The FR5: One of the paragliders Bruce Goldsmith designed for Airwave
Bob Drury looks at Bruce Goldsmith’s career in paraglider design, and speaks to the man himself and to Markus Villinger about Bruce’s move to Advance.
Airwave designer Bruce Goldsmith has left the company to start afresh with Swiss paragliding manufacturers Advance.
Bruce, who with three British and a world championship title under his belt, is one of the most decorated pilots in the sport. His career in paraglider design is equally distinguished. Bruce kick-started Airwave’s production of paragliders back in 1989 when he persuaded the then hang gliding manufacturer that paragliders were going to be more than just a passing fad. He was right, and his designs went on to win world championships, World Cups and many national titles.
When in 1998 Airwave collapsed under its original British management Bruce left to start Ozone, with whom he won the PWC Serial Class in 1999 with the Proton, before an acrimonious departure from the company saw him return to Airwave, now resurrected by Markus Villinger and relocated to the Stubai valley in the Austrian Alps. Bruce remained head of design at Airwave for a decade, designing and testing wings from his home in the south of France. He produced such classics as the Magic, Sport and FR series, with which he famously won the 2007 paragliding world championships in Australia – the first pilot to ever win the worlds on a glider they had designed themselves.
“We knew for quite some time that necessary changes should come,” Markus Villinger told XCMag.com this week, “but in the end it was Bruce’s decision to leave after the end of his second 5 year contract, which is expiring now.
“Some of the reasons for sure were the big distance between us. We also just grew in different directions. Another reason is that Bruce and myself are what we call in German ‘Alpha-Animals’ – we both think that only our ideas or ways are the right ones – we’ve always had a good relationship and still have despite differences of opinion in business and design direction. In the end we had 10 good years and are still friends, now more on a private level which is good.”
Bruce’s departure may leave pilots wondering how Airwave will fill his place. Markus however is confident of his replacements.
“Over the years Bruce taught a young and good design team, who were all heavily involved in the design – both on computer and testing. Actually, the popular Sport4, new Tandem and Rodeo were mainly designed and tested by the new team.
“We’ve also hired Mario Eder, who worked first for STV Comet in the old days, then for NOVA for over 10 years, then he went on to become the chief test pilot and technical director of Guido Reusch’s Para Academy testing agency.”
“For Paramotor wing design we hired 26-year-old Pasquale Biondo from Italy six months ago. Pasquale studied Aeronautics for six years in the University of Pisa, has flown paramotors for over 10 years, holds an instructor license and competes at world championship level in paramotoring. Airwave will shortly release the Puma, an easy-to-fly Reflex wing.
Bruce, who has contributed his wealth of knowledge and experience as a designer and top pilot through his column Icaristics at Cross Country magazine for the last 22 years, is currently on holiday in Brazil with his wife and children. When XCMag.com finally caught up with him he was sat poolside at a hotel in the sunshine. Keen to get the lowdown on why Bruce has made such a move and to know whether or not his holiday in Brazil was motivated by it we probed for answers. Bruce was cannily reserved in his reply.
“No, I booked the holiday months ago. Yes, I am moving to Advance. I am leaving Airwave and will be working from home like before but I will be working for Advance instead of Airwave.
“I simply thought I would be better at Advance, and they have an amazing team there working in design.”
XCMag.com spoke to Valéry Chapuis of Advance who added “We’ve known Bruce for over twenty years and have always known him as a pleasant and competent person. He is a great pilot, flying and winning with his own products. While making plans for the coming years we realised the workload of our R&D team would be growing fast. We made the decision that we needed someone new and Bruce’s name came immediately to mind.”
When asked how Bruce would fit in with the current design team, Valery replied “In the beginning Thomas and Bruce will work on their own in their own ways but with the same design specification. We will then test and compare their prototypes taking the best from them. Then they will work together working on the best options. As they both fly, we don’t think it will be a problem to understand each other.”
Valery added “We are confident that, in Bruce, we have found a perfect addition to our development team. Bruce has over 20 years’ experience of developing paragliders and among other things designed his personal World Championship-winning wing. We believe the combined expertise of Bruce and Thomas will further strengthen Advance and enable us to realise new ideas and projects.”
Read Bruce’s Icaristics column on lee side flying in XC128, out in March.
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