The Airframe of the Fly sports the latest in Hang Glider frame technology. This is most noticeable when you pick up the glider. The rubber backed aerofoil uprights are great to hold and the rubber back makes ground handling so much easier. When the day arrives a that you do a less than perfect landing and the uprights bends to absorb some of the energy like a crumple zone you can change the upright easily and quickly without the need of any tools at all.

This is the only glider of this 'fun class' to have aerofoil upights. Most ship with the much cheaper looking round uprights.

The special fittings in the upright corners are beautifully machined and offer lots of other benefits that are not immediately obvious just by looking. When rigging the unique top of upright ball joint gives supper smooth operation but also has a movement limit. This makes rigging and de-rigging on the keel a lot easier as the glider does not flop about. Of course you'll never notice until you try and rig a non Avian machine that flops all over the place.

Nearly all hang gliding instructors think the best first glider for students is one with exposed cross tubes like the Fly. This is essentially because they are light to carry quick to rig and easy to fly and land. However the fast learning new might want to move on quickly to a higher performance concealed cross tube glider like the Rio 2. Up to now this has always involved buying a new hang glider.

Avian have made a major break through with the Fly. At last it is a glider that can be upgraded. Because it uses the ultra modern Rio 2 Airframe a new Rio sail and a few other components are all that are needed to convert it to a Rio 2. If you have looked after you Fly really well then most of it can keep flying as higher performance Rio 2. True this is not a trivial job but you can save so much money compared to buying a new Rio 2 but you end up with what looks like a brand new Rio 2.