Powered Paragliding Ontario - Paramotoring  course near Buffalo NY - April 19/03                   

April 19, 2003.       Morning ground school with Dave

Dave came up and since he has flown PPG before we had two objectives: Go over the ground school real quick to make sure that his previous instructor did not miss anything and to make sure that Dave did not forget it all. The second mission was to make sure that his trike is well built and more importantly properly balanced as well. 

The ground school went without a hitch and after couple hours we were working on the trike. The way Dave has designed the paramotor mounting allowed us the shift paramotor as we pleased and it did not long the have the trike balanced properly with prop leaning back 5 degrees. Both of us crawled in to make sure the center attachment on the Simon XC comfort bars is the proper attachment for our asses. We have checked weather and since forecast was favorable we decided to head to the field around 11 am.

April 19, 2003         Glider handling, triking and flying - Afternoon

At the field the wind vas variable at 3 - 5 knots and very thermally. Not the best conditions. I have decided to take Dave's XC and his Lift 28 for first spin. His paramotor was broken in but never flown and I always want to make sure that the whole aircraft works well before I allow student to use it.

Dave and his "baby". Well, I guess "babies". For some reason we all always talk thrust, props, pitch, ignition, fuel mix, oil, spark plugs, beer and we neglect the good old paragliders that do most of the work. May be the fact that we do not have to fuel paragliders and nothing brakes on them have something to do with it. So I took Dave's XC for quick 10 min spin and restated (like many times before) that Walkerjet paramotor equipped with Simonini Mini plus 2 is the BEST configuration out there. It is definitely the Cadillac of paramotors and in combination with Lift by Sky Paragliders Cadillac of PPG! God bless Mr. Simonini, Mr. Prochazka and the Sky Paragliders team.

After the Dave's XC and Lift 28 was tested it was time to take the trike for quick flight. Well, I will be honest with you, I have never flown one so there was extra underwear in my car just in case I need it.... chi chi chi. We attached the XC to the trike and I have carted around for a whILE TO GET A GOOD FEEL FOR (aaaAAAA!!! I despise the Caps Lock button!!!!! Does anyone know how to get rid of it? If yes, let me know - PLEASE! I may just physically rip it out of my keyboard!! Should I see my anger management parson again?) anyway, I have carted around for a while to get good feel for the trike, the power and steering with my feet. Then it was time to go. I am sitting down in in the trike, holding the A lines between my index finger and thumb ready to gun it. 3, 2, 1 GO!!! Good inflation but just as I thought this is it, I have felt the glider going to one side so I aborted. What a rush. My heart was beating and adrenaline rushing aaahhhhh. "Dolce vita" - I am adrenaline junkie you know.....So next couple of tries went pretty much the same until the fourth one where the glider snapped up I have applied power and as I was carting on the relatively uneven surface with the steering wheel bouncing around all I remember was thinking "holy shit I am going pretty fast, crashing at this speed would really hurt". Well, I did not know what was coming....

So I was off. The flight part was much like flying foot launched, there was no difference to it at all. I have made several circuits and then it was to land. I was carefully watching the flare as I was approaching since I knew I have to be dead straight on wind since trike doesn't allow for sideway motion unlike our feet. It was all honkey dory until I hit pocket of hot air just before the touch down and it bled off all my forward speed so the landing was bit rough. I was pretty pumped and happy (since I realized that I will not need the extra undies in my car) so I wanted to go up again. We pushed the cart back and there I was again with the A's in my hands ready to go. So I went. Again it took several tries to get a good inflation - the variable winds were major source of these inconsistent inflations and problems - until I got a good one. Full power and again I am screaming in this paramotor powered cart across the grass. As I keep power at full, I got airborne but at the same time the glider re positioned it self against wind which made me to counter react and perhaps overcompensate with my right brake. Make longs story short,  next thing is me touching back down at about 45 degree angle and tipping over the cart. Wow that was scary. Quick check on the underwear status - uuuuuufffffffffff I am still OK. No injuries, not even scratches. Again PPG is probably the only powered aircraft where you wipe out at full speed during take of roll/run and still walk away without any injuries what so ever... Anyway, I have concluded that the weather is not so good for triking and told Dave to wait until we have no wind at all. ( yeaahh blame it on weather Andre) So we have decided to do some foot launched flight as Matt and Jim anxious to fly have arrived.

So we have got ready to fly and I have set Jim of for flight. Perfect take off in variable winds, 20 min flight and smmmmmoooooottttthhhhhh landing. Well I guess the cat can come out of the bag now... This was Jim's I believe fourth or fifth flight and all the previous ones had pretty rough landings so both me and Jim were touch nervous to see how things will play out on this one. We have decided to us the verbal A, B, C guidance where each letter is assigned a certain position of brake toggles. It worked really well and Jim has made a perfect landing. He did overshoot the cut part of our field and ended up in weeds but it did not matter. Great flight and unbelievable smooth landing. Congrats Jim. 

I should have taken couple of pics from Jim's flight but I did not get around to it Jim, Sorry, I will take some next time. I promise. Next person to go was Matt. We started to set up but all of a sudden the wind started to blow front NE at 12 knots per hour. See the change below.

I know Matt did not think this was good as the wind has appeared to be too strong but I knew that this is actually much better then the lighter variable winds and Matt will be in the air in no time. Well it took about 15 min of trying and all of a sudden I see perfect inflation, turn so I just say "start the engine, apply power, DO NOT SIT DOWN, DO NOT SIT DOWN, RUN, RUN, MORE POWER, YOU ARE FLYING.....excellent take off!

So Matt flew for 30 min and then I remembered that there was only lower half of tank which only holds about 1/3 of total fuel therefore Matt must be running on fumes went through my head.... I called in on radio and said "Matt you may be running very low on fuel so start coming in for landing" Apparently just as I finished saying this sentence the engine has coughed and stopped. At this point Matt was about 1500 ft AGL so there was tons of time to get set up, no biggie at all, and I have guided Matt in for perfect landing. He over shooted a bit just like Jim but the landing it self could cot have been any better. CONGRATULATION PILOT MATT ON YOUR FIRST FLIGHT!!!!

Next was Jim to go again. Awesome take off and since the wind came down and things were quite smooth in the air I have jumped in for a quickie as well. This is Jim bellow be at the south edge of our training field near the overpass and the most beautiful part of my foot - the toes.

After I played around with Jim for about 10 min and taking pictures I have landed. Jim has decided to fly little more. After while I have noticed Jim fiddling with something by his waste so I got on radio and asked if there is any problems - no reply. I asked again - no reply so we had no radio communication. So I finally got a chance to use my two red Frisbees to guide Jim in for landing by hand. This time Jim landed dead on (smooth as well) in the middle part of the cut portion of our field - I could not have done it any better. Good work captain Jim. 

 I have also checked on Jim's  radio problem and I discovered that Jim had all these wires wrapped around his belly, belt on his pants, through his shirt into his sleeve, up around his back, down again to his pants... no wonder the connector to PTT switch got disconnected.... :-)

Another flight for Matt. Again, awesome take off and 60 min !!! flight. The wind has died to 3 -5 knots again, no thermals so it was no wonder that Matt did not want to come down. The landing was in low winds and was not as good as the first one - part skidding part sliding but no injuries or damage to equipment. Next time Matt, try to use your legs to land as opposed your royal bottom please  ;-)

Jim and Dave watching as Matt flies. Dave did not fly - after he saw me wiping out on the trike he realized that the trike may not be the best thing for him and is planning to do a lot of glider handling so he can foot launch.

Jim, brought me some beer since I have fixed a nick in his prop so we have finished the day by sucking on cold "Blue". Mmmmmmm good day.

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