Training – Powered Paragliding. A most Personal form of Flight

Tony’s First Flight

Today was a milestone. My first student got his first flight 🙂
Arrived at the Placida LZ at 6:30. Winds were 7 from the NE, cycling every couple of minutes.

Tony set up and launched perfectly. He flew for 30 minutes at 500 ft. The winds were strong enough at that altitude that he was just barely penetrating. Landing was excellent.

Notes:

His belt needs to be tightened. It was slipping a little and made his climb-out too slow for my taste. I could hear it squealing and possibly slapping although I don’t know how it could slap with a pulley on the slack side.

He needs to practice with the kill switch … He had a little trouble finding it and killed the engine late.

I’m going to encourage him to transition to trike. The rig was bobbling too much for comfort. I think those big wheels up front are catching the air.

I’m glad this phase of training is over. He’s finally popped his cherry now and can start gaining experience.

920 Placida

Arrived well before dawn and took my time setting up. Tony arrived just as I was about to take off. The wing and buggy were aligned so that I was directly into the wind but slightly off center with the runway. the plan was to inflate the wing and turn back to the line. I had kicked most of the weeds so that I would not have any lines catching during inflation.
Launched clean 5 minutes before sunrise into smooth air.
Flew for 25 minutes and took a few pictures of the sunrise and Gasparilla Island. Great new music was Bernard Herrmann’s brilliant soundtrack from the movie Taxi Driver.
Max altitude was 1200. The only bumps were when I flew through my own wake. Spiraled down and did a few S turns before final. Landed clean.

Tony did 4 successful taxi maneuvers with prop. He also had two unsuccessful with a slow motion roll over no real damage . The cage isn’t perfectly round anymore but there is still clearance for the prop. After viewing the video its clear he was braking the low side of the wing and turning away from the wing. It was not a perfect session but after the roll over he tried again and did perfectly. I think he is getting it. One more day of practice and he will be ready to go.

The trike buddy was great in theory but not so much in practice. To be fair the Carburetor is very low quality and I have not been able to get it to run smooth and only with partial choke. It makes for poor motor control and I think was causing more problems than its worth. My APCO will be done this week and I’m looking forward to delivering it to Eric Dufour.
NOTE: Get new battery for the remote motor shut off.

Note the antenna light to the left of the sun. 🙂

903 Almost a No Fly Day … Shell Creek Airpark

Today was the second day of Tony’s instruction. Yesterday we did some ground school at the house and messed with the wing a bit. I replaced a line and showed him how to pack and lay out the wing.

This morning we watched a great sunrise while I set up for launch.

The first attempt was aborted when I felt/heard a prop strike a line. The second was a sckitchy launch with some of the lines getting under the keepers. Once up, I scanned the lines to check the previous day’s work and noticed that one of the mallions had the lines reversed and a brake line was under the main D that we replaced yesterday. This wing has a tendency to break o-rings. It may be the keeper and it my be that they are just old o-rings but it’s something to watch out for.

The third attempt was another abort due to prop strikes. I couldn’t find any damage but will make a thorough inspection when I fix the twisted lines this afternoon. I’m going to completely rebuild the keepers with heavy gauge coated wire and some foil tape to reduce friction where the lines rub against the outer ring.