Take-off tutorial - SCOUT Zero pod harness with climb assist 

Hugs and kisses!

Someone likes Miro! =)

I think your wife may have been paying more attention to Miroslav than anything else

@@moonsynth same

Sorry to burst your bubble, but my wife who has less than zero interest in paramotoring or paragliding, watched the entire video as well. Apparently, Miro has some strange effect on women. 😉

We tried the cocoon in the front. The previous version was like that. I think this is better because I can get into the cocoon without using my hands. No power starts rule is but related to cocoon at all. It is because we made wanted to keep the cage light and thin and aerodynamic, thus not so strong. Power start might flex the cage into the prop in stronger winds. You can’t have it all.

Our intention was not to replace training. We intentionalyy did not make this a complete guide. We only wanted to highlight the specifics of our harness and the differences in techniques compared to taking-off with regular harness off the hill or with a regular paramotor.

True. We hope the batteries will get better in the near future

@@SCOUTaviation Yes but in this case, the runtime for the motor will be less then 20 minutes

We never said no to electric. At this moment electric and combustion seem to be equivalent for the first take-off but then comes the difference. If you are inpatient and you take off to find out the thermals not there yet, you consumed your battery and go home. With combustion you still have plenty fuel for next try. If you end up flying the thermals with the wind far away, with combustion engine you would have still enough fuel to fly home low to the ground where the headwind is lower. yet our invention is based in the variable geometry. We can fit any motor to it.

Maybe one day there will be a separate competition category for assisted paragliding. For now it is meant for frustrated flat land pilots who refused to give up their paragliding identity. Like me:-)

Never had the need to loosen the hip strap. I sometimes tighten the shoulder straps for landing if I want to land on power. For off power landing it does not matter.

If this was a paramotor it would be the worst paramotor we have ever designed.

Surprisingly well. At the beginning I was afraid that the extra weight in the back would cause some twisting tendencies or something but it felt the same.

@@SCOUTaviation Do you plan on doing a SIV with it?

I can only answer theoretically as I have not seen or flown the fulcrum pod. First there is no reason to believe the ducted pod has less drag than the Zero. Small props are very inefficient (even if ducted) so to transmit same power with a small diameter they must use many more blades inside the duct, more like a fan. Those blades are exposed to airflow and cause drag when engine switched off . Also the drag is a function of the frontal area and the duct itself is quite robust. The cage of the Zero is minimalistic and a folding prop is in development to minimize drag. Secondly, the ducted pod utilizes metal bars under the arms of the pilot like regular paramotors do. The Zero is a regular paragliding harness flyable without the engine too and preserves the same agility, weight-shift and feeling. Thirdly, they developed a brand new engine for this purpose which makes the development process much longer and comes with questions about reliability and availability of spares. I guess they did it because with a small and inefficient prop they need a lot more power to get the same thrust. We used a well proven and reliable engine widely used on paramotors by lightweight pilots... and made the development easier for us and maintenance easier for the pilots. But i am a huge fan of any innovation and I like some aspects of it. I wonder how the metal bars work because I tried them too but failed to utilize them well. respect if they succeeded. I also think the duct looks cool and less like a paramotor. I am curious how they managed to do the duct with a two stroke engine. Based om a NASA study, in order to exploit the benefits of the duct the gap between the prop tip and the duct must be just few millimeters. We tried but the vibrations made the prop hitting the duct. Also upon a hard/impact landing the engine's momentum will make it swing on the rubber mounts and the prop hits the duct on inside. They must have done an excellent job in reducing vibrations or they made the gap larger and thus lost he benefits of the duct. Anyway, I am curious to see it once they release it. Do you have any updates on the release date> Haven't heard of them since then. wow, i did not think i would ever write such a long comment.

Depends on the legislation in upper country.

czech and netherlands?@@SCOUTaviation

scoutaviation.com

If you want a paramotor don’t buy this one. You would be disappointed. If you want to do paragliding soaring thermals with engine off, this is the best for you.

All paragliding pod harnesses are like this. And it is no problem because there are no thermals over the water, so we have no reason to fly over water. For paramotoring flying over water is not advised but certainly done more often. But the SCOUT Zero is not a paramotor.