sam Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 99.9% of you will probably read this and dismiss it as a load of old rubbish and I don't blame you either. Thanks for taking the time to read it anyway but this is directed at the 0.1% of the paramotor world who truly are saints. I am looking for a person who has a paramotor that is stuck in their garage gathering dust. A paramotor that could be put to good use advertising, and introducing new people to this amazing sport. As I said this is the point where most of you will be off for a nice cuppa but if you are the 0.1% that is still interested please read on. I am a member of the armed forces and as such get time to do adventurous training as part of my personal developement. I am hoping to obtain some equipment so that once trained I can take part in lots of charitable events up and down the country and to introduce other military personell to the sport by setting up a paramotor club on my station. There must be some of you out there that have upgraded your equipment only to discard the original paramotor that introduced you to the sport in the first place. Remember the feeling when you first went solo? The grin that went from ear to ear. Imagine how big your grin will be when you realise that your generosity has introduced countless fledgling pilots to your sport not to mention all the money we would aim to raise for charity. If you are still reading at this point and feel that you would be in a position to donate such a peice of equipment I would be delighted to hear from you. This is a genuine post and not some elaborate scam I promise you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Sam, Tell us a little more about yourself and what it is you hope to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frazer1981 Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Can i have a motor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slim Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Hi Sam, Your request is an interesting one but unlikely to find too many people with spare kit. On the other hand there are a lots of people who love to fly and if you want to organise a fly in at your station (or any others) there are lots of us who'd turn up to put on a show. The MOD own lots of really good flying sites! Of course it wouldn't be a "show" because that would require CAA approval etc Stuart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sam Posted January 17, 2009 Author Share Posted January 17, 2009 Sam,Tell us a little more about yourself and what it is you hope to do. As I put in my original post I am a 38 year old man serving full time in the Armed Forces working out of RAF Waddington. We have many clubs set up throughout the Air Force to cater for most adventurous sports but as far as I can see the nearest we get to paramotoring is Paragliding. My goal is to obtain some equipment on which people can get trained through a recognised paramotor school, set up a paramotor club within RAF Waddington, attract more people to the sport(after all I have a captive audience of young people with an interest in aviation). Once we have established a core of trained people my aim is to organise high profile charitable events hopefully integrating with local civilian clubs to draw on their wealth of experience and knowledge. There are various sporting funds that I can approach within the military for financial aid but they do like to see some form of progress initially before investment. Once I am qualified I will approach the RAF for sponsorship ie. to provide a wing on which I can display the RAF emblem which will be used to promote a positive image and further recruitment. If there is no one individual able to donate equipment maybe there is a local club willing to chip in and provide some equipment collectively. In return I will act on your behalf to try and obtain permission for your club members to use the airfield facillities. Who knows what the future will bring unless we try to help each other out. I am the sort of person whos cup is always 1/2 full rather than 1/2 empty. Anything is possible in this world if you just ask and put in the effort! Many thanks for all who have taken the time to read this post, i am sure many of you will think I am a cheeky scrounger but really I am a nice person really !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil_P Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Well I fly out of a small field at the edge of the Waddington MATZ, and always happy to show off my gear, or meet like minded folks for a natter. Now if you could swing it for me to land on the Waddo runway, I'd be well impressed. You might manage to beg or borrow an old wing to play with, but I don't think you will find many thousand pound plus paramotors ready to be given away. At the end of the day, although it may sound a little harsh, you will gain personally from getting trained up, so I think you'll find most people asking why they should finance that for someone else, when they had to cough up to do it themselves. If you're that keen, buy the gear, train up, get the RAF involved, then if you want, flog the gear you bought and use the RAF financing to run your club. How about going the whole hog, and involving some of your coded welders in knocking up a frame that you could bolt an engine to? If you want a wing to ground handle, let me know, but the best of luck with scrounging a motor. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outkast Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Get something like this and get some ground handling done. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ground-Handling-W ... 240%3A1318 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gallar Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Silly question perhaps, but have you already gained any quals in free flight - paragliding club pilot, say? Many people have gone into paramotoring from cold but quite a few came in from a paragliding background - personally I found paragliding skills such as ground handling invaluable and eminently transferable! Also it was useful having already been introduced to the theory, airlaw, general airmanship etc on the hills beforehand when it came to convert - several things making somewhat lower additional demands on the old concentration at a fairly intense point and so freeing up more of the grey cellsto deal with the new element of power! If not - you really should, if there is no specific paragliding set up for the crabs, there is certainly the Joint Services (ripstra@msn.com). Besides, the wings they already have are almost certainly usable under power too (I converted using an unmodified free flight Bolero) which reduces the scavenge list for you if you can schmooze some off them even under loan. Apart from anything else, you may find that the paragliding chaps and chapesses in the Joint Services association are keen to cross over (at least intermittently) to the dark side, and the more bods the stronger the funding for adventurous training grant bid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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