One of the subjects that inevitably comes up with people who fly powered paragliders is, “how do you transport it?”  People come up with all kinds of ingenious ways to get their machines to the LZ (landing zone).  My initial idea was to just transport the Cruise Carbon Trike disassembled in the back of my minivan.  This got old pretty quickly.  So I bought a small walk-on trailer from Tractor Supply.   The trailer makes it easy to just roll my trike out of the garage and right up onto the trailer.

 

 

Once my trike is loaded I use ratcheting tie-down straps to hold it in place.  The little tan minivan is the tow vehicle and is part of what I call “airport in a box.”  I load up my wing, my windsock and the base I made for it into the back of the van.  The portable windsock is pretty important because it’s more sensitive than the bigger windsocks at the airports and sometimes I don’t fly from an airport.  I need some sort of wind indicator.  So I bought a telescoping flag pole from Amazon and made a base for it out of PVC pipe.

I used two 10-foot lengths of 1-1/2 inch schedule 40 PVC pipe.  5- Tee fittigs.  6 – Elbow fittings, and 1 cross fitting.  I also needed to use 2 couplers since I could make the final two sections of pipe long enough with the couplers.  It ended up being a perfect fit.  Everything is glued together except where the two uprights fit into the base.  This lets me remove the top and store it flat if need be.  If the wind is strong enough to knock it over, then it’s too windy to fly!

One last item isn’t related to transporting the PPG.  It’s my instrument panel.  A glass display of sorts.  This state of the art avionics device also allows me to make phone calls, surf the internet, and listen to music as well as keeping track of my location, fuel consumption, altitude, speed, ground track, wind speed and direction, and several other handy functions!

Yes, it’s an app that runs on my Android smart phone called PPGps.  Got lots of great functions.  I keep my phone in a case that has velcro on the back.  I then stick it to the velcro on the top of my reserve ‘chute.  This puts it at a perfect angle to see and use.  My next addition to my “panel” is going to be a tachometer and hour meter which I will either attach to the throttle cable or else just velcro it next to my phone.  Haven’t decided yet.  It’s made by a company called TrailTek.

 

 

Didn’t get to go flying today.  Seems like I did what I normally do – take my PPG for a ride into the countryside on it’s trailer and then bring it home again. 🙂  It was too foggy to fly today.  However, I was able to take it to my EAA meeting today.  Our scheduled presenter was not able to show up due to the fog so I was asked to give an impromptu presentation on my PPG.  I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction I got from the club.  I wasn’t able to fly due to the fog, really wet fog, so I just went through a preflight and started the motor for them.  The were surprised by the power and how easy it started.  They made numerous positive comments on the build quality.  Present in the crowd was one of the airport commissioners.  He was also impressed.  This is good because I will be making a pitch to the airport commission to improve a portion of our field for use by powered paragliders.  So all in all it was a productive morning!

Well it’s finally happened.  I’ve had to make my first repair on my Nirvana Cruise Carbon Trike.  After flying on Monday I loaded up my trike into my trusty walk-on garden trailer and carted everything home.  I rolled my trike into the garage and buttoned everything up.  Thought all was well.  The next day I was walking past my trailer when I noticed a small silver object wedged between the floor boards.  When I looked closer it was one of the locking pins that fasten the motor frame on body of the trike!

When I picked the pin up and examined it I found that the ball bearings that allow the pin to lock in place had fallen out.  I’m currently looking for a replacement pin but in the mean time I don’t want to be grounded!  Since the ball bearings only serve to secure the pin in place and don’t bear any loads, the pin does that, I just needed to find a way to secure the pin once it has been inserted.   I still have some safety wire left over from my airplane build projects so I used that to hold the pin in place.  I can fly until I locate a replacement pin.  Pins, actually.  I’m going to order a new set to keep on hand.

I was able to sneak off to New Jerusalem after we got back from Sacramento.  It was a little windy and thermally so I had to wait about an hour for the wind to calm down.  But once it was calm I strapped in and was rewarded with… a blown launch.  Really got my lines tangled up this time but was able to figure it out without to much hassle.  The second launch went MUCH better!  I came back around and did some touch and goes.  While on the ground I tried to kite my wing as far down the runway as I could.  Then as the sun was setting it was time to just fly around and relax a bit.

Well after all the business of today I was able to sneak off to New Jerusalem just before sunset and get in a couple of flights in the PPG.  The wind was a little switchy so I had to wait a bit.  Then just as I was getting ready to go a Chinook helicopter comes barreling into the pattern.  I had to get away from there quick.  There is tons of downwash from the Chinook’s twin rotors.  He messed up the pattern for about 15 minutes than went on his way.  After he left I practiced some touch and goes with some kiting thrown in.  I’m just now starting to get a feel for flying the wing while driving along on the ground.  I need to practice that more.

I also used an app on my phone called PPGps.  It’s a great little app that shows your position on a map, your ground speed, vertical speed, fuel timer, etc.  It’s got a lot of grate little features like starting your fuel timer once you’ve reached a certain speed.  You pretty much set it up before you take off and then leave it alone.  It takes care of itself after that.  Really like this app!  PPGps is available from Google Play.

So all in all today I flew two flights and did 4 touch-and-goes.  Only burned about 1.8 liters of fuel.  I’ll start venturing farther away but for now, I’m still learning to handle this thing.  I’m really enjoying the process!

I’m not talking about the Denver Broncos, I’m talking about flying during the Super Bowl. I was the winner! No traffic on the road and thanks to a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) that came to within 2 miles of my airport, no traffic in the air either.  Weather was perfect, the airport was quiet, and the sky was calling.

I blew my first launch (takeoff):

But the second launch went much better.

After I got up there, it was beautiful.  Just flying around getting the feel for the controls still.  I’m getting more comfortable with it though.  I also did three touch and goes and kited down the runway for a short way.  Need to practice this more.

This weekend I added a piece of safety equipment to my Cruise Carbon trike.  A SkyFlar strobe purchased from Rodman Gomez of UFO Paramotors.   He also supplied a connector for the Nirvana accessory socket on my Rodeo Paramotor.   The kit went together pretty easily despite the spartan instruction pamphlet.  Rodman had already send me some info via Facebook so I was able to assemble it fairly easily.  I mounted the strobe at the top of my cage.  Other PPG pilots have pointed out that this may cause the lines to snag but really only on landing.  My reply is that the lines snag all over me on landing anyway so what’s one more snag spot?

I took a short video of the install and since a picture is worth a thousand words…

I finally got to try out a new LZ recently.  New Jerusalem is a small strip in the middle of farmland.  There are no services there, no buildings, no tie downs, just a runway in the middle of farmland.  The City of Tracy owns and operates this airport and recently built a fence around it.  I emailed their airport manager and she happily provided me with the code to the lock to get in.  Access to the gate is via a rural dirt road that is unmarked and unnamed.  Google Maps was able to help me find the road.

When I got the the wind was blowing at about 5 MPH almost straight down the runway.  There was a large paved area between the taxi way and the runway that proved to be a perfect place to set up and launch from.  It also allows you to meander onto the runway should you need to.  I pulled in and set up my windsock to start watching the wind.  I used the wind to “build a wall” with my glider and this also showed me how I should orient the glider into the wind.  Once that was set up and rolled my trike up and hooked up.  The wind caught my wing a couple of times but I was able to set it back up quickly.

I waited for a student to stop doing touch and goes before launching.  I almost blew the launch because my wing started oscillating from one side to the other.  I was able to dampen them fairly quickly by steering the trike under the wing and applying a little brake pressure.  Once the wing was stable I went full throttle and was climbing out.

I don’t know how much break in time these engines need so I stayed pretty close to the airport.  The highlight of the flight for me was flying over a house where a small girl saw me and started jumping up and down and waving madly.  I started kicking my legs and waving madly back!  This got mom’s attention who also started waving.  Nice!  I never would have seen that if I had been flying my airplane.

I was short on time and the sun was going down anyway so I turned back toward the runway and made an approach to the same spot I had taken off from.  As I cleared the fence I cut my power and just let it glide in.  I have to admit that’s my favorite part;  that quiet glide.  I did, in fact roll to a stop almost precisely where I started from.  With brakes full down I had only to take a couple of steps to roll my trike forward and have the wing come down behind me.  Most of the lines were in the line guides too!  I could have almost just fired the engine back up again.  The wind had completely stopped by now and just like I used to do in my fixed wing, I just sat and listened to the ambient noise for a few moments before unbuckling and packing up.

Yeah, I think I’ll be back.

So as you know I crashed my airplane.  The insurance company decided to total it when they found out what it would take to repair it.  I have since sold my hangar at Oakdale Airport as well so I have completely divested myself of Part 91 General Aviation.  It’s been a big part of my life until know.  It was not an easy decision.  A fact that is not lost on my wife.  She’s still in disbelief.

I have since used the money to pay off all our debts.  We are completely debt-free.  No mortgage, no car payments, no credit card payments.  No more consumer debt.  I also used the money to begin training and flying a new form of aircraft.  Something that I can put in the back of my mini-van.  I call it an airport-in-a-box.  I have taken up powered paragliding.

I went to Paradrenalin.com just north of Pheonix and trained with Ryan Shaw.  Within two days he had me flying alone.  The next day were touch and goes.  The next day was picking up the equipment I had purchased.

The most rewarding flight so far was the one at Franklin Field because I did everything on my own with no help setting up or judging the wind.  I still made some mistakes but I got into the air very quickly, about 75 feet for the takeoff run.  I’m still hunting for areas to fly (they call them LZs for landing zones).  But I’m sure that more and more will be added to the list!