AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2012
EDITION 32
INTERNATIONAL PARAMOTORING, PARATRIKE AND MOTORISED HANG GLIDING MAGAZINE
Basse Ham 2012 +
mAtthieu colin in namibia + cairo-to-cape town flying the eclipse + Reviewed: Spiruline 3
French Championships, Chad Bastian PROFILED, dean eldridge is naked pilot, el yelmo, slalomania, china, toolbox, karen skinner AND ALL THE PPG NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
CONTENTS - ISSUE 32
FEATURES Editor & Designer: Marcus King Assistant editor: Ed Ewing Subeditor / Online: Charlie King Regular contributors: Dean Eldridge, Edward Lichtner, Tracey Tarr and Jeff Goin Advertising and accounts: Verity Sowden Customer service: Celine Rodriguez Accounts: Carol Harrison Tea-making: Hugh Miller
06 GALLERY: Namibia by MaTthieu ColIN
26 BASSE HAM Marcus King rounds up the action in the sky and in the trade tents at Paramotor World 2012
34 DANCE WITH THE SUN
Subscribe at www.xcshop.com/subs
"This is incredible!" Jim Doyle and Barak Naggan explain how they captured these incredible photos of flying during an eclipse of the sun
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38 IN SEARCH OF AFRICA Tom de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens round up their 10,000km Cairo to Cape Town adventure
ADVERTISING
44 Two-stroke safari
Contact Verity Sowden at advertising@paramotormag.com
"Hello rafiki.” Ramon Morillas heads to the Amboseli National Park for a 15-day aerial safari
CONTRIBUTING Send your articles and photos to editor@paramotormag.com and your news to news@paramotormag.com.
48 CHAD BASTIAN "It took my life by storm." 'Mr Trike Buggy' on how, when and where he learnt to fly, with advice on launching better
CONTACT Paramotor Magazine Cross Country International 5 St Georges Place, Brighton East Sussex, BN1 4GA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1273 256 090 Paramotor Magazine (USPS No: 024-657) is published six times a year by XCMedia distributed in the USA by DSW, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Paramotor Magazine c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville PA. Global copyright laws apply. The opinions in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Paramotor Magazine
WWW.PARAMOTORMAG.COM COVER Paramotor Mag's Verity Sowden goes with the flow at Basse Ham 2012. Photo: Marcus King ABOVE Above a dusty summer in Spain. Photo: Paramania
54 PARAMOTOR: CLOSER LOOK Little Cloud's Spiruline 3 taps into the trend towards smaller wings. Marcus King takes it for a spin
REGULARS
04 12 14 22 24 52 60 62
EDITORIAL NAKED PILOT: British Champion Dean Eldridge (well done Deano!) IGNITION: Global News – Competitions – China NEW PRODUCTS READERS' GALLERY TOOLBOX XCSHOP and SCHOOLS DIRECTORY LOGBOOK: Karen Skinner
Unit Conversions
Paramotor Magazine uses international standard measurement units, but recognises that other systems are in use around the world. So here’s a quick conversion table to other commonly used measurement systems. 1 km - 0.625 miles 0°C - 32°F 1 m - 3.28 feet 20°C - 68°F 1 kg - 2.2 pounds 40°C - 104°F 1 ltr - 0.264 gallons
CONTENTS
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EDITORIAL
Into Africa ... above the Sossusvlei Dunes, Namibia. Photo: Matthieu Colin
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e’re just back from the unique event that is Basse Ham, Mondial Paramoteur. Despite the weather’s best efforts the event was a great success, with hundreds of happy pilots trying out lots of new kit. It was great to see so many pilots, from all around the world, flying above the French countryside and checking out the latest gear. With 60 exhibitors at the event there was lots to see and we’ve got a full rundown of what’s hot in our seven page report starting on page 26. On our return journey we stopped off in Dijon where I was lucky enough to meet up with Sherie Thevenot the founder of Cross Country magazine, sister title to Paramotor Magazine. We spent a lunchtime chatting about flying and the magazines and how she came to create Cross Country. She said that when she had travelled to the mountains to fly, or gone to competitions, she had become fascinated by the pilots and their stories of adventure. She became determined to create a newsletter to let them tell these stories to a wider audience and to encourage others to follow in their footsteps. It is this spirit that has driven Cross Country over the years, and why the magazine covered the early paramotoring pioneers as they strapped motors to their backs looking for new ways to explore the sky. It was the same desire to give pilots’ personal adventures the limelight they deserved, as well as wanting to bring pilots all over the world together to help us learn from each other, that led us to start Paramotor Magazine over five years ago now.
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EDITORIAL
It is still very much part of our mantra. Africa is the home of adventure and has become the mini theme of this issue with three separate tales from the continent. Tom de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens weren’t content with just visiting one country. Instead they embarked on a mammoth four month adventure, travelling from Egypt in the north to South Africa’s Cape Town in the south. They stopped along the way to find new spots to paraglide and paramotor. Starting on page 38 Tom tells the story of their adventure and some of the paramotoring highlights which included flying over the famous Victoria Falls. You have probably seen some (or a lot) of their adventure on the website and via Facebook. We did too, and from such a wealth of material we asked Tom to select the very best images and the stories that really stand out from an amazing trip. The result is a story that inspires and entertains in equal measure. Ramon Morillas has also been in Africa. He was invited to Kenya to film wildlife from the air for a documentary and spent two weeks collecting a series of intense experiences. What a job. As well as flying the Amboseli National Park he and his team travelled north to fly Lake Boagoria, home to literally tens of thousands of pink flamingos. He brought back some amazing images and assures us that no flamingos were harmed in the making of his pictures. Another great photographer, and regular contributor to this magazine, Matthieu Colin also travelled to Africa recently, but on a smaller trip and this time just for fun. He and two fellow pilots
made a 3,500km journey through the Namibian desert, from the famous giant red Sossusvlei dunes to the moonscapes of the Swakop Valley. Adventures like his are so much more than the flying itself – they are about the journey and the people you meet along the way. They are also a little bit more accessible: while most of us can only dream of a four-month African safari or a job filming wildlife docos, most of us can swing two weeks and a plane ticket to head off with some friends. We feature Matthieu’s photographs in a gallery of the images he captured, of the amazing landscapes and the people who live in them. Of course adventure doesn’t always have to be about travelling to faraway lands. We all know the beauty of our sport lies in making a playground of our own backyard. And sometimes it is just about grabbing the moment and making the most of it. When Jim Doyle and other pilots from the Route 66 Paramotor Club in New Mexico realised they were in the line of a spectacular eclipse they grabbed the chance to fly. With pilots in the air and a photographer on the ground they truly captured something unique. On page 34 you can see the results. Whatever adventures you are planning, be they big or small, have fun out there – and don’t forget to send us your stories. Safe flights Marcus King Editor
A desire, a dream, a vision www.parajet.com
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GALLERY
Namibia
Earlier this year photographer Matthieu Colin headed to Namibia in southern Africa. With two other pilots he made a 3,500km journey through the desert, photographing the landscape, wildlife and people along the way. This is what he saw.
GALLERY
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Paramotor World 201 26
PARAMOTOR MAGAZINE | Edition 32
Basse Ham
Paramotor World 2012 Tucked away in the north east corner of France, close to the borders of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany is the small village of Basse Ham. Most of the time it’s a sleepy village, but every two years hundreds of paramotor pilots descend on the place for the Mondial de Paramoteur. This year, despite the less than perfect weather forecast, was no exception. Marcus King reports from the front line of Paramotor World, with additional reporting from Sacha Burkhardt.
Basse HAM
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ECLIPSE
Dance Sun with the
In May a predicted eclipse of the sun captured the imaginations of the Route 66 Paramotor Club in New Mexico. With perfect conditions forecast they set out to fly, and photograph, this once in a lifetime event. Jim Doyle, who was in the air, reports. With photographs by Barak Naggan
ECLIPSE
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Horacio above the flooded Okavango Delta in Botswana. Landing here is not an option: despite the green it's all water. You'll be croc food too. Photo: Tom de Dorlodot
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AFRICA
In
Search Africa of
Tom de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens spent four months travelling from Cairo to Cape Town in search of the ultimate flying adventure. We asked him to give us the highlights.
AFRICA
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“
They looked at us and cracked up laughing
”
Lake Bogoria in the Great Rift Valley is famous for its thousands of pink flamingos. Stay sharp! Photos: Ramon Morillas and Advance
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KENYA
Two-Stroke Safari Ramon Morillas flies the Amboseli National Park in Kenya
KENYA
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Chad relaxing at Beach Blast 2012. Photo: Marcus King
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PROFILE
Chad Bastian ‘Mr Trike Buggy’ has a long history in paraglider flight, from soaring in the early days to his latest passion for powered buggies. By Marcus King and Ed Ewing.
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hen Chad Bastian got into flying, he got into flying. It was in 1993, almost 20 years ago. "I saw a guy flying a paraglider and my friend said, 'I know where they're teaching that.'" They went up to the training hill and watched a student under instruction. "I thought, 'Boy, if she can learn it, I can learn it.'” The next week he took a course and learned how to fly. The experience, he says, "Took my whole life by storm." Flying in the hills around his Santa Barbara home he logged a staggering 900 hours in his first full year: training hops, hours of coastal soaring, thermalling and cross country flying. He went on to train as an instructor and a few years later, in 1998, he bought his instructor's paragliding school, renaming it Fly Above All. A paragliding competition pilot since 1997 he has flown as part of the US team. "I'd usually end up in around 15th/16th," he says of his comp career. "I was never one of the very top but I could do pretty well. For me it was more like a clinic, I would learn so much every time I went and had a great time flying with everybody." The benefits of comp flying are numerous: "There were people to follow around, they'd pick you up, they did the weather for you, fed you. It was much cheaper than a clinic too." He still flies free flight competition, but he doesn't "chase it" he says. "I'm not trying to stay nationally ranked or anything, I just go for the joy of it." Along the way he attended a powered paragliding fly-in at La Salina, Baja California, Mexico where he took his first paramotor flight. A little while later he got his own Fresh Breeze Solo 210 and started to fly under power. "I was into free flight for the first 8-10 years," he
says, "then I started flying a little bit of motors." Gradually he got more and more into motors, and now most of his business is in paramotoring. It was almost a bit of an accident: with the economic downturn he hedged his bets and expanded into paramotoring, but found both his free flight and PPG businesses "kept growing". Now he has someone looking after the free flight school while he is 'Mr Trike Buggy', promoting his own design of trike that can be flown with a paraglider wing or a hang glider wing, or, on windy days and without the engine, as a kite buggy. "Three toys in one," as his website, www.trikebuggy.com, calls it.
FLYING SKILLS The skills learnt in the early days still serve him well flying trikes, he says. "Any skill you have with a paraglider is going to be good for the other. That time you spend under the wing is all good." There are different skills you need for each discipline, he says, but, "in general you're flying a paraglider so it's all valuable. Typically it gives you the chance to fly different sites at different times of the day that you wouldn't fly." He doesn't fly his paramotor at free flight sites, and vice versa. "They're complementary in many ways. It just expands my ability to fly more hours in the day." As well as the trikes Chad is known for flying small wings with his motor. "Well I'm a small guy!" he laughs. "I'm not very heavy. But also in motoring the small wings are much more agile. They're much more fun to fly. It has speed and agility." Do a course - a Cloverleaf or a Japanese Slalom – on a big wing and "you just sort of boat along". The smaller wings "give you a nice carve." He flies and sells Ozone. "I find those are really natural, it excites me to fly them."
PROFILE
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