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World Paramotor Slalom Competition

Posted on September 17, 2013 in Phil Jennings   

So as usual it’s the day after another epic trip, this time to the small airfield in Aspres-sur-Bu毛ch in the French Alps where the first World Paramotor Slalom Competition was being held. As competitions go its a very simple format. You launch and fly a pre determined route around several inflated pylons. Your time is measured using infrared gates and scores are instant. Of course flying full speed 2 meters from the ground whist doing high wingovers turns is great fun it requires lots of training and nerves of steel!

The plan for the 7 day competition was for 2 days of training to get the 75 competitors familiar with the format and airfield rules. It also allowed us to tune our engines as we were launching at 900m ASL.  After initial problems with my Polini 200, I had the Walbro carburetor set by Pierre Aubert and it ran perfectly all competition.

So here we all are, pilots from 17 countries (UK, France, Poland, Czech, Russia, Spain, Italy, Qatar, Thailand, Lithuania, Swiss, USA, Belgium, China, Tunisia, Germany, Estonia) and as usual the weather wants to stop us flying. We had 1 day of training then the next blown out. The first day of competition then the next 2 blown out, it was very disheartening after traveling so far. Finally the last 2 days allowed more flying and we managed to get the rest of the solo classes validated and start the team relay.
The team event was quite a highlight for us. It works with the first pilot flying the course then as he finishes through one timing gate the next pilot has to enter through the other with as little time wasted in the change over. He then flys the course and hands over to the third pilot. Timing your entry on full speedbar whilst judging another competitors speed is good fun.

The other big challenge is remembering the course as we were doing 2 different ‘stadiums’ back to back without landing, both with totally different tracks. You generally had around 20 minutes to rehearse and remember them before getting ready to launch. So there were pilots randomly walking around the deck with eyes closed visualizing the route or running round cones on the ground!

The Polish and French teams were amazing to watch and a league above the other nations. It was also interesting to see the equipment choice. Most if the top pilots were going for all out power and were flying foot launched Polini 250 machines with close to 100kgs of thrust. Wing sizes were generally 19-22m but the smallest was a 15m Dudek Snake that Grzegorz used to become World Champion.

How did I do? Well after a promising start I was in 16th place but dropped to 21st after taking it too steady on the last 2 runs. This left me in the top third of the pack so not too bad but definitely lots more training required.

As a team we finished 7th out of 13.

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