bear in mind, this is MY newbie wish list, and I've not even flown (a paramotor) yet!

Up till now I've had success using 'el-cheapo' clear bathroom silicon in a bl**dy great tube from a builders merchant. It's bound to be a lower price than anything Honda Corp are flogging! My thoughts now are to apply a nice thick bead to the joint, then just bring it together and wait till it sets off. At this point, then fit the retaining springs. Hopefully this will leave a nice thick cushion, under compression, allowing plenty of movement and a good seal.

It seems to be common practice to have a sort of ball and socket joint on exhausts, presumably to allow relative movement. These joints are periodically opened up and treated to a coat of graphite grease. I wondered if anyone had tried using silicon sealant on these joints, as it would seem to be ideal, still allowing movement but maintaining a really good gas-tight (and mucky two-stroke oil-tight) seal. Before you all laugh hysterically and tell me it won't stand the temperature, I suggest you try it out. I've seen it used in garages on cars, and have been using it myself on my motorbike exhaust. The only joint where the silicon won't stand the heat, is the primary head to manifold joint.

Greetings all, my name is Phil (Passmore) and I live with the family in Newark, Notts, UK (Robin Hood Country). I've held my PPL for quite a few years, but family finances being what they are I just can't afford the hundred odd pounds per hour to take up one of the clubs aircraft. So, I'm turning towards paramotoring. I'm doing a one to one course over the Easter holidays, so hopefully will get a handle on things. Some may think that I've been mad, but I have researched as much information as I've been able off the net and the various fora, and I've already bought myself a motor and wing. The motor is an upgraded Adventure F3 with Solo 210 motor. It's got a tuned pipe and a fancy cylinder head so should produce enough thrust to get my lardy a**e airborne. Very many thanks to Mark of Leavesley Aviation for the deal of a lifetime. My wing is an Ebay special (yes, I know buying like that goes against all the advice for a newbie like me) 'Swing Arcus' which is away at 'The Loft' being serviced and checked as we speak. Hopefully the service report will vindicate my purchase, if not then all of you sniggering behind your hands will have been proved right and I'll slink off to a corner to lick my financial wounds. Unfortunately, being a bit of a 'fad' guy, I'm going to have to sell off some of my other toys to finance this foray into the blue, so if anyone wants some scuba gear or a radio controlled helicopter, then drop me a line. My motorbike WON'T be going however. As I'm a PPL holder and suitably licenced, I'm treating myself to an Icom airband TX/RX, getting it shipped over from the US as Britain really is a rip off for consumer electronics. I am a firm believer in being able to speak to ground facilities, and the ability to get a radar service from somewhere like Waddington gives me a bit of reassurance that I'm not about to get bounced by a fast jet, tooling about in the Lincs. AIAA. I already have a GPS from my flying and although the database is a bit out of date, a lot of the airspace is still valid, and airfields are not known for moving too much. I guess that a vario would be handy if I want to shut down the motor and do a bit of silent soaring, so if anyone has an old one collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, perhaps you'll think of me. I most certainly will be dropping in for chats and advice, as I've found fora like this one to be one of the best sources for information across a huge range of activities. Please forgive my stupidity, and try to nudge me in sensible directions (despite my initial 'take off' purchases being the worst way of doing things). I do my best to learn fast, although some traits I find hard to break, like being a complete gadget freak.