Hey Folks!
I’m not affiliated with OpenPPG, just excited for my order said to arrive mid February. Anyone else in the same boat here?!
A little about me: from Northern Minnesota, it’s freezing, took my 10-day intro class in start of January down in Florida with Orlando Paramotors (25 flights) computer programmer by trade (AI Engineer).
All comments/thoughts welcome.
P.S. for the OpenPPG veterans stumbling into this channel, fell free to share your wisdom/advice/hype!
Hell yeah! Fellow software guy here, just did my initial training at a small school in central florida. Super stoked about my order, can’t wait to get in the air!
Sup Mark, I love the open source idea of the motor’s software. I’ve clicked though their repo and was impressed. Once I get comfortable with the machine I’ll be curious to see if I can make any changes (if any) to improve my flying experience.
I’m with you, I actually built a throttle controller for a home-built electric rig my buddy made, which has been a fun project. Decided I didn’t have enough free time to build my own and went with OpenPPG mainly because I can work on custom features myself and contribute upstream if the opportunity arises.
What?! That’s sick, if you have any photos it’d be cool to see.
Sure! Here are a couple pictures of it. It’s a bit large, but for a first prototype I’m really happy with it. My wife is a mechanical engineer so I got her to design the case, can’t take any credit for that haha. We have more plans to adjust the screen location and perhaps move to a smaller, circular screen instead of rectangular, maybe add a scroll wheel instead of buttons, but we’re just working on putting some flight time on it and see what all we want to improve before jumping to the next rev.
Looks great!
Tangent question, what are you with for your reserve? I didn’t include such in my order (including the pouch).
I’m thinking the Beamer 3 Light (130kg) after considering my assumed all up weight. Any experience on this front? From what I understand reserves need to be repacked annually. I’m new to the sport and wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it on my own.
Packing volume is 3837 ccm…do I just huck it into the dudek pouch?
I actually haven’t even gotten around to getting my reserve in order 
Was planning on doing that in the next week or two myself. I definitely wouldn’t feel good about packing my own either haha, wouldn’t be a fun way to learn that I suck at packing parachutes. I’m not sure where exactly it would go, hopefully someone else can chime in wrt that.
I fly with a SupAir Fluid Lite, it is pretty easy to repack yourself with the video instructions. I’ve not heard a lot of great things about the Beamer due to its complexity, and it is pretty difficult to repack. Yes, it is steerable, but it also depends on how your main is disabled and can tangle up easily. If you are a new pilot, simple is best.
I’m 100% a new pilot. Could you expand on the ‘how your main is disabled’?
@markiemark I purchased the right-hand throttle control but left handed. I plan to run it on my left in the dudek pouch (assuming the one I end up getting can fit in it properly. At this point I don’t plan to run it on my chest because of Dr. Matt Wilkes’ studies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlJMTXMcn5w He ran a couple published experiments over the years, and has a couple videos/papers on them - very insightful, for me anyways.
Disabling the main paraglider is done by pulling the B risers to collapse the glider, then pull the lines in to and bundle the fabric to prevent the wing from reinflating.
That’ll be an intense one to practice 
Hope I never have to (but I see your point sir, thank you)
Let me know if/when you actually receive your order. I ordered (and paid for) a replacement ECM and throttle in DEC from OpenPPG and still haven’t received them. I’m a bit “miffed”.
Yes, on paper it is the thing to do. Reality is a different story, and with the wing’s risers likely twisted after a major collapse, it could be difficult to locate the “B” lines which may also be stuck inside the twisted mess. If not possible to find and pull the “Bs” the rest of whatever lines you can grab to bring the fabric closer to your body during a high adrenaline/emergency mode will have to do if there is enough altitude (at least 500’ and a lot of luck””. There have been instances with down-planing (wing one one side and the chute on the other fighting each other after deployment) when the descent rate was greater than if the reserve parachute had been fully deployed overhead. This is the reason why the pilot must do whatever is needed to bring the rescue overhead and keep it there. A reserve parachute clinics is highly recommended to attend.
A rescue with a sink rate around 5m/s is ok. Not pushing the brand here. Only here to give you an idea of the type of models available, sink rate, opening speeds, etc… All the major brands have pretty similar products.
Hey - have you reached out to info@openppg.com? They’ve been extremely responsive to me asking questions, going back and forth on stuff, etc. Hope that helps!
Friggin scary man
Have exchanged numerous emails with Paul at info@openppg.com. He’s been friendly/cordial, but I feel like I’ve being given “electronic lip service”.
