I am a freeflight pilot, and I am now considering a transistion into powered flight. I will attend classes this summer, but in the meantime I am looking at equipment.
I’m a fairly light person at 66kg and 174cm height (sorry, I don’t know the units in US). I’m average fit, I would say, but no bodybuilder. I am concerned that the 1 hour battery setup would be too heavy for me to operate safely.
There is of course the possibility to order the 1/2 hour battery, but I must admit this is not very attractive to me.
Please bear in mind I have no PPG experience. Anyone at roughly my size that can comment on this?
I am in the weight / height range an only fly the 1/2 hour - I have two of them - land/quick battery swap/takeoff again😁. The 1 hour is not recommended for lightweight pilots unless your spine is made of Titanium Electric Winter Sunset - YouTube
You will not fly XC but will have fun regardless When the beach his empty and the SP140 moves in - YouTube
Phil
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Thanks for your input! Much appreciated. Guess I need to consider the smaller battery then.
The SP is just under 60lbs with the 1/2h battery and over 80lbs with the 1h.
It’s not that bad with the hour battery. I would never consider buying the 30 min battery. With the hour battery I’m only getting 35 min of flight time.
May I ask how tall and heavy you are?
I’m 5’10” … about 195lbs
The way the weight is distributed so high on your back it’s easier to launch than a moster in my opinion where the gas is heavy and so low.
What wing do you fly? I’m the same weight and get between 40 and 45 minutes with a classic paragliding wing. Large Skywalk Tequila 5.
Ozone Kona 2 26m …. I can get 40 minutes max
I am 68 kg , 172 cm. Very similar body type, I would describe myself as a smaller pilot. The only issues I have had with the sp140 and my weight/size was the difficulty getting appropriate hang point. The one hour battery is behind you and creates a lot of rear weight that needs to be countered by your body.
I don’t have any issues launching or ground handling the machine, I think with your free flight background your ground handling skills should be good and likewise you won’t have any issues with the machine.
I have close to 100 hours on the sp140 and used to own a one hour and 1/2 hour battery, but I traded the half hour battery for a full size one and only fly it with the full size battery now. That should tell you that someone your size and weight doesn’t mind the large battery enough that I even got a second one.
Something else to think about though, the sp140 frame is pretty fragile, I have slipped on wet grass with my unit and tweaked the frame from the fall.
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Thanks a lot for your input. That is very helpful!
I’m 183 cm, 75 kg, I only use the lighter battery and it feels heavy to me 
No hang adjustment problems with the light one.
Coming from free flight PG, it still took me a while to get used to the substantial extra weight, both at take off and landing (I’m using a wing that is certified for both PG and PPG in the relevant weight ranges, Dudek V-King ES 20).
I only had a few short training flights, 10-15 minutes, never drained the battery below 60% IIRC.
From what I hear (and see on the https://www.flygaggle.com/ app), most flights (both electric and gassy) are below 30 minutes anyway.
I’m an advanced free-flight PG pilot, 172cm, 70kg. I have both the large and small battery.
I use the small battery the most, because within the first 5 minutes I’ve found a cohesive thermal (on a good day).
When flying the large battery for thermalling, I need a larger wing, which gives a better sink rate and reduces power consumption. But, the nil-wind take-off’s can be brutal. Thankfully the SP140 has so much thrust! Not much time on the ground with good technique.
I primarily use the large battery for group flying, late evenings.
Long story short, 9 times out of 10 I fly the small battery for sport and XC flying.
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I am also an advanced free-flight PG pilot and since I now live in a flatland area, far from any good towing operations, I am looking between the SP140 and the new Scout Zero Pod Harness as an option to thermal fly closer to home. I would love to hear more of your findings on the SP140 as a means of getting up in the air to thermal fly.
How is thermaling in such an upright position? How is the weight shift authority? How much glide do you think you lose over a free-flight pod harness, about 1 point maybe? Have you made any alterations, such as adding a Gin or Apco paramotor pod or changing the gooseneck bars? Does the propeller freewheel when you fly with the power off or does it stay stationary? Have you adjusted the kind of wing you fly with it–lower class or lower end of the weight range–or did you just go up a size? How high can you climb above ground level on the smaller battery–a few thousand feet? Thanks!
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I’m 168 cm and 71 kg. I lift weights, so I’m in pretty good shape. The one-hour battery is heavy, but if your launches and landings are good, you won’t be carrying the weight around for that long. I wouldn’t consider buying the half-hour battery because the flight time is too short. Maybe this is the reason you need to start exercising more?
If you are light with no training then doing squats with dead weights helps a lot. If you can do 8 reps with 80-90kg thee times with rest in between - all good. Also train the shoulders(militarty press) and back(dead lifting) de and you will be fine.
I am 173cm/70kg
You can climb to 3500-5000 on the smaller battery
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I’m a PG pilot and have been flying the SP140 since September with the one hour battery, AUW of the unit with a reserve is 83#. I get 30-35 minutes of flight time with a 28m Ozone Spyder wing, total weight is 135 kg… The sink rate on PPG wing’s at least mine is terrible, I average 2 - 2.5 m/s sink rate with a 5:1 glide ratio. My PG wing sinks at 1.2 m/s and has a 9:1 glide ratio same size 28m Nuviuk Hook 5 @ 70% loading.
I thought it would be easy to thermal fly a PPG setup but now I have serious doubts, weight shift and feeling the wing is terrible compared to free flight. I tried my PG wing on the PPG and it was overloaded and had a bad tendency to oscillate although much easier to kite and shorter takeoffs. I enjoy going up high and motor off for the feeling of flying like in PG and the prop doesn’t freewheel most of the time but does when going fast.
The battery takes about four hours to charge from the 86v storage charge. If I was going to try and thermal the SP I’d get the 1/2 hour battery to lighten the wing loading.
Happy flying!
I’d love to buy one, but it is too heavy for me. I have been waiting for E-Paramotor, but the weight leaves me out even for the Atom 80 cause I am light 50kg and small 5”1’ (155)
So now I went gas and found the small MiniMot 80cm frame, which weights 13kg.
Not electric but 2 stroke. I wasn’t willing to wait until batteries get lighter. Who knows when that will be.
I’m an advanced PG pilot and have only just done the first few PPG flights.
The 13kg is ok. With reserve fuel (3ltr) all up now 74kg so carrying 18kg, about the weight of my heaviest acro gear.
My idea is also is to get up and thermal turn motor off. The question is which wings will do it?
I’m in the weight range of all my gliders (6) but boy is the sink rate noticeable.
The next problem I think will be having to launch on flat ground zero wind. Advanced PG gliders aren’t made for flat zero wind take offs. At least 3 of mine will not.
So then a more basic glider with good flat zero winds launch is maybe what is needed.
But it doesn’t finish there. Can you imagine having to land out because the motor stops, it happens.
All the plans I had, nevertheless it’s early days many things to sort out but already I am flying when others can’t on light wind days.
Well, I personally see it like this… if you want to fly thermals in the lowlands around midday with an engine to climb, there is always enough wind to take off. Sometimes you have to wait 20 minutes for it. constantly changing from every direction. a thermal rises and wind must automatically flow in. If there is no wind, there are no thermals, of course there are days like that. In principle, high-performance wings can also be started in zero wind, you just have to use a special technique. such as the “chrigel maurer” technique. The more demanding the wing is, the better the pilot’s skills have to be, otherwise he will eventually be overwhelmed in hard thermals. I also believe that a high B wing is sufficient for most pilots. These are super easy to start and passively very safe.