The sound can be greatly reduced by changing the propeller type. If the blades had small curved tips, this will change the noise level. I can't remember what the exact name of this type of prop is... But it does make it quieter.
Great video! Nice to see the paramotor packed up and then brought to flight status. Thanks for the professional review and your personal comments. I agree with you we are seeing the future of paramotoring.
🤩 amazing! That’s what I been looking for..No need to jump off cliff, no messing with engines n fuel, on off in the air, charge ,plug & fly and most importantly silent flight. Well yours is not really silence, becos of prop vortices noise well it’s good enough when off n glide there’s no engine idling noise👍👍❤️. Thanks for sharing
I am so with you. The ability to instantly cut the motor with a knowledge that will start back up instantly as needed is amazing. It's like a powered glider in that regard. I look forward to see how this develops.
5 лет назад
It does make a 2 stroke look like a coal fired steam engine.
The cost is twice the price of the most expensive gas engine. I don't see this coming to market anytime soon. Throw in bidenflation, which is now a recognized word, and this can't be produced the same way that gas engines are. It will be a class thing and by that I mean only the richest ppl who fly can afford it.
@@dickfitswell3437 if you think Biden is responsible for the inflation, then I won't be taking any aviation advice from you 🤣. You are aware that we just spent 4 years with an idiot as president, who literally encouraged the spread of a virus that is destroying "the economy" right? The reality is that we've had it very well for a long time and because of the pandemic, America cannot take advantage of the rest of the world as easily and so our prices are going up. The fact that so many people don't want to work under conditions where they're at risk for catching the virus, isn't helping either. It's not rocket science. The fact that the public markets were doing well prior to the pandemic isn't credit to that president in the same way that the current inflation cannot be credited to the current president. These things take decades to set up play out. Only temporary impacts can be credited to recent activity. Covid-19 isn't temporary or new. Also, twice the price for the motor isn't that big deal considering the difference between being able to restart a motor when you want and not for someone like me that likes getting altitude. For the guys that need more constant power, that price differential may not be worthwhile.
@@dickfitswell3437 where have you been? This has been a thing for years now with a lot of people participating due to the open source of it all. N btw they are now on to their new single prop version the sp140!
With the current efficiency of photovoltaics this is pure fantasy for any time in this decade unless you're riding some kind of lift (in which case you don't need the photovoltaics anyway).
My first thought was that the crazy torque from an electric motor was going to cause some serious issues for a paramotor but then I saw the four blades.. Brilliant. The amount of instant force that an electric paramotor could put up would be a game changer.
It's loud due to the smaller props having to spin faster. But the engines are silent, produce no vibration and, yes, most importantly, the feature you mentioned is a great safety win. Not only will simple electric motors need almost no maintenance, they can come to a full stop and then back to running at a moment's notice. Whenever you feel like it, the props will become stationary, and whenever you need them to give you thrust, they will. You can also make them automatically turn off whenever an obstacle is near. It basically eliminates the very possibility to shred anything.
My thoughts exactly! I'm also wondering how long those batteries would take to charge with the 300 watt solar panel I have on my house bus, anyone know? Cheers
@@bobsinclear9046 Really hard to say without knowing the exact size of the batteries, but went to the OpenPPG website and it recommends to fly with 4, 22 amp hour 22v batteries for optimum performance. If that's the case then at 300 watts you're looking at about 1.5 hours just to charge one of those batteries. Assuming you're getting the full 300 watts the entire time.
@@PalmliX oh ok thanks, so technically 6 hours full Sun would do it, I'd say then a full sunny day should mean in the evening you would have a full charged kit ready for a fly! Awesome!! I've been skydiving for years and wanting to get a ppg now, debating petrol vs electric, this one looks amazing, technology is just getting better each year!!!
@@bobsinclear9046 But in real life it would take 8-12 hours. Unless you live in a very sunny, but not hot area. Also couple more 300W panels is not a big extra cost on top of the paramotor gear. Hopefully some day all paramotors are electric, that would be super cool! :)
This'd be perfect for climbing high enough to thermal. I have a two hour drive to the nearest hill so with this I could climb up, turn the motor off and do my XC, cheat with low saves lol and cruise back to the car. I want one!
@@svetre87 Sorry, I'll say more lol. I've been thermalling on paragliders for 30 years and don't see a problem with it, not that I've tried it. I'm just interested in why you think it's not a good idea. Am I missing something?
Hi Peter, I didn't try it either, but there seems to be a consensous in the para-world regarding risks while thermalling with a paramotor. The main Problems are related to wing loading, drag of the Cage and twist rsik. Higher wing loading means worse collapses, drag means smaller angle of attack and Twist is self-explanatory when you have a 30kg backpack :) I don't say it doesn't work, but why go thermalling when you have an engine strapped to your back (which doesn't really help when it's turned off)?
@@svetre87 True! I guess gentle thermals is ok but the transition in rowdy thermals would be tricky. I just live in a place with no mountains nearby and plenty of thermals. Stick to winches lol. It'd probably be not too bad if the batteries were distributed around the harness and the wing was an appropriate size for the all up weight. The cage and prop are probably only 5kg all up and manageable. I can see it happening one day.
My flights are only 1/2hr on my ppg and I'm over it. I like everything about this. Paired with a small wing it be great for park and fly quick blasts around and a bit of acro.
Do you think it will have enough power for acro for you? The 4 props won't get as much thrust as a single (tri/quad) blade. (Not as compact or torque friendly) I'd imagine they'll unroll a higher power unit soon. I'm 300#, so have been speaking to different E-PPG companies to try to find something powerful enough for me.. my favorite so far may be e-glider.com where they aim to optimize for free flight, and the blade collapses to reduce drag. This might be a pretty sweet option if you want to get to altitude on power, then do some acro on glide.. always with power at your finger tips if you decide you need it ;-) (E-glider has some pretty powerful engines available, but they don't pack down like the eppg, and may be a good bit more expensive.)
@@flightographist that's not accurate.. Even in 2013 people were foot launching e-gliders from fields. Now they have a 15Kw motor.. Should even launch me from a field if I find a big enough field.
@ meh, I have amazing knees and ankles. People who advise overweight people to loose weight annoy me.. That's like telling a smoker or a nail biter "just stop, it's better"... I'm very physically fit (train krav maga), and eat a healthful diet.. But I get night time sweets cravings, and those defeat all my other work.
That is basically what it is...... the electronics are a bit simpler though.....no gyros, barometer or gps in the fc. The props all turn at the same rpm. The prop layout is a quad-X. It produces about 160 lbs of thrust.
@@10661956 I want one. I could live with a thirty five minute flight time. The pilot would have to learn to balance four propellers to reduce noise and vibration. With two or three swappable battery packs I'm headed out to an open field.
@@10661956 at first I thought it was scary until I realized it didnt need the stabilization bits from a quadcopter. I remembered the early quadcopter opensource FC's and the bugs they sometimes had
@steelmesh with this setup it's about 1 minute of flight time for every 1 lb of battery weight. I owned one of these - 20 lbs of batteries gave me 20 minutes of flight time. And that's with four small inefficient motors. OpenPPG is coming out with a new unit with a single large propeller with 1 hour flight time for a total of 60 lbs. all up weight.
that quickly generates quite the crowd. it is so friggin cool. think of how much $ is wasted on mortgages and car loans etc when something so liberating, freeing, enjoyable can be had for a fraction........ the feeling of flying.
The purpose of advancement, education, science, technology, engineering and development is to make life easier, simpler, cheaper, safer, healthier, happier and more fun for everyone. Electric and alternative powered vehicles is the way! Can't wait for all vehicles to be electric or similar super low maintenance no or lower noise systems to predominate. Interesting this four prop unit seems louder than the gas mono prop ones. The less noise the better. I only watched videos, never been near either types. Never even heard of nitro units. Safe happy travels
Noisy propellers need to be balanced. That will quiet them down and produce less vibration. I think there is a market for electric PPGs. Short flights but you can keep them in your house or room.
@@CapApollo, a 3 blade prop is worth a try. Pipistrel, out of Slovenia makes a single motor electric airplane. I can't recall who makes the motor but it's a good design. I would think that same motor could be scaled down for electric PPG. BTW, I also think electric airplanes, like Pipistrel, could support a short hop air-taxi service. A company could swap out battery modules at the airport and quickly get the plane back in the air. They might have to build a number of small regional airports for the shorter flights but I bet there's a market.
5 лет назад
So you basically have a drone that gives you a hug. Once the battery drains to a certain level the drone could detach and return to base while a fresh replacement docks with your rig. Maybe something for the 2025 model. As a simple range extender you could have a launch battery that does the heavy lifting and then gets dropped on it's own chute to return to the take off point. Maybe raining batteries could be a bad idea, it can probably be made safe. A load of bubblewrap and a fitbit would stop it killing and act as a beacon.
Great review. The throttle response would be easy to resolve. Also, it would be easy to incorporate this type of throttle into a gas engine. I already whipped up a design.
MULLEN AERO Mark I made a number of working prototypes using 3D printing. Lots of little issues but the idea of a thumb throttle simplifies those problems a lot. The trick is reversing the travel of the cable inside a small space, but I have some ideas.
@@jamespkeane all you need to do is use a little turnaround pulley inside the throttle above the attachment point for the cable at the bottom of the plunger.
Unfortunately you can't change the prop setup that much really. Motors really support a certain variation of props. So you'd have a completely different configuration to try to go to a double or single prop setup, which may not even be currently feasible.
I think if they change the prop design they could really bring the noise down. I have a Phantom 3 Std drone and I just bought a Mavic Air 2. Significantly less noise with the new prop design on the Mavic.
Yep as said above get a single bigger prop and also add more blades. If you could get 6 or more blades it would start to sound more whooshing than whiney.
Seat board harnesses have much more weight shift authority. Split leg harnesses actually dampen weight shift. This is why speed wings are flown with split leg harnesses. If you flew a seat board harness with a speed wing, it would be way too sensitive to fly.
The guys at OpenPPG.com offer this kit with the option of the Apco Split Leg harness or the Dudek Power Seat.....or you can use your existing harness. It is strictly up to the buyer. I elected to buy the Apco split leg harness for comfort and the ease of launches and landings. Basically, there is no getting into or out of your seat. My Tornado has a conventional harness with seat. I like both of the harnesses for different reasons. Good observation though. Thanks.
It should have a joystick like a electric handicap wheelchair. You could steer with prop authority. Meaning the left side eases up while the right goes max. Something like that
@@dickfitswell3437 Unfortunately, a joystick would remove all the sensation that your hands are feeling, ie active piloting. You have to be able to feel what the wing is doing through the brake toggles. Even the most sophisticated AI would have a hard time diagnosing, computing, and adjusting, as well as our hands can.
@@giggetygoo9823 Actually no. This scenario was rigorously tested in quadcopter design and it was determined to be as or more efficient than an equivalently powered single prop. This would also cancel out the torque.
Good review. I’ve been watching the project for a while. It appears that the throttle response needs to be linearized to actual thrust and not rpm. And that prop noise...
@@garyjohnson1970 I'm sorry man. I mean no offense, but you are so very wrong and factually ignorant on this subject. About 18 sq ft of solar paneling from 1950's produced roughly 20 watts on a sunny day. That is about 6% efficiency. The number that everyone in the industry fought for that would make it "worth it" money wise was 15% efficiency. That goal was met in 2012. About 18 sq ft of solar paneling from 2019 produces roughly 320 watts on a sunny day. That is about 18.7% efficiency. That's a 1600% improvement! Every year that passes it gets better. If you don't think that it is an eventuality that solar will run everything, then please go have a conversation with Blockbuster Video. I have already seen real flying solar powered rc air planes. Yes, they need an initial boost of energy, but it is only a mater of time.
@@haywoodjablome234 I'm sorry man. I mean no offense, but you are so very wrong and factually ignorant on this subject. About 18 sq ft of solar paneling from 1950's produced roughly 20 watts on a sunny day. That is about 6% efficiency. The number that everyone in the industry fought for that would make it "worth it" money wise was 15% efficiency. That goal was met in 2012. About 18 sq ft of solar paneling from 2019 produces roughly 320 watts on a sunny day. That is about 18.7% efficiency. That's a 1600% improvement! Every year that passes it gets better. If you don't think that it is an eventuality that solar will run everything, then please go have a conversation with Blockbuster Video. I have already seen real flying solar powered rc air planes. Yes, they need an initial boost of energy, but it is only a mater of time.
Needs Carbon props. Could also probably use some variable pitch prop hubs that work off RPM for more efficiency across what is surely a broad operating range.
Wait till we can make a graphene parachute that is a solar cell In itself with such efficiency no need for a battery. But by then we can probably just say hey google turn on my hover shoes.
Independent Rider if you could find or build props like the APC props in model airplanes, yes. The APC props are bent and tapered in a manner that more efficiently cuts through the air and reduces noise as well as improves efficiency by working the motor much less! The tips are very thin and sharp!
why not having a knob style potenciometer for throtle (fine tuning control and no thumb tiredness)? Why not having double inverted set blades to for noise canceling? Hope the battery has temperature control and quick release to drop it if you are going down on water or it gets on fire. Don't get it. So many good engineers out there. With these 4 features you can call it the future.
I am immediately skeptical about the durability of this frame in a crash. I hope the stand and harness mount points are metal with some decent rigidity and malleability, because full carbon fiber is close to worthless at taking compressive blows. Edit: you might consider looking at eprops QD4 propeller design, but I can only imagine 4 small QD4 props would cost about 1.2-2K
This is neat. But I don't see this as the future. Especially considering the weight of the battery. I didn't even get to see it or the handling besides it took a small suitcase. Can't carry reserves like you can carry reserves fuel bladders. It's basically a gimmick. Only cool thing I see is no torque steer on throttling. However Someone is working on a counter rotating props for gas engines. Similar to double prop Russian bombers in which two propellers spin opposite of each other. This review hid ALL of the things needing questioning. Price, even though I know it's twice the price of the top gas and battery life and weight and fly time which is probably around 45mins...if that
Really amazing. They can always get the flying wright but not the vehicle's. Here. Why is there not generators on those motors to recharge the batteries in flight? Then think how far you could get day or night. So cool. First day seeing these. Very impressed. If my back was in a better health, I want one.
So much quieter too! Can't wait until someone inverts it and makes it to where it lifts like a drone and you sit on a swing underneath it. That would be kewl as kewl can be!
That give me ideas to make a back-up motor for regular gas paramotors. Use a smaller battery for Emergency use. I don't fly but I enjoy watching these, and I've seen motor failure lead to injury quite often. 5-10 minutes of extra power in case of gas motor failure could mean a lot up there.
I'd like to hear a dual prop design, I like this design but it seems as noisy as 2 troke!! But I wonder if Regen from the prop has been tried, and solar on the wings.
I wonder if two props coaxial could be made quiet enough. Probably not, because the wash from the front one would be buzzing on the blades of the rear one.
I’m not a paraglider, although I want to get into it. Electric seems to be the way to go. How heavy is the unit with battery? How long is the battery flight time? Is there any indicator to show how much battery life is left before it is fully drained? How much time is from fully drained battery to fully charged?
Great design. The carrier frequency to the motors from the ESC is brutal to listen to though. Might be solved by increasing switching frequency beyond 22kHz (human hearing). Motor sounds usually come from vibrating motor coils and magnetostriction from the iron saturation.
Looks like a lot of thought went into designing that. Wondering how much it costs and how long it goes on a charge. Haven't gotten to the end of the video yet. Now all they need is a solar cell para-glider that is powerful enough to eliminate the battery and you can stay up all day!
The area of a paraglider would allow for enough power, actually. You can get up to 7kW from a 35 sq m wing, which might actually be enough to cruise and maintain altitude.
The only problem is, solar cells are fragile, and vibrations aren't their friend. You would need cells specially designed for that, and also the wing must be made of a semirigid material.
Nice video thanks! im no ppg pilot but i notice you're holding your hands quite far forward. is that to prevent hitting the cage or something? And does this standard come equipped with splitleg? Do you know why that is?
There are gasoline capacity limits for ultralights. I wonder how many decades it will take for the FAA to figure out an equivalent in battery capacity especially considering the variables in energy to weight ratios of chemistries.
It almost sounds like one of those old school playground marry go rounds. You know the old metal and wood ones where you could get seriously injured but went awesome fast cause they didnt have safety bearings.
Go to OpenPPG.com and search the community forum. That's the easiest way to find specifics. I think my motors are 180kv. mad-motor.com/product/mad-m10/ I'm pretty sure batch 4 will be 160kv.
Call me kooky but I think I heard the low battery warning @5:13 in the video. Which is exactly what I was thinking the WHOLE time: why is this dude just wasting the battery on the ground? I mean we can hear and see that the motors work. If you have any confidence at all in the PERFORMANCE and not just the pretty design quality get the damn thing in the air and show us. Stop the talk. I thought from the get-go, not much power, and battery life sucks. ANd this video seems to prove that. Ok...later in the video- I see that the props lurch with each beep so maybe that beeping is some power activated signal??? And I see that they are FINALLY getting the thing in the air. So (continuing with the video)… Ok. Kinda neat. I see advantages and disadvantages. But im a moron so I'll keep my opinions to myself. I want to start paramotoring someday but I dont know if this is where I'd start. I wonder how the cost compares. its definitely compact and mobile. Silence when off is cool.
I never liked electric PPG's due to the short run time. Although, if the unit is light enough, it would be an excellent aid to freeflight. If a PPG pilot could become apt at thurmaling, it would be useful as well. I can see these becoming popular in the near future. I can see a new wing on the horizon as well. ( Electric Wings ) A cross between A PPG wing and a Free Flight wing. Oh, wait a minute ! Don't they already have those ?
I want to see more videos of people thermalling with an e-glider(.com).. the prop folds when not in use, and they're designed for an aerodynamic, thermaling experience. Far more expensive, but probably better in every category other than price, compactness, and DIY ability than the e-ppg. (Single larger prop will be quieter and more efficient)
he says that it has a 30-40min range @ 10:07 As for flying on three motors, I think it would depend on how the motor failed. In theory you could unplug one and it would still fly, but if you had the prop break on one you would want to stop to prevent further damage. Also by fly im assuming you meant powered flight, you can glide extremely long distances in ideal conditions using up drafts to give you more altitude.
This is not the future of paramotors. Gasoline + oxygen has an energy density of 46.4Mj/kg, but the best energy density battery is about 9Mj/kg. Now let's assume it's actually that type of lithium battery and not just a LiPo (1.8Mj/kg) which would be ~25 times less efficient in terms of weight. So when you fuel your tank up and complain about how gasoline is so heavy, multiply that weight by 4 or 5 or by 25 just to get the same energy as gasoline. Even worse is that high discharge batteries are SUPER DANGEROUS, gasoline however is limited in discharge by the amount of air/oxygen surrounding it, so your entire tank of gasoline can't just explode all at once -- gas is way safer because it has this built in safety mechanism, way more efficient, and so much lighter. This is why the Tesla car has a 1000 pound battery but can only drive like 2 hours on it, versus a tank of gas which is let's say 100-120 pounds and can be driven on for like 8 hours or something. All of that extra weight can be handled by a ground vehicle, but not by an aircraft. Long story short is that until there are safer, more energy dense batteries at an affordable price, this is absolutely guaranteed to not be the future of paramotors, even though I think it would be sweet.
The thumb throttle is actually not a good idea. During a forward launch you have to hook your thumbs in the A lines, and the only way to release the A lines is to let go of the throttle for a moment.
I assume they have all the motors synced, so when they say variable speed they all vary together. If you were to increase one side or the other I'd think you would just twist yourself up in your lines, there wouldn't be enough leverage with those props being so close together to twist the whole wing around
The open source group at openppg.com is working on it. OpenPPG is a work in progress.....but it is still so much fun to fly now! It is just going to get better!
The best fuels have an energy density that is x100 more than the best batteries. Your regular fuels compared to your regular lithium ion batteries also have a factor of roughly x100. Fuels practically cheat because half of the material required for the chemical reaction (oxidation) comes freely in the air as O2 molecules. Batteries are closed systems where you are required to carry both compounds for the energy release. However, the process of converting the fuel into movement itself is pretty inefficient. We're talking anywhere between 20% to 35%, with the average being roughly 30%. Whereas electric motors can convert the electricity into movement anywhere between 85% to 99%, with the average being roughly 90%. So in theory, electric systems need 3 times less fuel. But since the battery system itself is x100 less dense, this generally converts into 3 times less available for either power or range, but likely both. In general, it's a little worse at around x4 factor, where you get 70% of the power with only 40% of the range. So to completely replace internal combustion in a myriad of applications, we need to see battery technology/density increase by a factor of x4, and that doesn't seem possible in theory. Hydrogen is a viable option for flight as it enables to surpass the challenge, but its very inefficient to produce and transport, and yields a total efficiency that is slightly below regular combustion. So for regular transportation it isn't a good option, but for lightweight things like drones, paramotors, small aircraft it is viable. However, the concept of Hydrogen power-source being similar to a battery that gets recharged outside the system through hydrolysis is pretty groundbreaking. And we might be able to combine that theory with actual lithium batteries; in order to create Electric Batteries that burn-up by using Atmospheric Oxygen. Then we could revert the spent/burnt battery back into a healthy/unspent condition. This could solve the battery density issue, boosting it by several fold, and utilising the better electric motors in-combination. And it could allow renewable sources like Wind/Hydro/Solar power generators to be responsible in re-conditioning the depleted/burned Lithium-Oxygen Cells.
heavier than many without the motor on it. Also, cage is a knightmare waiting to happen. Light/neat doesn't always play along well with durable. Good tap on this thing and I can only imagine repair cost.
I'm thinking about a radial array of ducted fans blowing into an inflatable ring with a thin ribbed double ring as an output port on one side like a Dyson fan.
About 20 minutes on 4 22000mah lipoly batteries. I have an Air Conception Tornado 280 also, but I love both machines for different reasons. The electric folds up to backpack size, and you can throw it on your back seat ....also, no adjustments or maintenance. The Tornado flies about 3 hours and has massive power. I have a use for both.
@@10661956 this doesn't make any sense, is it 6S4P pack? They are generally refered to as #S (how many in series) #P (how many in parallel) 6S lipo gives you 25v, so are you running 12S2P? Total pack 50V 44ah?
@@pdub422 I use 4 6S 22000mah batteries. 2 are in series to make a 12S. 2 more are in series to make a 12S. The 2 12S are in parallel. 100% charged it is close to 50V....but I only charge to about 90%. I guess you would call this a 12S2P battery. It works SO good! I have a Tornado 280 gas unit that I love, but this electric is so much fun to fly....especially down low since there is not torque steer and and the throttle response is so predictable and granular. I am going to add an SP140 (single prop 140cm e-prop electric) to my garage soon. It has an hour flight time....and no maintenance like my gas unit. Check it out here: openppg.com/shop/paramotors/openppg-sp140/ When you let off of the throttle, all you hear is the wind. Electric is the future.
