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New Guy from Portsmouth


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Hey everyone!

It's going to be a few months/years before I can afford to actually partake this this sport, but since I've found out quite how cost effective it is (as far as flying goes anyway), I've decided to live on bread and water until I can afford to get going!

I'll be buying the various media and starting to take more notice of weather reports and such, but there were a few questions that came to mind recently that I thought I'd ask out of the gate, so to speak.

Firstly I'm not opposed to traveling a bit to get to a suitable site, especially for training, but does anyone know any in the Portsmouth area? Or would it be better to travel a little further afield for a better flight location?

By my understanding the Class A airspace over the Portsmouth area gives me a flight ceiling (presuming I want to stay out of the class A) of between 6000ft and 10000ft (FL65 to FL105), depending on the specific area, while also having to maintain 1000ft above the tallest buildings (although safety says you would want more to allow easy landing in case of issues).

From my look at the sport so far this seems like a perfectly reasonable operating area, but I can't help but think I may be better off travelling out to Haslemere/Godalming area, which seems to have no flight restrictions (or at least, only "Class X" on the Google Earth plugin downloads. Pretty sure class X doesn't mean anything from what I've read, but please correct me if not).

Secondly - Cloud Soaring. Looks cool, being above the clouds must be awesome, but I can't help but think that other aircraft won't be able to get visual in the clouds, and you can't really tell how deep they are (and thus how long it would take to get through the cloud layer). Am I being rightly cautious or it this actually not that dangerous?

Please understand that these are just some questions that came to mind. It's going to be a long time before I can actually get involved, so I'll have plenty of time to pick up some resources and proper air maps and read over these things so I have a proper understanding by the time I'm ready to head skyward.

Regards,

Adam Hayter

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Hello and welcome to the forum :)

Im new here aswell, but after the past few days ive learnt loads from the people on here! they are very very helpful and will answer any questions, how crazy or daft they might seem to you :L

From what you've asked, and what people on here have told me, the best thing to do is to save the penny's, and get talking to local pilots that fly these, buy plenty of books and DVD'S and study hard! Regarding meeting local people, why don't you take a look at the area sections on the main forum? try and find the nearest group near you? If not, im sure if you start a new thread in General Discussion, with a title stating " Anyone near Portsmouth" and you'll get someone Pm you or reply fairly fast.

The flight zones, im not so sure about this, you could always do half and half, fly once over Portsmouth staying within the guidelines, then travelling outside Portsmouth when you want to get a little more adventurous? thats certainly what i plan to do :)

The clouds and passing through them is also something i wondered about, but what i was told ( others please correct me if i am wrong) was that your best bet, is to either wait until there is an opening and going through the hole, or if there are'nt any, then then proceed with caution. A few suggestions would to before hand check the weather report, to see the thickness and heights of the clouds, then if possible contact your local atc tower. Mine would be Fenland airfield, so i would contact them and simply see what aircraft, and what levels they are at within the nearest 10 miles for instance. Other things you could do is to make your self visible, wear bright clothing, and/or place strobes onto your frame and wing tips, if you plan to do this often. But im sure other guys on this forum will help you more with this.

Hope this helped, and im sure other people will change bits of what ive said, as im still learning aswell. And remember you can ask as many questions, when you ask you learn i always find :)

Cheers

Mike

:wingover:

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I also forgot to mention, watch videos!! youtube has thousands upon thousands, and you can learn loads from them, either from people doing it correctly, or even the occasional crash, you can see what they have done wrong, either sat down to early upon take off, or crosswind etc. this will teach you alot :) here.... to get you in the mood of Paramotoring!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi AJ

I live in Earnley south of chichester so not to far from you...

we have a small club operating out of hambrook with about 10 members with alot of other local pilots NON memebrs to hambrook.

If your taking up the sport Portsmouth would not be my choice of places to fly, NOT to say you can not fly over as we do on a regular basis. Your very limited to landing options. Most of the fields in the city are surrounded by houses,flats this will cause rotor and a nasty landing if you get it wrong. Also the beaches are not that wide and normally have allot of people on there walking etc. so you have to be able to pick a small spot and land in it... Something a new pilot take allot of time to be able to do.

also there is allot of water so you should fly with an agama.

regards

Mark

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