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A1 Paramotors
For non UK readers, the A1 is a major north/south road running up the east side of the UK. It goes from London up to Scotland.
Sunday afternoon about 3-ish, and I'm driving up the A1 about 10 miles south of Peterborough, Connington. I was quite amazed to see a para-motor? ( a chap suspended from a canopy with a huge fan on his back) tracking up the left hand side of the A1 at about 100'. My Ppruner pax, a commercial pilot and I began to ask ourselves questions about the sensibility of tracking up the "wrong" side of a line feature and the legality of doing it at such a low height. Are para-motors regulated to the same degree as fixed and rotary wing? I have no grudge to bear, am merely interested! Stik |
Stik
They operate from a field not far from where you saw it, around RAF Alconbury - East side of the A1. |
No mandatory pilot training, not airworthiness regulation, no requirement for the pilot even to have read the rules of the air (let alone passed an air-law exam).
Whilst one can only be impressed by the safety record to date, personally I'd make their pilots pass the microlight air law exam before they launch! G |
Slightly worrying that they don't need any training at all!
They seem to have quite good climb performance as well, saw a couple of them at a strip recently and they quickly climbed to 3000ft, must have been cold! |
I suppose that, if questioned, he could have claimed he were landing...
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I've only been para(gliding) once, and I have to say I was impressed - like everyone else I went solo on my first go, and the sense of peace and freedom is really unrivalled, control is fairly positive - the two concerns I'd have would be landing (try using your legs as landing gear and you'll see and feel what I mean - I touched down on my arse plenty of times) and lack of air law knowledge as discusssed here - the newer para gliders (glide ratio of 8:1 I hear - pretty good for a flying pillowcase) can get very high, and naturally paramotors can go higher still - interestingly paramotor training isn't allowed in Ireland due to the legalities.
Personally I'd be very tempted to go high in a paramotor, just because I could, but I'd feel safer knowing the rules of the air, especially since even a glider could turn me into streaky bacon! |
As I understand it, the lack of a legal requirement for flying training has caused no particular problem - for the simple reason that unlike a normal aeroplane (where you just open the throttle) it's very hard to get airborne without being properly taught how. That tends to force any prospective paramotor pilot to get some proper training anyhow, and once a school has them they tend to get taught properly and completely.
However, the lack of air-law knowledge has caused more than a few problems (I know of two GA airfields which briefly gave permission for paramotor flying until they got seriously p****d off with a complete lack of acceptance of runway and circuit practices. G |
Trouble is thety're so slow that their GS is usually below the threshold speed of modern radars. Will they be forced to carry mode S transponders dso they can be seen?
The 'operators' (I hesitate to call them pilots) then complain when another aircraft gets close to them. |
Stik said "tracking up the left hand side of the A1 at about 100'."
suspect that at that height any GA traffic would be the wrong side of the law anyway |
AN EVANGELIST had high hopes when he took to the heavens in a motorised paraglider. John Holme planned to host his own religious event, preaching to the people of Salisbury by megaphone. Instead, he found himself dodging an electrified fence, trees and bird tables as his idea barely got off the ground. His height on his maiden flight was sometimes as low as 6ft, and occasionally residents said he flew over so low they could see the look of horror on his face. There was not much opportunity for preaching, and his efforts put him out of favour with the Civil Aviation Authority. The flight earned him a £1,050 fine and £250 costs when he appeared at Salisbury Magistrates' Court for flying too close to a populated area and straying into airspace over an airfield. It was the first case of its kind involving a foot-launched, powered flying machine. Holme, 39, who had planned to circle above in a controlled manner, later joked: "I thought that maybe if they heard this voice booming out from the sky, think it was God." He plans to carry his message from ground level in future. The preacher, who is married with two children, works as a computer software sales manager. He had been given the £8,000 "paramotor - a paraglider powered by a 66cc engine, encased in a protective wire mesh, which is strapped to the back of the pilot - as a reward for generating sales of £500,000. The prize seemed perfect to spread the word of his church in the village of Coombe Bissett, Wiltshire, where he is an elder. "I wanted to try to get through to kids on council estates and I needed something with some cred," he said. "I can't believe I've got a criminal record after this." Richard Griffiths, for the prosecution, said the flight started with a quick prayer for courage: "That courage was very much needed because he found himself flying between houses on the nearby Castle Hill estate. "He set off and seemed to be gaining height, but only at the same rate as the houses were climbing the hill. This caused him instantaneous fear. He was flying down the road with chimney pots above him." One couple said they "could see the pilot's face so clearly they were able to detect the look of horror as he lifted his body to clear obstructions as he wound his way through the housing estate. At one point there was an electric wire fence across his path." Holme, who embarked on the flight on August 8 last year from the city's Old Sarum airfield, eventually managed to gain control of the paramotor, circle and land unhurt in a field. Holme once hoped to preach from a hot-air balloon "but I ruled it out because you can't steer them". He said yesterday: "flying with the birds fascinates me. I had been trying to get off the ground for months. "The wind is critical. It has to be less than 10mph for a novice like me. I just took a run and up I went. Then I said to myself, 'What now?"' The real problems started when the wind got behind him and sent him at 30mph in the wrong direction towards trees. "I managed to clear the trees but saw the houses behind them and knew I was not high enough to get over the roofs. "I made the decision to fly between the houses but did not know how to steer. I learnt that in the following 15 minutes. Considering it was the first time I had flown, I think my performance was not too bad. I just chicaned up the gardens, missing things by inches." He estimated his maximum height at 500ft. His wife, Ann, heard the commotion from their home two miles away. While negotiating his way through the gardens, he says that he saw Heaven. He added: "I never thought I was going to die, but as a Christian I would not have been frightened of dying anyway." He has since flown 30 miles from Winchester to Salisbury without incident, and is now hoping to get a private pilot's licence. The court heard that although Holme had not needed a licence or training to fly the paramotor, he had taken two training lessons and thought he was capable. Chris Mason, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, said: "The rules state that the aircraft shall not be flown closer than 5OOft to any person, vessel, vehicle or structure except while it is landing." G |
While there may not be a requirement for a paraglider pilot to demonstrate their knowledge of air law, the old rule that ignorance of the law is not a defence applies.
Are required to have the mandatory 3rd party insurance? Regards, DFC |
It wouldn't matter what side of the A1 the paramotor tracked. They fly so slowly that their relative speed to a light aircraft would make it appear almost at a standstill.
If I was him, I'd rather be flying towards oncoming traffic so I could take avoiding action, rather than have no idea whats coming up behind me. |
Iv seen a "paramotor" round my way, launching from a field not far from where i live. IMHO, it lookes like fun, but im not to sure id want to be doing it when it was windy, or even if i hadent got any air law "know how"
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Whilst accepting that what has been seen seems foolhardy, why do aviators so often seem keen to be highly critical of a form of flight other than their own?
There are now thousands of people flying paramotors and paragliders in the UK. Virtually every Summer evening on my drive home from work I see a dozen or more in the sky at once. They have an enviable safety record, in fact it's so good that the ANO was changed last year to formally free them from regulation (previously they had been operating on annual exemptions). Sure they are slow, but so are balloons. They are also limited in performance, but so are many types of aircraft. In my experience, the vast majority of paramotor/paraglider pilots are dedicated, sensible and understand enough air law to be safe. Like any activity, one or two will make errors or behave recklessly, but that's no reason for other aviators to suggest tighter regulation for all of these people. VP |
Possibly the same guy S'n'R saw on Sunday was on the south side of the A14 near Alconbury. I'd left Bourn around 2.30 so this would have been a little before 3.00. Height about 50 ft and no more than 100 ft from the road as he meandered west.
I know there is a grass strip in use nearby but he was well away from it. I was in thoroughly post flight mood and enjoyed watching. I should have been focussed on the surrounding 80 mph traffic though! We need to maintain the individuals right to fly however and wherever it's safe, but it does seem that the 500' rule needs reinforcing. |
we need to maintain the individuals right to fly however and wherever it's safe, but it does seem that the 500' rule needs reinforcing. G |
I never fly anything that involves the use of one's ar$e as an undercarriage. :hmm:
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I reiterate:
I have no grudge to bear, am merely interested! Now if they were fully aerobatic, could traverse the ground at a healthy gallop and could take a passenger, I wouldn't need to be on the A1! Stik |
quote: "Now if they were fully aerobatic, could traverse the ground at a healthy gallop and could take a passenger, I wouldn't need to be on the A1!"
Well, I think they can score about 1 1/2 out of three. They can carry passengers and are certainly reasonably aerobatic (positive g only!). There's a good bit of video circulating of a chap looping one of these (actually a paraglider, I think), in fact doing several "loops" one after the other at a high rate. Air law is a part of the club pilot training syllabus, but was the chap at 100ft actually breaking the 500ft rule? As I recall, it's 500ft from any object, not 500ft above the ground. If he was over open ground and more than 500ft from the road, he could have been legal, I think. VP |
959
I am aware of the requirements of the 500' rule, in fact I often think of a 3:4:5 triangle from 1st year maths and if I fly at 300', 400' horizontally from my house - then I'm 500' away and therefore quite legal! Was this guy closer than 500' - well I'd have to say that I would bet on it but I wouldn't go to court and swear on it! I think that the slow groundspeed precludes a paraotor being my next "pocket rocket". Stik |
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