Airwave is at the cutting edge of competition glider design, and the last 18 months have seen a huge step forward in paraglider design making the FR2 is a radically different glider from the original Magic FR. It represents the culmination of hundreds of hours of intensive flying and testing both in and outside competitions. The development of competition gliders over the last year has been huge and the FR is one of the very few of the new generation of competition gliders that is available for the general public to buy off the shelf.

The main design innovations that have gone into this wing are:

1) 3 rows of lines.

Up to now nearly all paragliders have had 4 rows of lines. A,B,C and D. New developments in sail shaping combined with new aerodynamic profiles now mean that paragliders can be safe and stable with just 3 rows of lines, that is A,B,C. This means that the glider has around 70 linear meters of line less than a conventional 4 line glider, which is a significant drag reduction. This change alone increases glide by around 0.5 points, but the difference increases massively with speed.

Not only does reducing the drag increase the glide at speed, but it increases stability at speed. This is because you need to use less accelerater to achieve the same speed, so you do not need to reduce the angle of attack by so much to achieve the same speed. That means you get better glider with more stability.

One other benefit of a 3 line glider is the weight saving. There are less lines, less risers and less tabs, which helps to reduce the overall weight of the wing. This is one reason why the new FR2 weighs in at just 5kg in the bag.

2) 7.2 Aspect Ratio.

It has been known for years that glide performance is closely related to aspect ratio. However in paragliders, the stability of the wing is also of prime importance and high aspect ratio paragliders become wobbly and unstable. A wobbly or unstable wing is not only difficult to fly, but the movements of the wing also degrade its performance. Recent design developments have given us much tighter control of the structure, and much higher structural rigidity, which means that higher aspect ratio wings can be quite manageable. We have selected an aspect ratio of 7.2 after testing some competition prototypes of both higher and lower aspect ratio. We found that 7.2 gives the optimum performance across the whole speed range, and provides a glider that is not wobbly at all, and is a real pleasure to fly.

3) The new XXX system.

Inside the new FR2 is a new XXX system of diagonal bracing. This system provides extra rigidity to the wing without any disadvantages whatsoever. Not only is the system extremely lightweight, but it is incredibly effective.

4) Much Smaller Sizes.

All the above changes mean that the wing is more efficient, with less induced drag and less parasitic drag. Note that the aspect ratio has been increased without increasing the curvature of the wing, which means that the projected aspect ratio has gone up hugely from 4.5 (on the Magic FR) to 5.5 (on the FR2), which has a correspondingly huge effect on wing efficiency. All this means that you can achieve the same sink rate with a wing of smaller size, but of course the smaller glider is more heavily loaded, giving higher stability and better glide at high speed, faster top speed, and better handling.'

The FR2 sizes are therefore around 2.5 square meters smaller for the same pilot weight as the Magic FR. By keeping the normal curvature the performance has been increased without having to sacrifice roll stability, the new MagicFR2 has the superb handling we have come to expect from one of Bruce Goldsmith's creations.

Flying the FR2.

The FR2 is not just another paraglider. All the developements that have taken place in the design of the wing mean that you will also need to learn how to fly the FR2 efficiently and safely.

Are you capable of flying an FR2?Pilots who already fly a competition wing should have no problem changing to an FR2. It took Bruce about 30 hours of flying until he felt that he could get the most out of the FR2, so please take your time to adjust to this new glider. Do not fly it in a competition the first day you receive it.
Like all competition gliders Airwave recommend that you are a very talented and frequent flyer. You should have a bare minimum of 500 hours of airtime, of which at least 100 hours should have been in the last 12 months in a variety of conditions. You should be good at reacting correctly to all possible flight incidents including cravats and collapses, and should be a good active pilot.

LaunchThe FR2 is easy to launch both facing the wing or back to the wing. Launch should be done using the central A risers which are marked red for this purpose. There is absolutely no tendancy for the tips to come up first during launch. Nil wind or tail wind launches will require a faster run as the flying speed is higher.
Trimmers should be set at the red mark (neutral position).


In Flight, the first thing that will strike you about the FR2 is the higher flying speeds. Trim speed is 42km/h and stall speed around 24km/h. The trim speed is around 3 to 4 km/h faster than a typical paraglider. Top speed is 65km/h with the speed system block to block. Do not try to fly the glider with the brakes on all the time. The FR2 flies better with little brake. Even in thermals the FR2 has its best sink rate with only little use of the brakes. Tuck resistance is considerably better at higher speeds, and you can even flythough thermals with the speed bar still on. It almost feels like the wing gets more stable the more you apply the speed bar.

5) Landings
You must be much more careful about planning landings.
You cannot just mush it in to a small field, you need to make a properlanding approach like on a hang glider. Downwind approach, base leg cross wind and then into wind landing leg. Don't apply brake during the approach, but use the speed to swing into landing applying brake just before touchdown. If you mush it in to land in light winds you will end up in a heap or stalling it.