The Ozone Enzo is a French single-place two-line competition

paraglider Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or lies supine in a cocoon-like 'po ...

that was designed by Luc Armant and produced by

Ozone Gliders Ozone Gliders Limited is an aircraft manufacturer based in Le Bar-sur-Loup, France, although it is registered in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of paragliders in the form of ready-to-fly aircraft.Bertra ...

. Two-line gliders have only A and B lines and lack the C or D lines traditionally used on paragliders, in an attempt to reduce

aerodynamic drag In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called air resistance, a type of friction, or fluid resistance, another type of friction or fluid friction) is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fl ...

. In 2020 the Enzo remained in production as the Enzo 3 variant.

Design and development

The Enzo was designed as a competition glider. Until 2011, top level competition paragliders used to compete in an "open class", a class of paragliders that did not require certification except for a mandatory load test of the lines. This resulted in very fast, but unsafe paragliders. After a series of fatal accidents, multiple national paragliding organizations made EN 926 certifications mandatory for wings used in competitions, essentially banning the open class. Manufacturers were now tasked with creating competition wings that would get an EN certification while still performing well. Ozone's take on this was the Enzo, with the name not only being a nod to Enzo Ferrari, but also a partial anagram of the company's name, and the 'EN' certification it achieved. The Enzo and its variants dominated the paragliding competition scene that followed the end of the open class, with the only major competitors being the

Gin Boomerang The Gin Boomerang is a South Korean single-place, paraglider that was designed by Gin Seok Song and produced by Gin Gliders of Yongin. In 2016 it remained in production as the Boomerang 10.Bertrand, Noel; Rene Coulon; et al: ''World Directory o ...

and the Niviuk Icepeak. This trend continued throughout the 2010 years, the 2019 paragliding world championship saw 83 of 150 pilots flying an Enzo 3, with only two of the top 20 pilots flying something else. The design has progressed through three generations of models as of 2020, the original Enzo and then Enzo 2 and 3, each improving on the last. The models are each named for their relative size. The Enzo 3 is made from Dominico DOKDO 30D MF / Porcher 7000 E71 cloth on the upper surface, with Dominico DOKDO 30D MF / Porcher 7000 E71 on the lower wing surface. The ribs are Porcher 9017 E29 / Porcher 7000 E91. The upper lines are Edelrid 8000U 130/090/070/050/025kg, with the middle and lower lines all Edelrid 8000U.

Design and development

Variants

Specifications (Enzo 3 L)

References

External links