Coast to Coast by Paramotor

Paramotoring over the Alps from the West to the East coast of the mainland has been one of my goals over the last couple of years. But juggling work and the weather has made the attempt out of reach.

But not today, no work, the weather is ideal and I even have a driver. While other free flyers were struggling to have any decent time in the air in Christchurch, here was an opportunity to fly some serious distance and at 8am we set off for the West Coast. I must admit the attempt was not looking favorably with low mist and drizzle and a light SW blowing thru the valleys near Arthurs Pass. But I was still optimistic with the forecast being dying SW with sea breezes developing on both sides and if I time it right its going to be on. At 2:15 I launched from the Makara Race Course and climbed steadily with a full tank of gas and plenty of warm clothing. My initial goal was to climb to the Otara Gorge achieving a height that at any stage of the flight if the engine had failed I could safely glide out to safety. After climbing steadily for almost 1 hr I leveled out at 75000ft with the GPS showing a ground speed at 65km. It was a bit nippy up there with a 50km wind in your face providing a notable wind chill. Yes I think it’s going to be good ski season with a good coverage of snow on the tops. While entering the Otara Gorge, I had some problems with carburator icing. The engine almost died twice but with some pumping of the throttle the engine came to life. I can tell you from where I was looking there’s not too many user friendly places to land down here. 

The conditions were mostly smooth with the Action wing cutting thru any turbulence like a hot knife thru butter. The reflex designed wing has an abnormal flying characteristic compared to the conventional paraglider wing. The faster this wing is flown the more stable it becomes. Combine this with the higher wing loading and the increased rammed air entering into the wing you have a very reassuring and extremely stable wing at speed. Once at Athurs Pass I throttled back and slowly descended. Did a fuel check, still over half full and the hard work has been done. Flew down to 1000ft AGL thru Castle hill to thaw my fingers out and then climbed out over Porters Pass.  The time was against me now. With 30 min of light left and 1 hr of fuel left in the tank, I decided to land at Springfield. 10 min later my driver and photographer arrived, showing almost perfect timing. If only I launched 1 hr earlier. Maybe next time.

Flight duration: 2:45 hrs.

Wing: Paramania Action 28

Motor: Fly Products Race 130