Icarus Trophy:
The toughest air race on planet Earth. It’s you and your paramotor taking on 1000 miles of adventure. It’s the ultimate cross country adventure race of the skies. The Icarus Trophy is unlike any other air race. This is a raw, unadulterated adventure air race for serious adventurers. Organizer provides a huge area of adventuring defined between the start and finish lines. They operate a huge network of support to and watch you by satellite so you are free to explore. Think of it as a virtual barrier that contains millions of acres of adventuring bliss.
The Icarus Trophy is split into two divisions. Race and Adventure.
Race Division:
Pilots are gunning for the win. You have to travel to the finish line only by the sky and can have no outside support to get there. You must carry what you need with you but you can buy stuff that is available on your route. First across the line, wins.
Adventure Division:
In adventure all you need to do is make your way to the finish line. Along the way you will have possibly your greatest adventure. We don’t mind when you get to the end.
Icarus HQ is tracking your every move by satellite but you won’t even know they’re there. This isn’t in place to stop you getting lost or help you when you’re feeling tired, but it will swing into action in an emergency. This unique set up allows to explore new terrain and have an incredible adventure.
Australian pilot, David Wainwright, won in year 2016 the Icarus Trophy in USA, with Nirvana! This is, what he wrote by himself, about this the toughest paramotor race on Earth:
“The race was amazing I really enjoyed landing and taking off from very small areas to refuel during the event. The high light being the truck stop takeoff I did just north of Klamath falls. It was also a real buzz to here so many people tell me how I inspired them with what I did that makes me very happy to give people a bit of spark to go out and try this sort of thing and push the limits of what is actually possible.
I flew just over 400 km on the first day and had to battle a strong head wind for the first half and putting in 9hrs in the saddle landing in Bend Origen. The second day I did 9.5 hrs and 475 km and was only 250 km from the finish line. And the third day I hit the finish line late morning hung around there for a couple hrs and starts to make my way back along the course to meet up with the rest of the guys still making their way along the course. I ended up flying 500 km on the third day and back tracked half way along the course to meet the rest of the guys. I then flew with them back to the finish line. It was heaps of fun and we had a massive party in Weed California when the weather closed in leaving us held up there for a couple days.
In the end I flew over 2000 km and did 45 hrs flying on my instinct 200HL with no issues apart from a dicky kill switch that I damaged on one landing. I had that fixed in no time. I don’t think I could have done it on any other motor. It’s just so comfortable to spent that much time in the air and still want to do it again day after day and have fun this is the machine to have!”
