Sometimes you just gotta go for it.
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.