Airwave was created in 1979, originally as a Hang Glider manufacturer on the Isle of Wight. Graham Deegan was a sail designer and Rory Carter specialised in the hardware design.

Airwave’s early successes were on the Magic series of Hang Gliders, with a team of British pilots who dominated the World Hang Gliding Competition circuit for over ten years.

Pacific Windcraft (USA) became part of Airwave circa 1983, from Pacific Airwave to PacAir. In 1986 PacAir closed the doors.

Airwave Gliders’ production moved to China in the middle of 1997 but the company’s headquarters remains on the Isle of Wight.

1998: Elm Lane, Shalfleet, Newport, UK PO30 4JY Isle of Wight, UK

Even though sales of Airwave gliders were strong, the company was in a deep financial crisis. As a result of this Bruce left and the old Airwave collapsed and folded.

The production of the Xtrem started 1.5 year before Airwave UK shut down. Only about 40 were produced mostly shipped to the US, Brazil, Japan and some in France. Its newer version is called the Xbow, was certified in the 138 (140 Sq ft) version 4 months before the factury shutdown (35 sold in 3 months).

After running Wills Wing Europe in the early 1990´s, in November 1999, Markus Villinger took over Airwave and the company moved to his home town of Stubai, in the Austrian Alps.

Industriegebeit zone A2
A-6166 Fulpmes
Austria

Hang Gliders are made in the Airwave factory, while paragliders are manufactured by subcontractors.

Bruce Goldsmith, an engineer, joined Airwave in May 2000, set up Airwave Paragliders and started designing Airwave’s paragliders from his home in Greolieres, France.

Starting in spring 2005 Airwave have been doing wind tunnel testing as well as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis to study the gliders as well as the traditional full scale test flying procedures.