2nd & 3rd Day Kiting / Ground Handling Paraglider

I was able to get out and get more time with the wing.

The second day was out at the field near my home.
Drake was with me again. It was the first time trying the harness with the kite for ground handling. My friend Chris gives it a try and Drake gets more time under the wing as well. The wind was choppy and I only get one good inflation that lasts.

On the third day my buddy Gawain found this spot early in the day while flying his RC Versa Wing. It was slightly windy and it's the first time I got to experience the wing in some wind. I got pulled around good.

So much fun!

Powered Paraglider Flight Log

I wanted to keep track of my kiting (ground handling) and flights so I started looking around for a flight log for powered paragliders. So, I Googled it.

I was surprised to only find a couple of them. One was an older app that only ran on PCs. You can find it at USPPA Resources page. Click here to get the page. It looks good but it wasn't what I was looking for.

I found one on Southern Skies paramotor site on their Training page. Click here to get to it. It's an Excel file and a good one but a bit too sparse for me. I wanted to keep track of more data.

The last one I found was just a blog post like this one telling about how they made one of their own by using a commercial flight log and converting it to record their data. Click here to go to the blog. He was collecting more data but it wasn't digital.

So after looking through these I decide to use Google Docs to come up with my own. That way I could access it from anywhere and could share it with my trainer when I got one. I could also create one that could be copied by others to use. I have a link to my personal one in the right navigation under links. Or click here. I also created a template that you can use to start your own.

You can use the template a couple of ways. You can start a new spreadsheet in Google docs and then click on File -> New -> Template. Then enter 'ppg' in the search box to find the template and apply it. Or you can click here to get it.

I would love any feedback you have for the flight log and I'll update the template with the suggestions.

Paramotor Trike Go-Kart

I figured out how to mount the paramotor to the trike.  And what could be more fun than karting around on the ground with a big fan strapped to your trike.  It was a blast even if I didn't go anywhere near full throttle.  Good thing too since the trike didn't have brakes.  Ruined a good pair of Crocs

Check out the video.

Who needs brakes?!!

First Time Starting a Paramotor, Fresh Breeze Monster

Finally got everything together tonight to try starting my Fresh Breeze Monster paramotor. I wasn't sure how easy or hard it was going to be.

Picked up some non-ethanol fuel and mixed the oil.  Since this was a used paramotor, the first thing I did was make sure that all the old fuel was out of the system. Once that was done, I added the fresh fuel and checked for any leaks. The inline shutoff valve was leaking just bit when it was in the on position. I turned the valve off and the leak stopped.  There was still plenty of fuel already in the carberator so I figured I could get it started and just run the gas out. 

The first couple of pulls on the starter and nothing happened other than turning it over.

Then, eureka! Holding it back on the trike is not the easies thing to do.  My son Drake and I were having a blast.

First Time Kiting a Paraglider, Edel Power Atlas

The day after I got the Edel Power Atlas paraglider I took it to work with me so I could take it out at lunch.  There is a small park near my office that would work for a first time inflation. (Inflation is when you get the wing (paraglider) filled with air in order to fly it.)

The weather was great and not too windy.  For my purposes the small park worked great.  It's a bit small to move around much with the wing. There are too many trees to get good steady wind. The wind was choppy and too light to do too much other then just get it in the air and let it back down again. Boy does it pull though!

After work I went to pick up my kids at school. They were running late so I got the wing out again and used the field next to their school.  My son Drake was done so he went with me and got a chance to inflate the wing. The wind was so light that he could never quite get it to stay in the air.


From my flight log:

First time kiting a paraglider! Little wind. Inflated great. Not as easy as it looks to control. I can see why it's good to take a lot of time practicing this. Also first time my son Drake tried kiting.

This is going to be a blast!