Skywalk Brand Guidelines: The Marquartstein Maker Behind Chili, X-Alps and Jet Flaps

A paraglider maker and a kite brand under one roof.

Skywalk dates its start to 17 October 2001, the day it says the Skywalk GmbH & Co. KG project “was put into action.” English Wikipedia, citing the World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2003-04, gives the same year and places the company in Marquartstein, Bavaria. The company writes its own name in lower case, as “skywalk,” across much of its copy.

Accounts of the founding differ. English Wikipedia names Manfred Kistler and Thomas Allertseder as the founders. The company’s own 2021 anniversary series says Skywalk and Flysurfer were “originally founded by six people”: Armin Harich, Arne Wehrlin, Allertseder and Kistler, with Jürgen Kraus and Ralf Grösel involved for a short time. Elsewhere on its site the company speaks of “four friends” and “the four founders.”

The group already knew one another from paragliding. English Wikipedia says Kistler had worked for Swing Flugsportgeräte and that Allertseder had been a director of Betech. The anniversary series says Kistler was head of design at another paraglider maker and that Allertseder developed lines for a company in the industry. Wehrlin, in a December 2021 interview on the Skywalk site, says he joined Swing as a test pilot in 1997 and met Kistler there, and that he had met Harich flying in the flatlands and helped in Harich’s paragliding shop in 1993.

Two brands came together in the new business. Harich brought Flysurfer, already an existing kite brand, and the founders wanted a paragliding company; the company says that let both share a production base, because contacts in Asia were already in place. Kistler and Wehrlin had also started a brand called Paramarine, later renamed Wingaker.

The company describes the first three years as very difficult. The global economy was in a slump, it says, and paragliding was an established market with “pure cut-throat competition,” while in kitesurfing the newcomers stood out with their soft kite system. Wehrlin recalls building kite bars, processing orders and packing every parcel himself. The first glider was the Hype, an intermediate wing certified DHV 1-2, followed in 2003 by the Cayenne, certified DHV 2, according to English Wikipedia.

A slot in the wing and a letter on the sail.

Skywalk’s signature feature began on a kite. The company says the Flysurfer development team was looking in 2002 at how to improve its kites, and that Kistler, an aerospace engineer, reached for the flaps used on aircraft wings. The result was the Jet Flap, a channel that opens under braking and lets air pass from the underside of the wing to the top. In its 2021 history the company says Jet Flaps are part of nearly all its paragliders, and calls them an “unmistakable design feature next to the distinctive ‘A’.” Cross Country called them “Skywalk’s trademark jet flaps” when it reported the Chili 6 in August 2026.

Model names lean towards the kitchen and the bar. Current wings include the Chili, Mescal, Tequila and Masala, and Cross Country played on the habit in July 2026 with the headline “Skywalk add spice to their reserve parachute range,” reporting the Pepper Cross Light2 and Salsa2 reserves. The range itself runs from the Mescal 7 and Masala 4, both EN A in Cross Country’s reports of 2026 and 2024, to the Chili 6, a high EN-B 2.5-liner, and the two-line EN D Poison 4 and X-Alps6 of 2025.

Cloth is part of the story too. Skywalk says it developed TX-Light from the X-Light material used in Flysurfer kites, adding reinforcing threads to the ripstop, and that it first appeared on the Cayenne 6. Cross Country reported in August 2026 that the Chili 6 uses Dominico TX-Light cloth.

Small graphic details carry through the kit. Skywalk’s product page for the Chili 6 describes colour-coded seams on the risers, red for left and blue for right, and says the same seams appear on its newer harnesses. Cross Country noted a “five point safety check pictogram” on the risers of the Mescal 7, and coloured, numbered packing loops on the new reserves.

The X-Alps name ties the brand to the Red Bull X-Alps hike-and-fly race. Cross Country reported in July 2025 that the X-Alps6 was developed for the race and flown there by Skywalk’s team pilots, including Simon Oberrauner, who took third place, Skywalk said. The brand’s slogan is “Pure passion for flying,” and its Brand Stories 2024 page presents films and projects by its athletes.

Wings, lines and launch slopes.

A paraglider has no bodywork or badge plate, so most of what a maker shows the world is cloth. The wing is the largest thing it builds, and it is seen in two main ways: spread out on a launch slope before take-off, or overhead in the air. Makers’ websites and catalogues return to those two views again and again.

Colour comes in panels, because a wing is sewn from many pieces of sail cloth rather than painted. Makers often sell a small set of schemes: Cross Country reported in February 2026 that one new wing came in two standard colour schemes. The cloth is named as well, by mill and weight, in launch notes and reviews, and the stitched cell openings along the leading edge are among the details a close-up photograph tends to pick out.

Engineering drawing is part of the look. Manuals carry line plans and riser diagrams, and catalogues add feature tables and glossaries, so a brand’s printed material can read like technical documentation. Video does a similar job in a friendlier voice. Test pilots and designers appear on camera to explain what went into a new wing, and Cross Country has filmed one such session at a maker’s headquarters.

The trade’s shop window is the Coupe Icare festival. Cross Country describes its expo as a chance to see all the free-flight brands together in one space, and as the moment when companies celebrate their successes and announce next season’s gliders and harnesses. Stands there can be part of the brand: Ojo Volador reported that one maker marked its founder’s 40 years in free flight in 2018 with a party on its stand, a special red harness and live Korean folk music. This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker, and marks what rests only on the company’s own word.

Developed in the Alps, produced in Asia.

Skywalk is plain about where its wings are made. “Developed in the Alps – produced in Asia,” its December 2021 profile of the producer James Noh begins. The company says it had its gliders sewn by different producers from the start, and quotes Wehrlin saying that the know-how “has long since been in Asia” and that labour costs are not the only reason. Noh began in the 1990s with the South Korean maker Edel, the article says, then started his own production in South Korea and later moved to Thailand.

In 2018, the company says, that relationship became a joint venture, Acrocross/skywalk, with a new site in Chon Buri, Thailand. It described about 180 employees there in 2021, making paragliders, reserves and harnesses exclusively for Skywalk, close to Noh’s separate business that produces for other brands. The company says its development team flies to Thailand several times a year to train production staff. Those figures are the company’s own and date from 2021.

Development stays in Bavaria. Skywalk says it moved to a new building in Marquartstein in 2012, with the Hochgern as its local mountain and a landing area at the door, though a caption on its brand page dates the new head office to 2013. Research and development, workshop, warehouse and customer service are all under one roof there, it says.

The group has changed shape along the way. IKSURFMAG described three divisions in August 2013: Skywalk, Flysurfer and the inflatable tent maker X-Gloo. Skywalk says it built X-Gloo up from 2007 and that the tent brand has been independent of the group since 2018. Its brand page now describes a team of more than 60 and says the company’s work with air and lightweight materials also led it into developing a wind power station.

The company’s legal notice names Arne Wehrlin and Erik Birndt as authorised directors, and it describes Wehrlin as head of Skywalk Paragliders. The brand remains active: Cross Country reported the Twist reversible harness and the new reserves in July 2026, and the Chili 6 that August.

For a design guide, Skywalk shows how an engineering detail can do the work of a brand signature, with a slot in the wing named alongside a letter on the sail. Compare Swing, where Kistler and Wehrlin worked before Skywalk, and Ozone, another maker of both kites and paragliders. For this guide we use an alpine blue, a pale glacier tone and a chili red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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