Contact Details
Mr Rob Hibberd
Marketing Director
Unit 22/30 Kalaroo Road
Redhead NSW 2290
W www.airborne.com.au...
E fly@airborne.com.au...
Airborne Windsports
The design and manufacture of a flexwing or weightshift microlight aircraft.
An innovative aircraft designer and manufacturer is finding huge international success with a flexwing micro-light that has broad recreational and commercial applications.
Airborne Windsports manufactures a large range of micro-lights, ultra-lights, hang gliders and trikes, but it is the XT-912 and XT-582 that are attracting major attention for their inventive design. While micro-lights are not new technology, these have made significant technological advancement to increase range, speed and handling.
The company’s marketing manager Rob Hibberd, said one of the major differences with these aircraft from standard micro-lights was the shape and design of the wing.
“The airfoil design has significantly improved performance,” he said.
“Our designs also have remote landing capabilities due to improved undercarriage design.”
Now regarded as a world leader in its field, Airborne was established in 1983 and operates out of Redhead near Newcastle Australia. The company employs 30 people and exports to more than 30 countries.
Mr Hibberd said the improved versatility of the new micro-light aircraft had made it more appealing across the board, not just for the recreational users. Although this is the company’s main client base, the new aircraft design has opened up potential markets that could be highly lucrative for the company.
“It is appealing for commercial use, where a higher speed is required to cover ground quickly and the lower speed required to land the aircraft in very rough terrain,” he said.
“We have aircraft operating in national parks in Sumatra for orangutan monitoring and protection, allowing the pilot to cover a lot of ground and fly in fairly high wind and turbulence.”
Airborne aircraft have also been used in West Africa for elephant protection, and are currently used in China to protect a massive oil pipeline from thieves.
“In the past it would have been impractical for such an aircraft because of low speeds, low fuel and the inability to fly in extreme conditions,” Mr Hibberd said.