Learn to fly! -Training/Equipment: backcountryppg.com/ or call/text - (801) 599-1684 fastest response times in the industry guaranteed -Instagram: / judsonbaernt -Facebook: / judsongrahamparamotor
Cool vid. I've mentioned it on another channel and I'll say it again. As a retired A&P mechanic and private pilot who owns 10 Japanese motorcycles, 3 of which are 2 strokes, I am completely astonished at the lack of reliability of the typical paramotor engine. I've watched hundreds of paramotor vids and the kind of maintenance issues y'all are constantly dealing with are quite unique to this niche of aviation. I guaranty if you could petition one of the big 4 (Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki) and convince them of a market for doing so they could build a 1000 hour engine of any displacement that can and will outperform anything in use today. Heck, call Polaris, or call boat engine manufactures for gosh sakes, they've been building reliable 2 stroke engines for years. These outrageously expensive, flashy looking Vittorazi engines that are so popular are embarrassingly unreliable from an aviation standpoint, they are no more reliable than a flea market Chinese lawnmower, and this is the main reason I'm yet to get into paramotoring. There has to be a better option.
Absolutely right. I am absolutely convinced Vitorazzi are engineered to fail, for $$$ reasons. The exhaust cracking issue in particular. The exhaust is more like a subscription to Vitorazzi, rather than a standalone product U own 🤣
One thing about an airplane expert you can't tell him anything. Honda does not want to build a thousand our paramotor lawsuit generator motor. No amount of petitioning is going to get them to build an aircraft with all the additional legal headaches. Have you ever noticed the Fukushima thing? The redundant American the can't design anything good according to you had five ways to shutdown a reactor built into the plan but your Hero the Japanese had one way and it failed. Why are the Japanese dominating the airplane PowerPlant market if they're so good?
@@markmcgoveran6811 Vitorazzi engines and Honda engines have one thing in common, neither one of them are FAA approved aircraft engines, so how does your "lawsuit" logic come into play here? Nobody's asking for an engine with an airworthiness certificate here, so if there's a market how do you know they're not interested if you don't ask? They already have the tooling to build small, lightweight engines, that's what they do. An engineering firm can/will build anything, including a nuclear reactor, to whatever specs a customer orders, inferior as it was the Fukushima reactor is precisely what Japan ordered. Now what does that have to do with the above topic? Nothing, that's what. And just for your information have you ever heard of HondaJet? Honda has been developing and building aircraft since 2003, so they're not exactly greenhorns when it comes to the R&D department.
Good call on the top 5. The extra expenses definitely add up. I am excited about electric PPG, but I'm also not excited about it for International travel. Today you can take your Gas PPG on the plane (drained of all fluids) and then get oil and gas where you are and go fly (if the laws allow it in that country). With Electric you can't take the 4-16 kWh batteries on the plane, so you gotta ship them, and them be heavy, like 50 lbs. Then you gotta charge them, and in most other countries, you have 240v power and not 120v, so that means a possibly different charger. So now you have the extra expense of having to ship your gear separately from your flight. Plus breaking it down and putting it back together, yeah, it's a pain. I keep dreaming of a paramotor sherpa, someone who will haul my gear, get my motor warmed up (or charged if electric), lay out my wing, and all I have to do is put on the paramotor and run and go fly. I don't mind the weather. Since paramotoring isn't my job, not being able to fly every day doesn't bother me. ICE / 2-stroke Maintenance sucks. My Polini Thor 202 radiator cracked. JB Weld got me a few extra flights, but I'm waiting on a $450 new one. Gah. Electric will knock maintenance off my list. The Rules: meh, we have so many freedoms and very few rules... You can still do SO MUCH. I think it is good we have the rules, because otherwise other people or property would get hurt or damaged. The cost: yeah. Camping gear, travel, wanting a trailer so you don't have to load and unload gear (#1 complaint), needing a beefier car to do it, etc. Yeah. It gets pricey. Well done video, Judson! You got your groove back!
My second favorite new habit of Judson’s (first being him posting more content)- giving us the flight music before each flight. Just looked up funk Jesus and she does, in fact, rip 👌🏼. Some grade A flying music thank you
Wings last a lot longer than 2 years.. what actually happens, is pilots find any excuse to buy a new wing, new motor etc. Wings can last 600+ hours no problem or longer.
I fly the same paramotor as Judson but I flew the Nirvana F-light 200 a lot during my training and I can confirm they are very nice pieces of gear, 200cc paramotor that only weighs 20kg, computer governed engine that doesnt ring its guts out, and it packs down super fast into large airport lugagge style case. They look really nice and they have the usual trimmings like aerodynamic torque compensation. It honestly amazes me that you never hear about them in the USA, theyre a popular alternative to the usual suspects in europe and Australia, and Dave Wainwright won the first Icarus race flying a Nirvana Instinct. I love my macfly but I am jealous of the F-light's practicality
The #1 thing I hate hate hate about paramotoring is getting up early in the morning. Evenings are usually blown out in the SF Bay Area, so most of our flying is at sunrise. No more sleeping in on the weekends.
Number 1 dislike : parts break often and ordering replacement parts from your Dealer takes time since the part has to be shipped to us. Down time is very frustrating in this sport. I would love it if we had a hardware store that carried everything we needed t get up back up in the air.
That looked amazing going through the tree gap. If you take a good training course with a good instructor you will be advised on the best equipment that will last, yes its expensive but you can also waste money in the beginning when you don't know what you are doing. The best part of paramotoring and free flight is that it changes your life, your direction and outlook shifts into another gear. Its certainly not boring and you feel like you are doing something special with your life. Nothing better than knowing you have nailed it. Another great video Judson thank you
Easy to put together? Transportation? My dude you need to try a Nirvana F-Light! My paramotor goes into a suitcase, can be transported full of fuel laying flat and goes together super fast! :D I'm in Australia and I believe they're from Europe but I'm pretty sure you could get them there!
Trying to compile my top 5 hates: 1) Engine reliability (lack of). Hopefully we soon all will be flying EFI versions, preferably 4-stroke, reliable like a car. 2) Weather constrains. Enough said. 3) Noise. I hate to disturb people. And that's what we do flying neaby. 4) Problems with travel. The smallest aircraft available, yet It is still a problem to take it far with you e.g. on a plane. 5) No occasional passenger (like e.g. on motorbike). I mean, you can fly tandem or 2-sitter trike, but you have to have a tandem-capable paramotor, wing or trike extra to your normal gear. Other than this (and despite this) I love paramotoring!
In addition to the paramotor equipment, I had to get all the camping gear for fly-ins. Now I have a cargo trailer to convert to a camper and a new driveway to park it in. This is necessary to venture out to remote places to fly with all my paramotoring friends.
Worst part about paramotoring is blowing a launch in 90 degree weather while wearing a ton of cold weather layers for an attempt at a high altitude flight. Sweating my balls off resetting a wing.
Hey Judson! I have said this "type" of thing b4 and it sounds weird, but u are the ONLY pilot for whom the wing and motor seems like an extension of ur body. WHy do i say this? well u have a fluency and a fluidity that is striking. Ur style is second nature and intuitive. And im noticing that its an attitude that seems to permeate ur entire personality. it IS ur personality. There are other skilled pilots; But ur almost not a pilot. U are a flyer. I am 100% positive that ur videos dont capture even a fraction of ur real experience. Ur sense of safety and responsibility seems to be built into ur operating system. U are a FLYER.
As an XC paraglider pilot, with the biggest weakness which is patience, I absolutely love strong thermals! But I can certainly understand why it's not as much fun on a paramotor.
Lol I drive a honda civic 😂 I can fit my whole set up in my car if I need to, but it's a pain. I mainly haul my gear on a rack behind a dodge durango but a truck would make it so much easier.
Judson, I love your content in this clip. It’s helped “ let me down” and for me to get real. I discovered PPG a couple years ago and have watched literally 100's of videos. As much as I’d like to get into the sport I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a lifestyle as much as a sport. This for the most part is not good if a pilot wanna' be is married. I can see if a spouse is interested in it too, chances are you’ll not end up divorced. Anyway keep up the good work and for now I’ll thrill to your flights and adventures. Keep up the good work!
Ok. Now tat you started it... I hate that i am stupid slow compared to fighter, Helicopter, ultralight.. Whatever except balloon. I also hate nervous feeling before take off and line tangles. While up pendulum effect is weird, no other aircraft has it. I hate to search for field to take off like crazy and waste 10l fuel for this every other week
On the other hand, 1. Gear transport: the easiest aircraft to transport 2.Weather: Yes it sucks 3. Gear: Actually over 20 years of flying PPG, I've had a total of 6 engine out landings over 1600 flights at only 4 were equipment failures. 4.Freedom: it is the most regulation free form of flight 5: Cost: it is the cheapest form of flight.
My least favorite is finding places to fly. I live in the Seattle metropolitan area. Finding places within a 30 minute radius has been a challenge. A lot of times there might be a perfect week night evening to fly but trudging through traffic for an hour or 1 1/2 hours turns me off. Typically relegated to driving up north of Everett or South of Olympia. Then there's the whole "I found a secret spot" thing. People won't divulge the location they found to launch from as to not attract too much attention so people won't complain. Then get told they can't fly from that spot any longer.
I'm learning to fly a paraglider with no motor. For many people the sound of that two-stroke engine and propeller combined is extremely annoying. That's a guarantee when that thing launches it's going to be loud and annoying. Or the pilot the downside of being anywhere close to a town is emergency landing. Town has lots of people and they all have wires and cars and houses and stuff to hit. Like so many things some people are proud that they abused the privileges of flight. One of our top content producers in the field is proud and trying to set a record for the most nasty letters for his behavior from the F.A.A. I'm sorry for this because guys like you aren't out there trying to bother anybody trying to break the regulations you just like to fly respectful of others. The difficulty that we have is people don't like rules. The Red Baron wrote his own set of rules and enforce them like a German because he was a German. Then he broke the rules because he was a German in-charge, he had an easy duck that was easy pickins and he flew too close to the ground and got shot down by a guy with a 308 British machine gun that didn't even know who he was. That's what will happen to this hobby is so many people keep just violating the rules making too much noise in one spot all day they will eventually get regulations and push you out into lonelier places or regulate you out of existence.
This would be my top complaint and I live in one of the best locations to fly, I know so many people who have to drive for 1hr+ to get to the same boring field in the middle of nowhere. I swear its also getting harder and harder to find reasonable LZs.
@@Para_Ninja yeah that's the main problem you have you have to go to the same boring field where there's no one to pester with that awful sounding two stroke propeller. Oddly enough you live in a great place to fly. You also want to fly in a great place to live. combination noise.
What makes me really appreciate you is that you aren’t afraid to admit turbulence bothers the shit out of you. You are probably the smoothest pilot I have ever seen but yet you talk about how turbulence still makes you nervous. You are very relatable to everyone, even an intermediate pilot like myself. That’s really reassuring to know even the best still get bothered by things that bother me! Keep being awesome bro and someday I will get out for advanced training with you and Trevor. I wish I lived closer!!
You know something i have just noticed that is different between paragliding and paramotoring. We are always taught to have locked and “opposed” carabiners, and seems like you guys always have your locks on the inside, so opposite of opposed. Wondering why that is?
One of the big problems we have is paramotor people removing the redundancy and safety one piece at a time until it's gone completely and they have an accident. One guy was flying 100 pounds overweight which is way too much and eliminates a lot of safety and creates risk. Remember the brake line you just told us about that you can see the cords this guy had lines in his paraglider that were 12 mmmm too long. They were within the tolerances but it didn't fly perfectly and he had a hundred extra pounds on it demanding perfection and stretching the lines hard all the time. He got in trouble somehow and spiraled into the ground and died. I bet he didn't like rules any more than you do.
Without watching the video first I’ll throw out my top things I hate about Paramotoring. -Things break A-LOT -Inherent dangers, this can kill. This is a extreme sport after all -constant struggle to find LZ’s -dealing with public (getting the police called, upsetting ground dwellers who don’t understand the laws.)
So your last item applies to many sports. Get into dirt biking, and pretty soon your 20 year old bike for $2000 isn't good enough, you want something newer, then you want a dual sport, then an adventure bike, your state's riding isn't enough, you want to visit other places, need a camper, need a job that gives you more time. But most people, one bike is enough. One paramotor is fine. So it's more about your own personality, and how you enjoy your hobbies. Some go all-in, some are more measured. If you’re poor and you tend to get obsessed by hobbies/sports, stick with skateboarding. Bargain.
We all have our pet peaves... But when it boils down to it, paramotoring is VERY affordable when it comes to the thrill factor. Who ever thought we could go full-bird for what realistically is not THAT much $$$. It IS incredible IMO, and most of us in this sport have experience in other "dangerous" hobbies, ie- snow-related, off or on road 2,3 or 4-wheel things, or 1 or more of many other really fun, yet potentially dangerous things we enjoy doing, so spending a little on a new favorite "hobby" is just part of our lives😊, even if our girlfriends, wives, moms, etc. often cringe at the thought of our recklessness, I've found in my case, it's best to ask forgiveness than permission😂
Yeah, dude, Darren here, you know, Crestline. What you said about the limited life of paragliders is just something to accept. I had 3 hard years and over 350 hours on my beloved Mojo6, and someone actually ripped off my rig! My instructor Marcello said it was an act of god despite the loss of the rest of the gear and 2 radios. That glider was done, and you’ve seen how I fly. Especially if you fly aggressively, when you reach the end of its life, you risk structural failure for sure. I was already worried about that. It is what it is, but although I fly a high B and a C glider, I miss my A glider REALLY bad! I need a new one
