Take a paraglider, now strap a 2-stroke lawnmower engine onto your back and add a propeller; voila you have a paramotor. 

Duluth’s Whitney Horky and James Jensen are competing Aug. 21-31 in France at the 2025 Paramotor World Championships.

Starting in 2018 Duluth residents might have seen this high-flying couple soaring the skies around/above Lake Superior. 

What started as a hobby in their free time has turned into 20,000 miles of travel a year lifestyle and career. 

Classified as an ultralight by the FAA, paramotors have been a lightly regulated obscure segment of aviation since their origination in the 1980s. 

Paramotors are the slowest powered flying machines in the sky, with most having an airspeed of 20-30 mph. Weighing 45-60 pounds before fuel, carrying the legal maximum of 5 gallons of gasoline is usually unnecessary when the burn rate on an 80cc motor is less than 1 gallon per hour. 

Life before paramotor was very different for these two. 

Whitney had been at AT&T for nine years and James was a banking loan officer. Whitney is now a sponsored pilot for Limitless paramotors and in her 4th year as an instructor teaching students to fly, while James works remotely troubleshooting aircraft avionics. Today they live on the road and at airports around the country in a Mercedes Sprinter van they spent two years building specifically to haul themselves and their flying equipment. 

In December 2024 they attended the first competition held in the U.S. in decades, where Whitney clinched a 2nd place podium with her exceptional precision skills. 

With the motor turned off 500’ above the ground she landed on a bullseye the size of a paper plate. 

With the encouragement of the competition director and fellow instructor/podium finisher Gillian Wintermute, a decision was made to compete at the World Championships less than nine months away. 

For the first time ever, team USA is fielding a full paramotor team (seven pilots) to compete against the world’s best paramotor pilots. 

Formatted as a classic competition, during 6 days of flying pilots will be challenged in all weather conditions to prove a well-rounded mastery of aviation. Navigation tasks will require paper maps. Economy tasks will make milliliters of fuel important. Precision tasks will vary- Draw an equilateral triangle with sides 10 miles, land on a paper plate, calculate your flight plan to a second’s accuracy. 

There is a Go Fund Me page set up, as well as the team’s burden of more than $30,000 is being almost completely self financed. Entry fees alone are 700 Euro each.