Recorde Mundial de Velocidade com Paramotor – Circuito Fechado de 100km

The planning for this record had started many months ago. It has always been in the back of my mind for years. I was just too lazy to get everything into place to make a record claim. About one month before the record flight I started flying long distance flights with into wind and crosswind legs and found that every flight I did I was breaking the record for the 100km closed circuit speed. But found that I was making mistakes with the small details of the leg lengths and then the degrees you are allowed to turn. I guess this is how you learn. As you can imagine planning for a world record attempt is a long time consuming event. George Patterson my FAI observer was on the field first thing in the morning to weigh me and all my Kit and then again after landing. Got all the elevation readings and checked my gear. I weighed in at 150kg all up, I never knew I took off as heavy as that. Well all was set and Alison (my wife) and Nico Potgiter (a PPC pilot I trained) were operating the photo equipment getting some good preparation photos. After the official sunrise took place I started kitting up. First turn on all loggers and cameras, then strap on the extra Fuel tank in the bag on my chest. Then my Nirvana Instinct was strapped on and I was now ready for the launch. My motor needed to be pull started because my battery had failed for the starter and I was ready. I had a good launch but directly after lift off I was turning hard right and needed to try untangle my tip steering line on the right. After a number of attempts I had to abort the flight and land to sort out the trouble. I landed with my left break and my right D-Riser flared. I really was not looking forward to doing this launch again. I sorted out the lines and then was ready for the second attempt. I managed a easy launch in the zero wind running up the slope of our field. After a quick check I was set. I flew out to the SE to get my height sorted out for the run into the start gate. I held the required height and crossed the start gate we had on the field marked by a painted spot on the ground. George started a stopwatch as I was over the mark and my GPS and 2x Data loggers were all active. As I crossed I was doing 66km/h and was heading to my first ridge that was going be crossed. I had a slight tail wind and I decided to only climb as little as possible to cross it. You will note I had 4 routes planned and chose one before take off according to the wind forecast. I crossed this ridge with meters to spare and my shadow came rushing in to me as I zoomed over and disappeared down the opposite slope. I was running in the high 50’s and early 60’s all the way across Atterageville and on to the Magaliesburg valley. One thing I was doing is making sure I did not hit power lines and masts as the flight progressed. The next big obstacle was looming ahead and it is a big one, The ridge where the Paragliding launch is at the Hartebeesport dam. Well I got lucky here my track was straight through the gap between the two mountains so I only had to climb to half the normal height to cross the ridge, what a bonus and I never planned for this.

Then on to abeam Brits Town to the east and then also glance the big hill North of town to it’s west. Now I just had to hit the waypoint and then turn and run home. I got there in no time and turned hard with a lot of power and used the extra speed to start climbing from 3000 odd feet to 7000ft for the run home. I never closed the trim on the  Dudek Plasma as this really slows me down a lot. I just blasted the instinct for awhile to get up and find the tail wind at altitude. I was relived once my 40km/h touched 60km/h and then pushed on up to 70 and then later I was doing 117km/h once I got to 6800ft. I maintained more than 100km/h for the rest of the run home and on arrival had descended to far and lost the 100km/h speed to cross the gate doing high 80’s.
My unofficial time crossing the gate on the stopwatch is 1h19min13sec and the gps track is 1h 18min 54sec. My total distance flown was 103km. I set the route for 100.4km to make sure I was further than the 100km distance and would sacrifice the extra distance to make sure I was in on the total to be flown. Even so I have shattered the current record Michele Carnet set by about 47%. If I work it out correctly then my average speed is 76.05km/h. The current record is 51.9km/h.
Now it is up to FAI if I can claim a World record for this as well as the Continental and South African records.
Regards
‘Fly Safe’