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Comment by addaon | Hacker News Reader

Four-prop. With two 12-lb batteries (which is the comfort level for my knees -- the whole unit with these batteries is around 42 lbs, so still competitive with even a low power gas unit) I can run for about 8 minutes, which gets me to about 3200 ft, and gives me ~12 minutes to find a thermal. (Worth noting I weigh significantly more than average, and fly with a moderately high wing loading.)

I spent some serious time designing a two-prop counter-rotating unit using low-inductance ironless motors and a GaN inverter, but never got around to building it. Maybe next life.

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The weight you’ve achieved sounds pretty good! But the runtime does not—I’ve never used a paraglider, and although I love the idea of finding and riding thermals, I know that I lack the experience to do so. What I really want is to be on par with gasoline engines in the brute-force dept, but with batteries. We are not there yet, but I hope we will be.

Thanks for sharing details! If you are fairly confident in your two-prop design, it might be worth reaching out to one or two paramotor companies to gauge their interest in it. Torque-steer from one big prop is something that all one-prop harness builders are always fighting against, whether electric or not. (I know nothing about building or flying any of these things, or much about business and IP, so disregard at will.). A two-prop engine seems like it’d be much nicer on the eardrums when compared to four. I’ve watched some videos…with the sound turned way down.

You’re far more gracious than I. If someone were to call something I’m clearly passionate about “silly” I don’t think I’d respond genially.

To be fair, he was quoting me exactly -- my original description used that word.

Yes, I would not have described it as such otherwise. I’d love to have a silly little electric paramotor, because then I’d have a paramotor.

I prefer a silly little electric paramotor over a big honking gas-powered paramotor, because I know what I’m willing to maintain. My question was solely about flight time, but reading it without the thread context does make me look like a jerk.

No harm, no foul.

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