SpicyGoliath

With all the mouth watering cumies floating around I simply had to get out there for a cross country flight. I grabbed the paramotor and headed for the outskirts of Houston where, a short drive from Gavin and Lisa’s, I found a launchable field next to Hwy 290. The problem here is to get away from the Class B airspace surrounding IAH airport, extending out to 30 nm in the shape of an inverted cone. It took some low altitude groveling before I found an organized thermal to take me to base which was right at the airspace ceiling of 3000 ft.

When flying with the paramotor I turn the engine off as soon as I am in organized lift. It makes the thermaling much easier - I can hear the vario, feel the wing move and turn much tighter.

There were a couple of tall clouds to the North and a blue hole to the South and West. It took two glides and two climbs to get to the Eastern edge of the blue hole and back to base. From there I followed the clouds South towards Katy. With the motor as backup, I found myself making much more aggressive glides and not worrying too much about staying close to roads in case I sink out. Whenever I got too low for comfort I would get ready to start the engine by placing the start handle in the kickstart strap on my left foot and securing the throttle on my right hand. Most of the time I would find my next thermal before starting it up and sometimes I would find the thermal as soon as the engine is idling. Occasionally I used some thrust to stay above 1000 ft to avoid that low altitude climb-out.

After getting established above Katy I decided to cut across the blue hole back to the truck. Who knows, maybe there are lift and it is just not showing. Besides I had the engine as backup and a ton of gas left to complete the out and return. Predictably it turns out to be completely dead except for the some light fleeting lift down low.

My best ppg flight so far. 32 miles out and return, 4 hrs 15 min, 4 liters of gas