Paramotor Oopsies Do Happen, Be Ready With a Flat Top

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Paramotor oopsies are pretty common in powered paragliding. What is completely uncommon is the safety and durability of the Flat Top paramotor. Not only is it the lightest unit in it’s class but the safety and durability are simply unmatched for any ultralight or personal aircraft. Watch closely the slow motion replay and you see just how hard the pilot smacks into the ground but flies away without any damage to himself or the aircraft. There are hundreds of reason for both the lack of damage and the lack of injuries on Flat Top paramotors. Strength and durability of the Flat Top is no mistake:

The frame is made considerably wider than other units. By making the frame wider it makes the cage pieces smaller and the smaller the cage pieces the stronger they are. Next the bottom cage pieces on the Flat Top are smaller than the top. Since the bottom pieces are the most common to bash into the ground this design feature dramatically adds to the strength. Then the whole cage piece is strung with 400 lb strength kevlar line that is integrally riveted right to the cage. Because of the angle of impacts like this, that 5200 lbs of kevlar strength resists the flex on the cage back towards the prop. The cage piece is attached directly to the frame so when you try to flex the outside of the cage piece to the rear you pull on all 5200 lb strength of kevlar directly against the T6 heat treated frame. Remarkable the design works so well that even if you bash in so hard that you literally crush the cage piece inwards it STILL doesn’t flex to the rear. People have been completely dumbfounded to find they hit so hard that they crushed their cage piece INWARD but it did not flex to the rear so the prop was still left undamaged and their protection from the prop was therefore still in tact. Even a crushed Flat Top cage piece still continues to protect the pilot from the spinning prop.

The safety of the pilot was the number one concern when designing the Flat Top. Watch closely how the pilots body never contacts the ground. The exact placement of the crumple zone ensures that the crumple zone will be the first to take an impact and NOT the pilots body. To achieve this there are many many factors. The comfort bars are one of the most important. Just like a roll cage in a car, the crush zone does absolutely nothing unless the driver is strapped securely inside of it. The comfort bars on the Flat Top hold the pilot INSIDE of the crumple zone. They also run the full length of the pilots rib cage all the way down to your hip. So if you smash into the ground you have a huge surface area against your body forcing the crush zones to work. If the “comfort bars” were one single bar then if you did smash into the ground that one bar would be forced right into your ribs with amazing force. Next the comfort bars have to be extremely solid and strong. If your “comfort bars” flex then they completely eliminate any affective crumple zone. Again it would be like no seat belt in your car as it allows your body to just flop into the ground without forcing the crumple zone to crush and absorb impact.

The solid comfort bars of the Flat Top also hold you solidly inside your aircraft for maximum precision. Just like a Ferrari that has a completely form fitting seat that you are securely fastened inside of with a seatbelt, the Flat Top comfort bars give you that complete support so that your Flat Top aircraft moves as you move. It hugs your body just like a race car so when you throw the Flat Top into a maneuver you don’t have your paramotor slopping around such as the tail wagging the dog syndrome of other designs.

Watch closely how the skids catch the weight of the pilot AND paramotor. Instead of the pilot’s body smacking into the ground and the weight of the paramotor crashing down on top of them the Flat Top paramotor does the opposite. It catches you before your body hits the ground and absorbs the impact. People have literally full stalled Flat Tops right into the ground and walked away completely uninjured.

The Flat Top design also prevents the crash and smash. The very low center of gravity pared with the rounded skids & smoothed edges prevents anything from catching and flipping you onto your face. The proper balance of the low certified height hang points along with the above are why this type of incident often results in the pilot just flying away without damage or injury. If you have a high center of gravity with high hang points and sharp points at the bottom of the paramotor then the cage on the bottom wants to catch forcing you forward and into the ground. Then the thrust and high…