Airwave paragliders are made from the very best materials available. We test all our materials ourselves, not believing manufacturers claims, and we have carefully chosen each component for durability, quality and performance and meaning that your glider will last longer and perform better than any other on the market.

Cloth
All our paragliders are made from a selection of several different cloths because each material from each cloth manufacturer has its own particular advantages. The properties of the materials used in our gliders are therefore carefully matched to the applications in which they are employed.

- Gelvenor on the Top Surface for durability.
Gelvenor is a Silicon treated nylon specially developed in South Africa to withstand the strong sun and harsh terrain. This cloth is heavier than most paragliding cloths (49gm/sq.m) so it simply lasts longer than any other cloth currently available. It is particularly suited for use for the top surface where the UV exposure is the highest as well as suffering from the worst abrasion when the glider is on the ground. Gelvenor can be easily identified by it’s waxy feel and heavier weight.

- Porcher 9092 E29A firm on the Ribs for strength and dimensional stability.
Where low stretch is of prime importance the cloth should have very low elongation when loaded on the bias. Porcher FM has a special coating to reduce diagonal stretch which was initially developed to improve the performance of sails for the Americas cup. High tear strength is also an important factor when all your weight is hanging directly on the ribs, and Porcher 9092 always outperforms the manufacturers own specifications by a large margin. Firm cloths can be identified by their stiff and crisp feel.

- New Lightweight Porcher 9017 E38A soft and Toray on the bottom surface and diagonal ribs for the best strength to weight ratio. Porcher is the largest manufacturer of cloth to the paragliding industry, and this is the latest cloth from their research and development program. Not only is it light weight but it has the best strength to weight ratio around. On certain gliders we also use Toray in this application. Toray has also gained an excellent reputation and is also well suited for use on the bottom surface. It is very difficult to see or feel the difference between the Toray and Porcher as both cloths are almost identical.

Kevlar lines from Edelrid
All Airwave paragliders are manufactured with Kevlar lines from Edelman and Ridder, a German company whose consistent quality over the years has made them an industry leader. The Kevlar we use is actually known as HMA, which is short for High Modular Aramid. This is a special form of Kevlar which offers low stretch and good durability, with a melting point of around 600c, it is less brittle than the early forms of Kevlar that gained a bad reputation in the mid 90’s. The line strength of each line is matched to it’s loading in flight. In general 80kg lines are used on the top lines, 120kg on the mid lines and 180kg lines on the lower lines. On the Tandem all the lines are of course stronger. All certified gliders are tested up to 8 times the maximum weight, so in general there is at least a 10 times safety factor on each line when new.

 

Webbing and Risers

High quality black woven nylon webbing is used for the risers on all our gliders. The weave is specially chosen to resist fraying and all the ends are also sealed with a hot knife for the same reason. We have carefully chosen the riser width of 20mm, which makes the risers small enough to reduce unnecessary drag but also wide enough to make them comfortable to handle when ground handling. The webbing in each riser is rated at 1800kg breaking strength, and the risers for each glider are load tested to ensure the structural integrity of the whole assembly.

Details Matter

Each piece of hardware used on our gliders has been tested proved itself for use in that particular application. The materials we use may cost a little more but we feel the extra quality and reliability is well worth while.

1) Soft Brake Handles

The brake handles are made from seamless tubular black nylon webbing with a foam insert. The foam insert keeps the brakes open in a loop so that they spring open automatically and so are easy to grab when they are hanging loose. There are no hard tubes inside the handle making it soft when rapped around the hand in what ever way the pilot wishes.


2) Stainless Steel Triangular links from Maillon Rapide.

Stainless steel links that do not rust from France. Don’t be fooled, there are many cheap copies of these around, but only the original Maillon Rapide have the quality control to produce a link that it is reliable enough to hang your life on.


 

 

3) Magnetic keepers on the Brake Handles

Magnets that are strong enough to avoid accidental release of the brake handle, yet when you grasp the handle it comes away easily.

4) AustriAlpin Pullies in Brass and Aluminum
From our neighbors in the Stubai Valley, AustriAlpin have been making quality accessories for mountaineering for a hundred years now. In some cases (such as the upper pulley on the Magic risers) we also use Riley pullies imported from Australia, where there is no equivalent Stubai pulley.


5) Brummel Hooks.

This is what they call those handy little links that help you attach your accelerator line quickly. It is important these little links are both stainless steel to avoid rusting and also well polished so that there are no sharp edges that can cut your accelerator line. Little details like this really count.



 


6) Cloth wrapped hang loops

In order to protect the vital webbing that your life hangs on from wear when you clip into the risers, the hang loop has been wrapped with a protective red nylon cloth.


 

7) Line Attachment

Each line attachment point is reinforced to transfer the load to the rib efficiently. Lines are carefully loop on each attachment point for optimal strength


Copyright Pete Michelmore 2006