Dean Eldridge Team Parajet Pilot

Name :: Dean Eldridge
DOB :: 01 June
Hometown :: Southampton
Paramotor :: Volution Custom with Polini Thor 200
Wing :: Paramania GTR
Year's flying :: Since 1995

Dean's flying career started in 1995 flying paragliders in Boulder Colorado with Gerry Eichholtz. Over the ten years that followed Dean fine tuned his skills and technique, taking the opportunity to free-fly in France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Morocco, Switzerland and Austria before returning to the UK.

In September 2006 after having little or no access to any good free-flying locations, Dean purchased his first paramotor. After initial instruction his hours in the sky increased dramatically and it wasn’t long before he swapped his day-job to follow his passion working full-time as a trainee instructor.

A year later Dean started work on the PPGio project alongside Mike Campbell-Jones, highlighting and customising various parts of the training syllabus to be more relevant to PPG rather than Microlighting. After attending a BMAA instructor course in November, Dean formed his own flying school Paraviation (www.paraviation.com) and has been a Chief Flying Instructor ever since.

In addition to flight instruction, instructor course assistance and syllabus writing, Dean has also been hired to take numerous aerial photographs and film footage while on location for expeditions in countries as obscure as India, Bolivia Tunisia and Morocco.

2009 was an exceptional year for Dean; taking fifth place at the UK PPG Championship and earning him the “Best Newcomer” award. Having showed his talent and ability to beat the toughest rivals, Dean qualified for a place on Team GB at the PPG World Championships in the Czech Republic. After a consistent 9-day performance, including Dean breaking an unofficial world record in the nav/speed task, the team took the silver medal and Dean was placed tenth on the FAI world rankings.

In 2010 Dean was asked to take part in the inaugural Parabatix event, competing against the world’s best freestyle paramotor pilots sky racing around a ground skimming aerial race course against the clock. Dean showed he was on top of his game and finished a respectable seventh, beating multiple British Champion Michel Carnet and fellow Paramania pilot Pascal Campbell-Jones.

Most recently Dean has filed a claim for the FAI ‘Speed Over Straight Course 15/25 km’ world record. Flying a Cyclone 294cc under a standard Paramania Fusion 20 Dean clocked up an impressive average speed of 73.84 km/h over the course at the Salton Sea festival in California.

As part of his Team Parajet role, Dean works closely with our engineers here at the factory where he influences and consults on the design and testing for our range of high-performance paramotors. Dean also holds a similar role with Paramania (www.flyparamania.com), the sport's leading wing manufacturer.

Competition Results

3rd - Icarobatix 2011
4th - Belgium Open 2011
4th - World Fly Games 2011
4th - Boston League 2011
10th - Slalomania 2011
15th - British Open 2011