Opale-Paramotors XS3 backpack (unbox)

My Hacker Cloud 0.5 is a really nice RC paramotor to fly with, but not when there is some wind blowing. So I'm going to buy a larger RC paramotor, 1.5 class. At this moment I'm thinking to by a cefics edmund race 1.5, but more on that in a later post.

For a medium parawing (wing area 1.5) I need a larger gondel or backpack. I checked the 3 main RC paramotor destributors. Hacker, Opale and Cefics. There is a lot of variety in models and prices. Gondels, backpacks with our without pilot, trikes, ... The cheapest ready to fly backpack is the Hacker Cloud 1.5 backpack, for only 250 euro you have a backpack with servo's, motor, props, ... ready to fly at an unbeatble price. It just does not have a pilot with moving arms. Do you need a pilot with moving arms to fly RC paramotor? Ofcourse not, but it is much nicer to watch it fly. A paramotor with a pilot flying and steering the parawing with its arms.

The cheapest backpack with pilot that you can find at the moment is the Opal-Paramotors XS3 backpack. If you don't buy this backpack as a kit don't forget to add the Pilot Ben Jacket and the Mike/lea head (size M) to your shopping cart.

The empty weith of this XS3 backpack (with clothes head and prop cage, but without motor, esc,...) is 500gr. This gives you a lot of margin or weight to add and still keep your backpack light. Max flying weight for this backpack is 2kg. So this really is a medium size backpack. The anti torque prop cage is included in the XS3 backpack. It's on the heavy side (180gr) but it has a very nice design, is has the anti torque feature and it looks and feels strong.

I also bought the Opale 10x45 carbon prop that they recommend for this backpack. It has a very nice carbon look and it's very stiff. It look likes it's good quality.

I bought this at the Opale-Paramotors webshop. Everything went well, packaging OK, shipment OK.
The XS3 backpack is not assembled. You have to assamble all the parts. For this you need a 5.5mm or 7/32" hex socket and a 2.5mm hex bit.
I did not bought the Opal Paramoters ESC/motor/servo's because I think there price is to high. These Opale servo's seem to be good quality and have good specs. But nevertheless I think there price is to high if you are building a medium size backpack or paramotor that does not need these high quality/expensive products. As for there 3530 ESC/Motor combo I think this combo is good for 1.5 class paramotors if you don't fly acro. And there acro kit is overpowered and to expensive for 1.5 class paramotors. So I'm looking at something in between. More on this subject in my next post.