Blackburn Mark

Good point If you can weld aluminum, you can weld Ti... by all accounts, its a bit fussier then aluminum (back-purge)... I have yet to try it myself. That's the question... Ti has some favorable fatigue qualities IF you can stay within its spring limits... that's where I have my doubts... a paramotor exhaust has a pretty rough life. If its a drop in exhaust, you are very unlikely to lose any performance or damage your engine, if its Ti, it ought to be lighter. Unfortunately, you will be playing the scientist on its durability unless someone has any direct experience. I would be disappointed if it didn't outlast an original, I would hope it was designed to take advantage of titanium's better fatigue qualities.

For anyone over 40.... I would place weight at number 1 Spares second to that For anyone under 40... I would place spares at number 1 and weight second to that And that's if you can afford to be fussy! £5000+ is a large stack of cash so "fussy" only extended to "reparability" for me (aluminum frame // GY6 engine).... heavy, ugly, gutless but very cheap spares.... Gets me into the air for the odd 100 mile xc now and again Atom 80 weight would be utter BLISS!

No direct experience I would assume it has a negligible performance loss gain with it being a drop in (unless it comes with a set of jets....?) It ought (in principle) be lighter. IF it was very fatigue resistant, you would expect a long warranty. Pricey Two schools of thought (I guess) A) Give me something I can fix with some cheek and two packets of hobnobs B) Give me some Bling... ill throw cash at any problems A lightweight, beautifully designed and built paramotor is a thing to behold... But for some of us mere mortals, something we can fix with a hammer and a shoe lace will still see us to cloud-base

We are SUPER civilised here old bean

Cheers for that Andy... Ill have to bite the bullet at some point if I cant find other means of getting airborne. I am reluctant but my legs are getting old and I want to be able to get off in nil winds.... land out... eat a buttie… have a smoke and fly back, but I fear the wind dropping while I'm out in the middle of nowhere The one and only! He is not a bad pilot, he has a very unfortunate character

Splendid! Was this your first flight on a trike? …. Was it pretty straight forward, launching?

No, don't do that.... Wait for a full moon and quietly bury them on the moors, pretend it never happened!

I guess you never found them. Don't give in, many of us saw some headbanger floating and decided we MUST get ourselves some of that! The cost might make your toes curl at first but it needn't necessarily break the bank. There are a few training blogs on here I think.... get some reading done, do some research and have a ponder

Its game over for that. There is no way to reattach those millions of fibres which are the basis of all its strength. A small chunk can be patched but from what I have seen, even that takes quite a bit of care and effort.

I have done drawings for a short Poly-V 2:1 with a long HTD timing belt 2:1 onto the prop but I don't like it. The poly-V belt is likely to slip before any frame damage but Poly-V belts need a LOT of tension which I am not confident in controlling with a tensioner and keeping it light (I need the tensioner because the motor is isolated from all other pullies) // the extra pully hardware will add weight that I want to use elsewhere and the Poly-v tension will put a lot of strain on my rubber motor mounts. Timing belts need much less tension, a single run would be very light and despite being very afraid of the resonance, I don't yet know how bad it will be and that I wont be able to control it with plastic idlers (at least at cruise and full power) I have been looking at harmonic dampers but there is no point until I know what I am up against so I might just have to bite the bullet start building

I have just designed a HTD8 belt-pully drive that is close to 4000mm belt length with a 90 degree twist and 90 degree change of axis.... 1200mm free length which is very likely to need a few idlers to tame resonance. I am reasonably confident in its ability to deliver the power (15 / 20hp) but I am also pretty sure it will destroy the tensioner, itself or even structure if I allow it to resonate at or near 8000rpm I would consider it practical if I can get it to last for 100 hours plus // and perfect at 200 hour plus.... that's peanuts for the type of belt but it will have a relatively tortured life with the angular acrobatics. I have made a quarter size mockup with a 2.5mm toothed belt and I'm sure I can get the pully angles without stressing the belt too much but the resonance might make a fool out of me! Wish I was as confident as you and your AC Andy

Let us know if it bottoms out on a hard landing...… And you will have to do us a report on how much of a bitch / or how easy it is to transition onto a trike

What witchcraft is this?! Are people plucking their belts like guitar strings? That is pretty cool... I'm guessing there must be a formula for different belt types / lengths / widths

More thrust, better efficiency..... You will need to modify your re-drive unless you get a variable pitch prop and a lager hoop would be wise I would love to see someone put a 160cm prop on an Atom 80 but I'm guessing you would only be able to reverse launch with such a large hoop and it would be an expensive experiment if you couldn't get it to make sense. If life was long enough and cash was no object, I'm pretty sure I would do it just for the science

If its got the standard starter pulley size on it, maybe it a poor design or you are getting old like the rest of us

Just had a quick rummage... it seems Simonini recommend no less than 98 octane and folks who struggle to get 98 octane have been getting by with 95 octane. It might be worth a ponder if you have been using 87

I'm no expert (or fan) of two-strokes... they are too much "art" and not enough science to my uneducated eye Now that I think... if there was 1mm of play, would there be enough inertia in the piston to go + 1mm in compression as well as -1mm in induction.......? But like you say, it would be like a jack-hammer if it had anything more than a few thou. My first thought was a batch of crappy or low octane fuel causing it to knock/detonate/diesel (or whatever folks call it) when under stress/high temps. I assume these motors run close enough to the limit that a drop in octane would see it go into self-destruct. That's the simple answer though

I think the thought is that the piston drops a little....? I cant see this being the case as anything meaningful would also drop compression below detonation which I am assuming has happened looking at that piston.

Just checked: Lexan / polycarbonate is the indestructible one.... its acrylic that snaps into daggers

Ill second that! My first thought was "I hope it doesn't protrude the neck-whiplash aria" but it looks like it is out of the way

I keep thinking "one day, I'm flying it" (probably never will though) I did the Ten Tors as a nipper and it was tough, I fancy it from the comfort of my harness though

That brings back memories 11'500 in Turkey... the roughest air I had ever been in (I practiced grabbing my reserve on that one) It was pretty tough until I looked over to my mate who was also being spanked which made me laugh like a madman. Its like standing outside the headmasters office waiting to get the cane…. on your own, its a bit shit, when there are two of you, its kind of funny

That's understandable...… But...… The next time you are getting spanked by convection, consider climbing above cloud-base. I'm not sure I have been above cloud-base and it not being a hands off smoooooth cruse (cold though) If I have been spanked good style, it can still take some time to peal my finger out of the death-grip they insist on holding the breaks with but eventually, ill find the time to boggle at the sight

In principle, a well tuned carb produces more power than injecting can (better atomisation I think) In practice, user laziness or inexperience could give injecting the edge. I am aware there are a two stroke snowmobile with direct injection that some home builders in the US rave about but it all sounds very exotic, complex and expensive. There is a four stroke injected paramotor in the US... looks like a heavy lump