Overweight on wing with trike

[Mark Pugh]

I bought a new Ozone Sirocco 3 wing for paramotoring with my Zenith and Polini Thor 130. It was brilliant, flew very well and I could throw it around the sky with never a ripple in the fabric.

BUT, I then had a hip replacement and decided running to launch in nil wind and landing on my feet with the weight on my back was no longer a great option. I wanted to continue flying so bought a very light trike (Bailey Quatro Plus) with a Polini Thor 110 attached to it. I have now had 6 flights and they all went very well, 6 first time launches even in nil wind and 6 good landings...the last one was a bit on the heavy side! PERFECT.

Accept, I've bought a new weighing scale to get the correct size reserve and slightly over-estimating on everything, the all up weight was 70kg for the trike with fuel and old reserve, 90 kg pilot and 5 kg for the wing. That's a total of just under 165kg; so I bought a reserve suitable for 180kg, it was a good bit lighter than my old reserve, but the all up weight is still about 160kg.

My Ozone Sirocco 3 is a size 26 and the PPG weight range is 80-145kg.

There is no way I can lose 15kg on a diet, even if I flew naked with no helmet, radio, tablet, vario, altimeter, camera, etc. I'm still well over the recommended weight range. In all honesty I was surprised the trike weighed in at just under 70kg, barely legal. It is a small trike with mounting made specifically by Bailey for their PPG.

I'm not throwing the trike around like I would my previous back mounted Zenith, I rarely even change the trimmers from launch position, but my mates now find it hard to catch up with me even on full trimmers, I have to do a few 360 circuits to let them catch up again.

Should I be worried I'm over weight? Or just fly conservatively until I can ditch the wheels again?

[Blackburn Mark]

10 hours ago, Mark Pugh said:

Should I be worried I'm over weight? Or just fly conservatively until I can ditch the wheels again?

I flew overweight, often deliberately in my free-flight days which were very active conditions.
All bets are off on any certified recovery behavior.
It never worried me when I was obsessed with flying and my skills were in fine fettle.
Obviously, expect any departure from normal flight to be more dynamic which I believe can be very easily offset "if" your skills are current and you have a cool head 
Having said that, I cant say I fly enough these days to not opt to fly more "conservatively" which we tend to do anyway under power.
The only times I have seen anything close a collapse is when I fly through my own wake, fly in strong thermals or fly into rotor.... All of those can be avoided