Return to the incident list: Incident List Slope start, foot strikes prop PPG Type: Type of Injury:

Pilot Details

Age: 35 Weight: 210 Gender: Highest rating held at the time of the incident: Pilot experience level:

Gear Details

Wing Brand: Model: N/A Size: Paramotor Frame: FB Simonini with

Incident Details

June 14, 2007 Location of the incident: , Type of Incident:

The terrain was about two wing spans wide and 50 feet long, flat, covered with foot-high grass. After the 50 feet the terrain started falling off to reach an about 45 degree slope within 30 feet. Below launch were mostly vineyards running 90 degrees across my take-off direction with just a few small fields in between as bail out. That area is only about 100 feet lower than take-off so there is not much time for decision making in case things go wrong. Winds were a slight breeze of 2-3mph up-slope. My friend took off with a power forward and got airborne just where the slope starts. As I have some shoulder issues I cannot do power forwards and decided to inflate and then give power, but only if the wing looked fine overhead. The wing (reflex type, usually fast take-off, same as my friends) came up lagging on the left side as we were not set up straight into the wind, but recovering. By that time I was at the start of the slope with a slight hesitation to move forward. The wing moved a bit ahead and I decided to launch. At this point an old free flying habit kicked in as a reflex and I compensated the surge of the wing by leaning forward to put more pressure on the lines. At the same time breaking the wing a bit and giving full power. With the heels that far back and the knee bent my left foot got into the prop which cause some type of damage to it as I could feel and hear. The motor still had enough thrust to slightly climb (albeit a very noticeable vibration) so I decided to do a 360-turn and land on top again. After landing I saw that about 3 inches were missing from one prop blade tip. No damage to footwear or pilot body. This was probably due to a very sturdy, molded section on the hiking boots that covers the whole heel. These boots I mostly wear when flying and I was thankful for them on this occasion. Conclusion: With the slight breeze (the wind actually changed to coming from over the back just after landing) it would have been advisable to do a power forward inflation or at least abort at the slightest problem during inflation. Once at the slope there was not much to do as it is too steep to stop the run. It probably would have been better for the machine and safety-wise to land at the bottom instead of powering up over the vineyards to gain height for a 360 return to the top. Losing more of the prop or a complete failure of the motor could have been really disastrous. However the field sizes, slope angles and natural cover of the terrains were unknown and after killing the engine there would have been only one chance to do the landing. Another factor is that I was not flying much in the past few weeks therefore maybe lacking a bit the routine of the launch procedure. We decided on the place, because the closest ultralight field was an half an hour drive instead of the 5 minutes for this location. Prop repair and even more so the missed flight hurt a lot more than driving those additional 25 minutes.

Flight Window: Wind Speed: Type: Phase of Flight: Type of Injury: Collateral Damage: Analysis of the incident (additional input by the incident investigation team): Photos (if available):

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