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Porcher Industries is participating in the Red Bull X-Alps adventure race that began July 2. The 2017 course is a straight-line distance of 1138 kilometers across the Alps. Racers may only run, hike or fly their paragliders to navigate the course’s series of turning points that take them from Salzburg, Austria, to Monaco on the Mediterranean coast. The competition is regarded by many to be the world’s toughest adventure race; only half the starters are expected to finish.
This year, 32 of the world’s top paragliders and mountain runners will start the race, and many of them will be using Porcher’s Skytex 27 on their paragliders. Porcher touts the product, which weighs just 27 grams per square meter, as the lightest material in the world. It’s used by manufacturers of a range of competition paragliders and kites. Specifically engineered with an optimized warp design, Skytex 27 also uses a Porcher-developed PU coating for stability in flight.
Christian Maurer has won the last four X-Alps races and is the current course record holder, having completed the 2015 course in just over eight days. Maurer used a Skywalk X-ALPS3 glider when he set off from Salzburg. The S3 is Skywalk’s latest tapered wing competition glider and uses Porcher Industries Skytex 27.
Porcher Industries weaves high-performance textiles and is a key supplier to the flying sports market.