(Based on staff post from various sources in January-February 2025.)
Paramotors are engine-assisted Para-gliders for
thrill-seekers all over the world. But the evil Myanmar Army has reinvented
them as efficient killing machines like what HAMAS animals did during the infamous October-7 attack on Israel last year. These machines are now killing hundreds and
hundreds of innocent civilians all over Myanmar, the darkest hellhole on earth.
Myanmar Military expands use of deadly paramotors
in aerial campaign: In January, the military intensified its aerial campaign
against resistance forces and civilians, increasingly deploying paramotors
alongside air and drone strikes.
ACLED (The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project) records eight paramotor attacks across Taungtha, Paletwa, and Sagaing townships, resulting in nine reported civilian deaths. Airstrikes also reportedly killed over 150 civilians.
Myanmar’s military has increasingly deploying
slow-moving, motorised gliders to attack villages from the air in central
Myanmar since last month, according to local and resistance sources.
The first accounts of a military bombing raid using
paramotors—parachute-like gliders propelled by small engines—in addition to
planes or helicopters emerged from Za Yat Gyi village in Mandalay Region’s
Taungtha Township on December 25, 2024.
Reports soon followed of similar attacks in Ngazun
Township, Mandalay Region, and on the other side of the Ayeyarwady River in
Sagaing Township in the region of the same name, resulting in civilian
casualties.
The military used three paramotors in an aerial
attack on Ngazun Township's Tha Kyin village that killed five people including
children on December 31, according to some local resistance fighters.
Paramotors provide a low-cost alternative to
fighter jets, enabling the military to sustain operations across multiple
fronts. With resistance groups yet to shoot one down, their use is likely to
expand in the coming months.
What is a Paramotor Glider?
Paramotoring is also known as 'Powered
Paragliding'. To fly, the pilot sits in a harness to which is attached a
lightweight frame supporting a small two-stroke-petrol engine, a two or three
blade propellor and a wing similar to a paraglider wing, connected by lines
attached to the harness.
The paramotor, weighing from 45 to 90 lb (20 to 41
kg) is supported by the pilot during takeoff. After a brief run (typically 10
ft (3.0 m)) the wing lifts the motor and its harnessed pilot off the ground.
After takeoff, the pilot gets into the seat and sits suspended beneath the
inflated paraglider wing like a pendulum.
Control is available using right and left brake
toggles and a hand-held throttle control for the motor and propeller speed.
Some rigs are equipped with trimmers and speed bar to adjust angle of
incidence, which also changes the angle of attack for increased or reduced
speed.
Brake toggles and weight shift is the general
method for controlling yaw and roll (turning). Tip brakes and stabilo steering
(if equipped) will also affect yaw and roll, and they may be used for more
efficient flying or when required by the wing manufacturer in certain wing
configurations such as reflex.
The throttle controls pitch (along with speed bar
and trimmers). Unlike regular aircraft, increasing throttle causes a pitch-up
and climb (or reduced descent) but does not increase airspeed.
Myanmar Paramotors killed five in Sagaing’s Kani Township
Myanmar Now, 19 February 2025: The incident is just
the latest involving motorised paragliders in recent months: At least five
people, including an elderly woman, were killed by a junta paramotor strike in
Sagaing Region’s Kani Township on Tuesday, according to local sources.
The attack occurred at around 5pm, when two bombs
were dropped on Chaung Ma, a village located about 14 miles southeast of the
township’s junta-controlled administrative centre, a local man told Myanmar Now
on Wednesday.
“One of the bombs landed near a house and the other
exploded in the house’s compound,” the man said. Other residents of the village
said that the deceased included one woman in her 60s, a teenaged boy, and three
men. Seven others were reportedly injured.
“Daw Myat Htay, 65, and her son-in-law, 40, died
while rushing to the bomb shelter. Her son also sustained injuries,” a local
man said. A man in his 50s and his nephew from a neighbouring house also died
on the spot, he added. The fifth victim was identified as a member of a local
resistance group.
The incident occurred near the Monywa-Kalaywa
highway, about 23 miles northwest of the Sagaing Region capital Monywa, where
the junta’s Northwestern Regional Military Command is headquartered. According
to a man close to resistance forces operating in Kani Township, the regime has
carried out at least five aerial attacks in the area since early February.
“They weren’t targeting civilians. The enemy found
out about our movements and came to bomb us,” said the man, adding that it
appears that information has been leaked to the junta about local resistance
supply operations.
There are multiple resistance forces active in Kani
Township, an area known for its crude oil, charcoal, and logging industries,
which have all served as a source of income for the resistance forces.
On Monday, a junta aerial assault in Mu Htaw, a
village about eight miles north of Chaung Ma, destroyed two fuel trucks. Three
people, including a monk, were injured in the attack. At least three people
were killed by junta aerial attacks in Mu Htaw in the first week of February.
The military has been using paramotors, or
motorised paragliders, to bomb resistance strongholds in Sagaing and Mandalay
regions since late last year. Tuesday’s assault forced many residents of the
area to flee Chaung Ma, according to a man from the village. “Many people left
their homes. Some are seeking refuge in the forest,” the man said.
Myanmar Army Widely Using Paramotors as Strategic Aerial Weapons
Myanmar military regime is widening the use of locally-made
and low-cost paramotors in their civil war against people revolutionary forces.
Instead of expensive and imported Chinese and Russian-made fighter jets they
are now deploying armed-paramotors carrying small bombs to almost every combat
battalion.
Each paramotor flew by paramotor-trained-soldiers
from the paratrooper battalions is now attached to every infantry column as the
machines and bombs are cheaply manufactured at the Army’s own DI
(Defense-Industries) factories.
But the paramotors, being slow and noisy and only
able to fly at very low altitude, attracts concentrated small-arm fires from
the rebel ground forces. The result is these paramotors only dare to attack
defenseless unarmed civilians and thus causing massive casualities in the
villages they attacked.
On 23 February, today, a group of three paramotors attacked
the Mone-hnyin Village of Say-tote-tayar Township in Magway Division in very
early morning. Onto the large village, at least three small bombs were dropped
killing eight villagers including a three-year-old child. Twentyfour cattle
were also killed, and ten houses were completely destroyed.
