Airwave SPORT4

Using new technology fed down from our World Champion competition wings, Airwave designer Bruce Goldsmith has managed to create an intermediate glider with significantly higher performance. Improved pitch and roll stability make this extra performance easy to use – it literally floats to the top of the stack with minimal inputs and glides away from the pack.

Sink Rate
When designing the new Sport4 we started by asking Sport 1, 2, and 3 pilots what they needed most in the glider. Was it better glide or more speed or more safety or stability? By far what pilots appreciated in the Sport3 above all was the ‘easily accessible performance’. Already with the Sport3’s ‘auto thermalling’ handling we were on the right track. This gave pilots the ability to get a good sink rate out of the glider without working too hard and we have further developed this idea on the Sport4. This concept of easily accessible performance with an emphasis on sink rate is what we have worked most on in the design of the Sport4.

Roll Stability

The Sport4 is an evolution of the Sport3 in many ways but it also has a lot of new features as well. It has one less cell at 52 instead of 53. The middle cell has been removed to give more feeling of stability though the harness, which is consistent with our CSS design concept that runs throughout the range of Airwave gliders, but we have opted for more stability to make the wing more accessible.

3 or 4 rows of lines

In recent years there has been a shift from 4 rows of lines to 3 rows of lines in high performance gliders. In fact, Airwave was the first brand to certify a 3 line glider with the DHV in the Magic4. So when we developed the Sport4 we also investigated the idea of having 3 rows. During the development of the Sport4 we had prototypes flying with 3 rows as well as 4 rows of lines and both flew nicely and passed the certification requirements. However, the 3 row glider was not as easy to fly as the 4 row version and so, for the production version of the Sport4,we have designed the wing with 4 rows of lines in the center of the wing and 3 rows in the tip. Thus enabling us to get the best of both worlds.
The Sport4 has only 3 risers which allows us to reduce line length even more - reducing drag and giving better overall performance.

Hybrid Diagonals

The Sport4 is the first of the Sport series of gliders to incorporate hybrid diagonals in the sail. This concept was designed to improve stability at speed as well as low speed performance in my competition glider. The concept has worked so well that I have now been incorporating it in the complete range of Airwave gliders.
There are 2 different styles of diagonal ribs on paragliders. I call these ‘finger ribs’ and ‘solid diagonal ribs’. Most manufacturers use only one style of ribs.

1) Solid Ribs: At Airwave I started by using solid ribs (on the Magic and Sport1 for example). These ribs go from the tab to the top seam of the glider.
2) Finger Ribs: These diagonal ribs start at the tab and go to 90% of the way up the ribs and they need to have a horizontal band that takes the spanwise loads from the finger rib.

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantage of Finger Ribs is that they are lighter and they provide better stability at speed, the disadvantage is lower brake range and worse sink rate.
The Advantage of solid diagonal ribs is they give longer break range, and better sink rate, but are heavier and have less stability at speed.

I have now invented a new type of diagonal ribs, which uses finger ribs on the A and B lines and solid ribs on the C and D lines. This gives a glider all the advantages of solid diagonal ribs and all the advantages of finger ribs as well. The Mustang2 was the first production glider using this new type of diagonal technology and I also used this in the competition glider that I flew (and won!) in the World Championships.

This is a new system that has never been used before and we are now incorporating into all Airwave gliders. It is very exciting and it works very well indeed.

Slightly higher aspect ratio

The AR of the Sport4 has been increased from 5.15 on the Sport2 and 3 to 5.35 on the Sport4. This is a very modest increase in aspect ratio, and the other features of design of the Sport4 mean that we can get better stability and safety from this higher aspect ratio than we had on the Sport3 - enabling us to achieve more performance with better safety.

Sizes: S, M, L, XL
Technical data and colour options: HERE

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