My other favorite sport is in-line skating which I do a lot in the
summertime, more often in fact, than paramotoring. I've
PPG launched on skates once before but wanted to
do it with light winds and a hard packed surface instead of soft ground.
That earlier, almost soggy, effort was easy in comparison.
Tim captured
video which was used in the little production below.
What a hoot!
It took me several tries to get airborne as learned what I could get
away with. You can't get away with too much but, fortunately, I didn't fall.
I'll say that it was probably closer than I'd
like to admit.
Light-wind reverses are are nigh impossible. You can't walk backwards
very quickly with skates let alone while wearing a paramotor. I even
made an abortive attempt with the prop-wash assist method. You'll see
that in the video, too.
Naturally there are some similarities to trike launching. You can recover a seriously crooked wing with just the right
amount of steering, speed and wing correction because you can accelerate
quickly on wheels. The bad part is that, on skates, it's a big bunch
easier to eat dirt. I'm glad to have spent a LOT of time in-line skating—that
has to help.
It went quite well once I got airborne and there is nothing quite
like PPG skating. Not that it's something I'll make a habit of, but it
sure was fun rolling along on the ground, turning then retracting my
wheels.
A more aggressive pilot would do the launch purely on wheels instead
of running with the stakes. In other words, back up slightly from the
lines, power up and get the wing to come overhead while rolling without
trying to push off.
