Homebuild paramotors: the Egg Project
Modern Egg Paramotor using a Honda GX200 generator engine
Conceived in 2008 by Robert Shaw from Leeds in the UK, the Egg project started as dream to get airborne on a shoestring, but has grown into a global community. Their mission is simple: to adapt the reliable Honda GX200, a lightweight industrial generator engine, into a paramotor.
“I started with a 49cc two-stroke mini motorbike engine”, Robert told Paramotor Magazine, “and adapted it to run with a 70cm hovercraft fan blade in a riveted and welded copper pipe frame with a PVC circle as the blade guard.
“Because it was PVC and the support is not central to the machine, the circle flopped into the shape of an egg. That’s where the name came from.”
Robert Shaw's original two-stroke homebuild paramotor
The concept was there, but the power simply wasn’t.
Research showed Robert that people were already converting the Honda GX200 for karting, so he tracked down a cheap copy from the Far East and got to work.
Robert blogged his progress, “just to document what I was doing really.” And with the World Wide Web being the thing it is nowadays it didn’t take long till the Egg Project began to gather momentum.
Paul Bailey of Bailey Aviation saw what was going on and got behind the idea, professionally manufacturing the parts needed to convert the GX200 into a flying machine.
Modern Egg Paramotor using a Honda GX200 generator engine
So what can you build your own Egg paramotor for? An original Honda engine will set you back around £250 (€285 / $400), but you can pick up a second hand one or a cheap Far Eastern copy for much less. Buy yourself Bailey’s conversion kits for £700 (€800 / $1,150) and pick up or even make your own frame and you could be in the air for a fraction of the price of buying a motor.
Sounds simple, and judging by the 121 people that already follow the Yahoo group that’s dedicated to the Egg project, you’d say it probably is.
Robert says he “didn’t have any special skills prior to starting the project, but learned to do some basic welding and spent a lot of time on the internet researching best parts, prop sizes, etc.”
Eggs are hatching in Canada, Indonesia, the UK and America. Are you hatching an Egg somewhere in the world? If so, send your photos to Paramotor mag with a few words about your experiences.
A full report on the Egg Project is in Paramotor Magazine #24. Buy the issue here.
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September 7th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
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