Home»Powered Parachute Flying

Last evening, August 7, I had the opportunity to fly in a powered parachute. I met the pilot, Tom Hanowski, online and traveled to Little Falls MN, approximately 80 miles away. After meeting Tom and his family, we took the trike, which was loaded on a trailer to a field that Tom uses as one of his airports. After setting up the trike, Tom went through some of the safety and operational issues of flying powered parachutes. His trike is powered by a 65 hp, 2 cycle engine. The normal flying speed for powered parachutes is around 28-30 mph. The three blade prop allows the trike to become airborne after a short roll. Additionally the trike lands in a minimal distance allowing units like this to take off and land just about anywhere. We flew for approximately one hour. The unit is steered by pushing on levers with your feet, which cause the edge of the ram air chute to drop just enough to turn the trike. Once airborne, Tom just kicked back, put his feet up across the control panel and the trike pretty much flew itself. To land you just pull back power and the unit slowly drifts to the ground. These units are made to fly in little or no wind conditions. Some of the pictures show us flying over the Mississippi River and along Camp Ripley, a military installation near Little Falls. Once we were on the ground and the chute packed. Tom drove the unit back to garage where he stores the unit.