allrightscud

Hi Gents for sale my Qubik 23 red. A fast, agile wing, pops up quick. Great XC or intermediate wing. Bought from a mate in NZ who gave up after a hard landing from flying in rota. He bought it Jan 2021 gave up April 2021. I used it for ground handling on grass in Singapore during covid. Recent loft report attached and a few lines replaced. Has a small coppers slip stain on the tail and a small patch on the bottom skin, middle near the tail. Both pictured. 45 hours. I'm not flying enough to justify keeping it. Will post at buyers expence. Location Glasgow. Comes with rucsack and inner bag. 750 ono

Speedster 2 26m 100 hours still crisp. 2 D steering set up. A few oil splatter stains after a poorly tuned engine during my motor and flying infancy. See pic. For stain example. £1200.

A good resource for polini 130 advice is http://www.southwestairsports.com/ppgtechinfo/thor130/specs130200.htm It has links to various strip downs re builds and testing methods etc. If there's no one local you could trust have a look on their see if there's anything that can help. Heres a few others I've used in the past also http://www.wind-drifter.com/technical/wg8walbro.php http://southwestairsports.com/ppgtechinfo/thor130/thor130.htm http://footflyer.com/fix/motor/carburetor/walbro.htm http://inventions.aerocorsair.com/id35.htm

Price?

I could never get a interactive air space over lay to work on PPGPS. So I use EVFR basic now, I find it far better to use for air space info. I still use PPGPS but only for recording flights etc.

Is the campsite available on the Thursday night? Is there flying on the Friday morning? Looking forward to it.

Where can you get training to fly one?

Only if its not in a restricted class of airspace, there's not more than a 1000 people gathered. Or countless other potential violations. But give it a go, I'll read about it in the papers.

There is a very good seminar on youtube by the Derbyshire paragliding club on air law. They specifically mention towns with potential landing spots mainly on the outskirts of towns though, playing fields and cricket grounds etc. and these can be used for the land clear rule flying over a congested areas.

I use an old fall arrest harness as I was appalled at the price of unflyable, done-in, old harnesses folk were selling for kiting. I was even more amazed and astounded folk paid that sort of money for something they couldn't fly with. As long as you can adjust the connection points to simulate a paraglide harness then a 20 to 50 quid worksite harness does the job. Suprised more folk don't use them.

I have my paramotor equipment covered as separate items on my contents insurance as personnel equipment. Its for £6000 form LV. This covers me both home and away.

x-landers come up from time to time on ebay and other second hand selling sights. Its worth keeping an eye out.

I also used my old skydiving alti for a bit, you used to be able to buy them for around £80. A quick search should find them.

I use the PPGPS app and an old Sunto X lander. Perfect combination. I would say though, that 4500 feet is high and unless your an altitude junkie most of the fun had in a PPG is had no where near as high. I'm very rarely above 2000 feet, unless I'm flying over higher ground. I don't see the need to fly at the allowable ceiling. I have a flight deck with a battery pack in it to re charge my phone, but since I've upgraded my phone the battery lasts for at least 2 hours whilst running PPGPS. its Velcroed to the deck and the only time I've had problems reading my display is just before dusk and I've forgotten to take my sun glasses off. You can super impose air charts I believe onto PPGPS as well, but I've not tried that yet. I have a HTC u11 without a barmometor pressure sensor, my PPGPS only works off GPS signal but found it to be perfectly adequate comparing it to my sunto.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bisley-Security-Burglars-Intruders-Galvanized/dp/B0049ACMC6 These are good to stop a burglar in their tracks. Gives them a bit of a fright when their creeping about. Just remember you have them when you try to access your gear.

Its definitely worth doing a hang test and adjusting your harness straps accordingly but there is an attachment you can get which is almost similar to a speed bar but allows you to use it as purchase from your feet so you can get into your paraglider seat. There was an older gentlemen on a flying trip I went to in Spain last year who benefited greatly from fitting one of these.

I've been looking for one for a while and to be honest was amazed at the price of them! I've looked online and you can get a fall arrest safety harness for £20, has anyone every used or modified a safety harness to use for ground handling?

If you're near a training centre and can afford to commit to the time to do UK weather dependant training then it might be worth it, but in my experience its slow progress especially if its a weekend only operation like most minority sports or activities seem to be in the UK. Personally I wouldn't do any training in the UK for a sports qualification. I wasted years trying to get to Cat 8 for skydiving and really wish I had opted for AFF. I was persuaded by similar arguments as Simons to persevere in the UK, weather work and restricted to weekend clubs all hindered my progress. A weeks commitment and a holiday in Florida, Spain or France would have seen my Cat 8 in a week. I did a hang-gliding course in the peak district years ago. There were a couple of lads who'd booked the training week for the 3rd year in a row and still hadn't got off the ground because of weather. I had one day of practical handling of a glider out of 6. I was entitled to book an other week to make up for the lost days training but it would have meant committing to an other week in the peak district and hoping the weather was good as well as the expense of travel and accommodation. I gave up on hang gliding. I later had a holiday in Florida and found a little oasis called Wallaby Ranch. A tow hang gliding school. Beautiful place. I hadn't intended to go flying but I managed to fit it hang gliding training in with a holiday. I got up at 5.30 went to the ranch, flew until it got too bumpy and then went to the parks and touristy stuff after. I popped back in the evening for further training and flying. Worked out perfectly and I got a hang gliding tow qualification. I flew more in 2 hours there than I did in 6 days in the peak district. I looked at paragliding in the UK but again the prospect of parawaiting didn't appeal. I went to Verbier in August had a great time with my mates, got to fly from 6000' to 2000' over the Verbier landing in a Hidi-esque hay meadow after a 20 min flight and completed 9 more that week. Completed my EP and 70% of my CP. There is no way I would have had that sort of flight time or training if I had stuck to training in Scotland. After returning and looking to complete my CP training at home I realised I was back to a similar situation as my skydiving training. Weather windows, weekend flying and slow progress as well as lengthy travel to flying sites. A big time commitment. That's when I looked at crossing over to he dark side and doing a Paramotor converstion. I looked at all my options including training in the UK. There are a couple of local pilots who trained with a reasonably local instructor successfully but I didn't want to risk the weather and potential delays that are inevitable in Scotland. I looked around read reviews and found a BHPA school who operated abroad. I went to Spain, trained, flew and got signed off well within the week. I came home on the Saturday, found a motor I liked on the Sunday morning on the internet drove to Stoke on the Thursday to collect it, had a new wing delivered on Saturday morning and was flying on my own equipment on the Saturday afternoon a week after I completed my course. I truly don't think I would have been flying as much last summer if I had trained in the UK. What you need to ask yourself is how much time are you willing to invest in UK training. If you're local to a school and it operates 7 days a week to take advantage of the weather windows and its located on the site you'll be flying from once your trained then it sounds like a great option. If not, I would seriously consider going abroad. If your having to travel and stay over to train in the UK you're as well getting the weather and a bit of a holiday out of it as well. Where ever you go do proper research. make sure they're training to a recognised standard and will make sure you can fly solo once your home and will offer impartial advice on kit. I was given the "hard sell" for a miniplane when I completed my course. I trained on both the mini plane and parajet V3 and much preferred the V3. It was far more comfortable and had more thrust to get me air born. I decided not to buy from my training school as I thought he was too biased considering my weight pushing the mini plane.

What amazes me more is the way folk create a go fund me or just giving page for others to then donate and finance their latest or bucket list adventure. I'd like to know how much money actually goes to these charities out of the total raised, once expenses for travel and equipment to cycle the Great Wall of China, trek Machu Picchu, climb Kilimanjaro, or fly from John O Groats to Lands End with a borrowed paramotor and the organisers or web page take their cut. Maybe I'm just too cynical.

I used to carry a dedicated hook knife when skydiving. I don't carry one at the moment paramotoring but I have been thinking of digging mine out and adding it to my kit. The blade is protected on the outside by a hook and will only cut on the inside of the hook. I certainly wouldn't carry a fixed blade or conventional knife as per your comments for the obvious reasons you mentioned. I've actually never used one to cut lines so a demonstration would be quite interesting Simon. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hook-safety-knife-/292170057125?hash=item4406b145a5:g:KtIAAOSwkRhZWNsD

I'm up for it, if I'm home. (I've missed the last 2 events organised by PMC because of work!)

A few things I've noticed, I can hear anything when I'm called on the radio and can even hear my phone ring and what folk say when they speak to me but on my head set but I have to cut the throttle to idle if I want to reply. This is just due to background noise from the engine being picked up on my mic. I don't have noise cancelling head set. Try cutting the throttle before you reply. The other thing I read recently was that non resistive spark plugs create more radio interference than resistive ones. I'm not sure what type you have but it may be worth checking out. Like Andy suggests, try and test on the ground before your flying with a running engine, then try and eliminate the possible problems, noise interference or electrical interference.

http://www.klemmvintage.com/oils.htm Found this interesting article online about 2 stroke oils and the causes of seizures and scoring. Its written from a race bike perspective but equally pertinent to our high rpm and temp engines.

When I skydived more people were killed each year doing swoop landings and hook turns under good canopy than were killed by malfunctions. With higher performance and smaller canopies I'm sure it would still be the same stats. Be careful letting brakes off to increase speed close to the ground. I certainly wouldn’t pull the brakes and let them off again close to the ground, you’re liable to hit the ground harder than you would under a nill wind, no flare landing. I feather the brakes instead to maintain an even height above the ground and finish with a stronger pull once its about to run out of energy.

I live and take off in a valley. Its generally more sheltered there than the main area around it, so taking an on the spot wind speed reading doesn't help. I use the wind turbines around me to work out the actual wind speed. If its 4 seconds a revolution its not flyable if its 5 its fast but ok and if its 5.5 to 6 or less its perfect. Obviously other factors are taken into consideration.