Right, I'm sick of it.

[Confabulous]

Learning to fly costs a fair bit of money - which I don't have at the moment, and I'm sick of having a money hungry PA28 siphoning up all my funds. I'll come back to it when the funds are there. Most of all, I'm sick of being on the ground :(

So, I'm going to give paramotoring a go, but before that I'm wondering if there's someone out there who does it (paramotoring I mean) on a regular basis? Where's the best place to learn? Paragliding doesn't appeal to me as Ireland doesn't have that many strong thermals, and having to land just when I'm starting to enjoy myself (barring weather and daylight) doesn't appeal either.

Where do I go from here?

[airborne_artist]

Could you bear to go PPL(M)?

[Cron]

http://www.bhpa.co.uk/

[Confabulous]

Airborne Artist, I could, but I really want my own aircraft (microlight/paraglider etc) and paramotoring seems like the cheapest, if not the easiest option. I'm beginning to come around to the idea of open-air flying - a couple of recent articles in Flyer (Gavin Webb & Genghis's) sparked my interest. But at this stage even microlight flying is too expensive.

Thanks for the link Cron :ok:

[aluminium persuader]

What about gliding? If you use a SLMG (self-launching motor-glider) you'll have the best of both worlds. Some newer slmg's are almost as fast as a light a/c now. When the engine's running obviously.

ap:ok:

[A V 8]

If you do a NPPL (SLMG), you can hire a motor glider for 1/3 of the price of a PA28. Once you've got your licence, you can do a few hrs differences training on the PA28 and you'll be able to fly them too:ok:

It means you'll only be able to fly day VFR (you can't do IR/IMC/Night ratings on a NPPL), but is that so bad?

[pulse1]

I was asking my paramotoring neighbour how to get started. He said that you should learn to paraglide before you start paramotoring. He said that it was essential that you can control the canopy before you start motoring with it.
I pass it on for what it's worth.

[Confabulous]

Thanks for the comments guys, will see what happens. Thanks pulse1, useful to know.

[aerobatic_dude]

Confab, give the guys in Ultraflight a holler. They've got cheap flying rates, and the aircraft are nicer then PA28's to fly. www.ultraflight.ie