Nicolas Caillou - F-one Frigate V2

What we talk about

• How Nico came to design parawings for F-One, building on his kite and paraglider experience
• Parawings aren't paragliders: gusty home conditions and a focus on depower shaped the Frigate V1
• The Frigate V2: around 15 prototypes, a month and a half of delay, more ribs, higher aspect ratio and the double dynamic bridle from the Quest
• Aims for the V2: flatter upwind performance across the wind range, shorter lines (the 4m is about 15% shorter) and better speed and tacking on flat water
• The pack assist lines from the Quest, which mean one way to stow the wing instead of three
• Where each wing sits: the Quest for beginners, the Frigate V2 for intermediate to expert riders, and why F-One hasn't added trim systems to either
• F-One's R&D team, testing double skin and hybrid designs, factory visits for quality control, and Nico's Room 101 pick of the old slalom kite racing boards

About this episode

We finally managed to sit down with Nico at AWSI this year. This was a goal we never achieved in 2025, despite having a very brief chat with him in a café queue the day before leaving. The F-One parawings have been awesome products and we were really interested to hear how the conversation had gone getting him involved with the brand at that time.

Nico gives us a run though his background prior to F-one and the design process he's gone through with the Frigate V1, Quest V1 and now the all new Frigate V2. He opens up on how its been moving from working under his own business and now working with the Salles under the F-One banner.

Another of our chats from this years AWSI show - with a good few more to come yet - hopefully the addition of video this year is of interest to some folks!

Anyone who caught us at the right time at both the AWSI event and the KFC event this year will have benefitted from these beer tokens also - so its definitely not a selfish act!