fanman

Very common problem with the Black Devil and despite how you will swear blind it's not the prop, it is! You will find many, many people who suffered the exact same issue on the Black Devil Yahoo Group.

Norman your prop is actually doing about M0.4 (roughly worked out in my head). 5800rpm is the engine revs. Divide that by the reduction ratio (about 2.5 for yours at a guess) to get the prop rpm. Most paramotor props are geared or redrived to turn at somewhere around just over 2500rpm.

Please don't bring that thing anywhere near my house as those figures show your prop tips are on the cusp of Mach 1 at sea level. The noise must be apalling. A normal paramotor with redrive has a prop tip speed around Mach 0.5 I owned a direct drive 2 stroke in the past that had a prop diameter that gave a tip speed of around Mach 0.8 and that was bad enough. You can have all the horse power in the world yet it is useless if you can't turn it into thrust.

The wing may be 10 years old but the design is 17!!! It has a glide ratio of just 5.5 at which it is sinking at 1.6m/s and at min sink is still only achieving 1.4m/s. I suspect that the cost of the Aerofix inspection is higher than the value of the wing. Even if the fabric is still ok I don't think I'd want to trust my life to old lines. A replacement set would cost a fortune and the glider would still be worth nothing because it will always be a 17 year old design at best. A mate of mine nearly made this same mistake but was talked out of it by Aerofix. Don't get suckered into a moneypit, leave it for ground handling.

It's a personal thing, admittedly, but larger props can generate similar thrust at lower fuel burns. Personally I find this good not because it means I can fly forever on a tank (although I can) but I can take off carrying less fuel for the planned flight time allowing even more difference in the weight carried on my back compared to the heavies. Transportation needs to be considered as well though and that is where big diameter cages lose out. However, small prop on typical machine can easily burn 7 litres an hour when the same pilot can achieve 3 litres an hour on large propped small engine. For a 1 hour flight (that's a typical flight) that's 4 litres (3kg) less on your back for take off. Some of the machines I already mentioned are already 10kg lighter than typical machines so therefore if they are fuelled for 1 hour of flight the lighter machine should be 13kg (nearly 30lb's!!!) lighter.

The HE R80 would be a very suitable machine for Dave. Unfortunately not quite as light as it should be but still lighter than most of the competition. The cage is steel which makes it easier to bend back than most after minor dings. The motor is effectively a copy of the Top80 but possibly even better than the Top80. A few people have had gearbox issues but they are well supported and easy to maintain. The economy is outstanding and they are an unbelievably easy over the shoulder 2 finger pull start and one of the quietest motors out there. It is quieter than a Bailey 4 stroke. Andrew Shepherd has his one advertised on ParamotorsUK for £1800. I haven't flown his one but have regularly operated with him and flown alongside it and always been impressed. Gordon Dunn (sometimes on here) has an HE R80 as well as an R120 so he can also advise. PAP Top80 is similar but a couple of kilos lighter. Always go for the largest cage size you can manage.

At 71kg you can fly anything. I would recommend you look at PAP Top80, HE R80 or Miniplane Top80. You would even be fine on a RAD or many, many others. All of these can do what I do with ease as standard (except the PAP uses footstart when it is on your back). The Flat Tops, Parajets, larger PAPs and the like are 50% heavier than the Miniplane and the RAD!!!

Can the container currently used at the side be used at the front? Mine can.

I flew yesterday. Didn't pull start my engine until stood up all clipped in and ready to go, exactly the same as when I had electric start machines except I don't have a battery to go flat or lug around. Didn't have to start on one leg or do anything tricky as my set up is good. I shut my engine down three times in flight and each time I restarted easily from in my seat and climbed away. I consider the weight reduction to be the safety factor I am after and there is no loss of convenience.

Where are you moving it from, rear or side?

Dave, this question answers itself. You are looking for the holy grail exactly the same as everyone else. If this paramotor really existed (some will claim theirs does but it doesn't) then that would be the only type that was selling. They all have their individual problems (including the Flat Top although I think it is better than most). Not sure why you rate electric start so highly. It adds significantly to the weight (typically almost 3 kg unless you use lithium batteries but then can't charge in flight) and I have found that it is less reliable than pull start. Fuel efficiency is more important for reducing the amount of weight you need to lug around for take off. An inefficient lump that burns 7 litres an hour will weigh nearly 6kg more when fuelled for a 2 hour flight when compared to a machine that burns 3 litres an hour. So for that same flight if it had pull start instead of electric start it could weigh nearly 9kg (20lb) less!

You've been PM'd

AXB Adventure Airfer Av8er Backbone Bailey Black Hawk Clemente ConceptOne CustomAir DK Eggmotor Flat Top Fly Castelluccio Fly Products Fresh Breeze H&E Kobra Kangook La Mouette PAP Parajet Paralight Per Il Volo (Miniplane) PXP RAD Razeebus SDcruiser Skycruiser Sperwill Uptimal Walkerjet Yuneec ZXcruiser

Far from being a perfect solution but you should definitely use the CANP with a suitable amount of notification time.

Kev, how many hours on the Vito, what carb and what prop? I'm interested.

Those are a delight compared to the crappy Fresh Breeze 'Airboss' ones with the kill and start buttons on the side. Tries to shut the engine down on every forward launch if you aren't holding it just right. Also cable coming out the top of the handle really gets in the way on those forward launches too. If the OP wants to sell his Wa*kerjet throttle assembly I might be interested for a project I have on the go.

Here's another thing... TTS (or Power 1 TTS as it is called these days) is a very good oil for lubricating but it does leave behind much more residues than other 2 stroke oils. Many people in the US won't touch TTS for this reason and go for oils like Yamalube 2S instead. I use an engine that is also put in PAP frames with TTS but when I tried running it at the PAP recommended post-run in mix ratio of 50:1 I gummed up my piston ring in less than 5 hours to the point where it stuck. I went to 60:1 and it was still sooting up so now run 65:1 which is the engine manufacturers (not PAP's) recommendation. In fact the engine manufacturer runs his own engine at higher ratios than that!

In this case the 3 blade is being offered solely to allow a smaller cage diameter and the 3 versus 2 blade case is not always straightforward when considering efficiency. Generally people go for smaller cages for one of two reasons. Either because they need the compact size for transportation/storage (perhaps getting it inside a car without taking apart) and are prepared to accept the higher fuel burn through lost efficiency of turning a smaller prop or because they are particularly small and struggle to cope with the larger size cage. Personally I would always recommend flying with the largest prop in the largest cage you can manage. This should allow you to create the same amount of thrust at a lower rpm with associated reduction of noise, vibration and fuel burn which also means requiring take off with a lower and lighter fuel load.

If it was the M3 he was originally talking about then it sounds like he is thinking along the 44-45" (approx 125cm) 2 blade size. This is good. The M2 uses the same engine with a smaller 3 blade prop while the M4 uses a massive 2 blader. You will get better efficiency from this so will be able to fly with a lower fuel load and therefore take off with less weight on your back.

This is strange. I've had a hell of a job to find any info about the x-Race! It seems that Adventure don't even want to tell anyone about it as there is nothing on their website. Anyway I found some info by googling 'paramoteur x-race' and it looks excellent particularly as is looks like they have gone away from some of the downsides of the previous models. I'll be most interested to hear your verdict. Hope you've ordered it with a 2 blade prop around 125cm diameter rather than the smaller 3 blader.

Log on to the Black Devil yahoo groups and look at the number of questions about maintenance issues. It is very well supported by a guy in the States called Alex Varv but thank god because it needs to be. Read well and then make your own conclusions. All motors have issues but some considerably more than others.

I asked the name of the instructor because at the time I posted you hadn't put on any details in your profile of where you come from and no-one in the UK is selling Adventure kit these days. Adventure paramotors were sold in the UK in large numbers in the 90's with Raket or Solo engines. They frequently come up second hand on ebay in the UK but are now a generation out of date compared to what we are used to. Adventure have updated their machines (presumably you have the new Tiger engine) and they are probably now very good, it's just that there are none here in the UK so we tend to assume they are all just like the oldies we keep seeing. If only you had said you were from France in the first place...

...and his name is...?

No wonder all this excess oil is trying to escape and the decomp is forever bunged up! Must be costing you a fortune in synthetic. Running too much oil in the mix (a bit extra for mum) is not necessarily a good idea, a concept that PAP don't seem to get.

From the pictures you have 2 leakages here. As you say the decompressor is letting oil residue pass and this is the lighter residue on the barrel fins and also closer to the center of the prop. This is also very common on pull start black devils. Pull out the decompressor and leave it soaking in WD40 until it starts operating properly again. If the decompressor keeps getting bunged up the replace it with a blank (a bolt or similar). The Ros (it's not a Ross by the way) didn't have a decompressor until a year ago and works fine without it. The second issue you have is a thicker, stickier gloop coming out from the junction of the cylinder exhaust port where the exhaust manifold mates. Some high temp sealant (such as Yamabond or Hondabond HT) will sort this. What fuel:oil ratio are you using? PAP say 40:1 but you'll find yourself with coked up internals if you run this for long. Everyone else uses 50:1. Hhmmmnnn, now if you ran at 40:1 you would be less likely to cause a warranty return yet the problems of running too much oil wouldn't manifest until after the warranty expires... cynical, moi!