Themal flights with X4 turned off possible?

Hi,

I wonder how well it would work to use an X4 just to get up in the air and then fly thermal with the X4 turned off - and just use it when needed? So XC-Wing (High B) normal loaded, (for PPG) slow flight speed.

Has anybody tried this? How much drag does the X4 generate when turned off (or running just at very low speed, just to compensate for the drag)? How much does the X4’s weight distract during thermalling?

Thanks, Clemens

isn’t there anybody using his/her X4 for hybrid elctric / thermal flying?

From time to time. There are very few days were I live which is thermic and not blown out. So most of time I catch the last few thermals before the magic hour.

I know Paul has ridge soared in his X4.

From what I have seen about thermalling, I think it is more about the pilot skill and the thermal than anything. Drag is a small factor compared to finding, entering, and staying in a good thermal IMHO.
Cheers

a comparison: with a mountain harness you have a sink rate of around 1.15 m / sec. with a paramotor such as x4, scout, sp 140, miniplane you have a sink rate of 1.5 to 1.6 m / sec.

This means that the thermal must be at least 35% better for the pilot with paramotor in order to be able to maintain the same altitude as the pilot without paramotor. there is a lot of difference!

i was once near alps at a meeting of the mountain pg pilots and was allowed to fly there with standart eppg. so i could compare myself with motor off and thermal circuits. the thermal was very weak. all pilots without eppg were able to maintain the altitude for a long time and it was easy for beginners to do that too. I struggled a lot to keep myself up. but didn’t make it. you noticed the difference very quickly in each circle.

my opinion: if the thermals are extremely good, professional pilots can also fly thermals with eppg. in normal or weak thermal conditions, hobby pilots will not be able to stay up for long. the only possibility is to aerodynamically imitate the system of an motorless pg in order to achieve a sink rate of less than 1.2 m / sec.

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