ABOUT US
About us
OUR MISSION
NZ Aerosports was founded in 1986 with a simple objective: to provide skydivers with the experience of pure wild flight. This goal led founder Paul ‘Jyro’ Martyn on a journey to develop the world’s most comprehensive range of sports and high performance parachutes with the Icarus Canopies and Daedalus Project brands. NZ Aerosports is on a mission to provide pilots with the best flying experience one canopy after another. We are constantly working to bring you the best wings. We push the envelope. We innovate.


01 / 30

02 / 30

03 / 30

04 / 30

05 / 30

06 / 30

07 / 30

08 / 30

09 / 30

10 / 30

11 / 30

12 / 30

13 / 30

14 / 30

15 / 30

16 / 30

17 / 30

18 / 30

19 / 30

20 / 30

21 / 30

22 / 30

23 / 30

24 / 30

25 / 30

26 / 30

27 / 30

28 / 30

29 / 30

30 / 30
Our Factory
The original NZ Aerosports factory at 46A Sussex Street is a piece of history. Scraped paint and graffiti hid a tiny gem in the heart of Auckland. The beer garden had countless parties, numerous skydiving greats visit and sign the door of fame, and was the birthplace of many of our greatest ideas. Production outgrew Sussex Street, and in September 2014 we moved into a new factory just up the road at Level 4, 137 Great North Rd. What was once office space was transformed into a factory full of plants, history and life. Our doors are always open, so if you find yourself in Auckland on your travels, come and visit us for a beer or five.
Founder
PAUL ‘Jyro’ MARTyn
Self-proclaimed omnipotent dictator Jyro was the life and soul of NZ Aerosports. He was a quirky, eccentric genius, with a scientific eye and an artistic, romantic heart. He passed away in 2017, but his legacy remains at the core of who NZ Aerosports is. His motto: don’t fuck up, have a phat time, be the best. We keep pushing hard like Jyro did – because as he would say, there’s fun to be had.
our People
Luci
Omnipotent Dictatoress
luci@nzaerosports.com
Jen
Head of Customer WOW!
jen@nzaerosports.com
Attila
Big Boss
info@nzaerosports.com
Matt
Sales Monkey
sales@nzaerosports.com
Julien
Scientific Parachute Maestro
julien@nzaerosports.com
Beedo
Dealer Sales Monkey
beedo@nzaerosports.com
Richie
Production Head Honcho
richie@nzaerosports.com
Yan
Canopy Fixer-Upperer
support@nzaerosports.com
Shan
Director of Awesomeness
marketing@nzaerosports.com
Stewy
Test Jumper, Video Editor & Athlete Manager
stewy@nzaerosports.com
Snelly
Product Development & Test Jumper
snelly@nzaerosports.com
Kamal Fernando
Production Supervisor
Kovi Mongelli
Facility Development Manager
Samba
Machinist
Lynne
Machinist Training Manager
Renuka
Machinist
Arlo
Parachute Rigger
Alex “MR.O600”
Parachute Rigger
Helga
Machinist
Appy Sandhu
Chief of Random Jobs
Kaur
Machinist
Kate Wemyss
Miss Money Bags
accounts@nzaerosports.com
Maria
Parachute Rigger
Dons
Machinist
Prabhath (Mali)
Parachute Rigger
Pae
Machinist
Yannie
Machinist
Ashley
Machinist
Saman
Machinist
Xaos
Quality Controller
Our History
Who’s Paul?
1980
1980
Who’s Paul?
Early 80s – Paul Martyn is a young man in love with skydiving, and completely broke. He starts to make log books, jump suits, and other gear – anything to fund his jumping. Along the way he picks up a nickname – JYRO for ‘Jump Your Ring Out’. No one really calls him Paul ever again.
1985
The beginning of something great
Jyro starts to make skydiving parachutes under the name “Icarus by JYRO” The first canopies were a few Pegasus copies for friends, then Jyro began gradually elevating the performance levels of the designs of the day.
ICARUS
1990
1990
ICARUS
In the early 90s Jyro changed the brand name to “Icarus Canopies” – and in ‘94 NZ Aerosports became an incorporated company.
Leading the change
1995
1995
Leading the change
In the late 80s PD brought out the Excalibur canopy showcasing a brand new construction method – the tri-brace (now ubiquitously known as ‘crossbraced’). Jyro knew that this was a big step forward, and wanted to combine this with another exciting new piece of technology – ZP fabric. Many, many prototypes followed, but while they flew hotter than ever, the openings weren’t good enough for the market. Jyro and the team just about went crazy and broke trying to make it work, but then…..
NZ Aerosports released the Mk 1 Icarus EXTreme in 1995, the first ZP crossbraced canopy on the market, and high performance canopies changed forever. In 1997, the upgraded FX (Fucking eXtreme) was released featuring the closed nose seen on all HP canopies these days. 2 Years later the PD Velocity was released based on the same format – the industry leader Jyro took inspiration from was now looking to him! Because he was a cheeky bastard, Jyro released the first crossbraced 9 cell – the VX – on the very same day.
Icarus World(wide)
1999
1999
Icarus World(wide)
In 1999 NZ Aerosports was growing in notoriety, and demand quickly outstripped Jyro and his small team’s capacity. In response, he signed licensing agreements with CIMSA in Spain, and Precision in the US – more people than ever were now able to jump Icarus Canopies! Precision later left and came out with their own versions of these designs.
2007
Last of the old school
After that there were upgrades and performance enhancements to our range, and Jyro developed and released the JFX and JVX, pushing the existing crossbraced designs even further. There hadn’t been anything groundbreaking for a while however…
2010
Summer of Love – Birth of the hyper-performance wing
In 2010, a young French skydiver with an aerospace engineer’s degree came to NZ for a holiday, visited the factory and – as happens more often than not – left with a job making linesets. It didn’t take long for Jyro to realise who he had, and Julien never made another lineset. Between Julien’s technical knowledge and high tech computational design processes, and Jyro’s passion for design and uncanny intuition for canopy characteristics, the infamous ‘Summer of Love’ prototyping fest was embarked on. This culminated in a wing leagues better than anything else being made at the time – Petra. Petra still holds all major Canopy Piloting records – fending off newer entrants to the ‘hyper performance’ market.
Going Solo
2016
2016
Going Solo
A Legend signs off
2017
2017
A Legend signs off
Shortly after the 2017 PIA Symposium, Jyro passed away. It’s been incredibly hard on us as a company and individually – most of us considered him a close personal friend. We’re buoyed by the fact that he left a legacy of canopy design that’s worked its way throughout the market, and will last for a very very long time. Our job is to continue on in his footsteps and honour his legacy. Our mission statement is still JYRO’s: DON’T KILL ANYBODY. STAY OUT OF THE SHIT. HAVE A PHAT TIME. MAKE SOME MONEY. CONQUER THE WORLD.
2017
Who’s steering the ship now?!
After Jyro passed away, the company was handed to Luci, his daughter. The new shareholders are now Luci, Attila, Richie, and Julien. We work well as a team and continue to work towards Jyro’s vision and values, all while adding our own spices to the mix.
2017
The start of the great Icabus demo tour
In 2017 a brave young man by the name of Rilee set off on the first official NZA demo tour of the USA. With a big old RV stickered up to the nines, he powered through what was a blur of jumping, meeting amazing people, enjoying a beer or 2, recovering and repeating. The following year the demo tour was expanded to Europe, with our very own testie Chris Stewart taking the reins. The boys spread the word of NZA all while having a blast, even if they can’t remember every amazing moment…
2018
Sleia takes the stage
In January of 2018 Leia, our beloved princess, got a make over and become a sky shredding heavy metal goddess. Full sail material and a modified line trim, this unexpected and probably unnecessary new wing (but still shitloads of fun) carved up the sky like it was no ones business. While Sleia was a hit, she burnt bright but brief as she was a limited release…but you never know, she might make a glorious return in the future.
Jyro Boogie 1
2018
2018
Jyro Boogie 1
Between the 1st and the 4th of March the first ever Jyro boogie took place at Skydive Auckland, created to celebrate the legend and everything he stood for. World class load organisers from all over the world were in charge of keeping the stoke high in the sky, while others made sure night time load oraganising was taken care of. The boogie ended with everyone coming together remembering Jyro and partying like it was the last day on earth, this we know he would have been proud of and also probably would have been the last man standing.
Release the Kraken
2019
2019
Release the Kraken
On the 25th of July and after only a few minor delays (cough, cough) the wait was finally over, our very first wingsuit specific canopy was released. No longer a mythical beast, the Kraken is packed full of new technology and innovation to give it the amazing on heading buttery soft openings that we know the bird people love. Not to mention this beast can be taken on slick jumps…how good!
Jyro Boogie 2
2020
2020
Jyro Boogie 2
This time around it was time to move the boogie to a new DZ and even a new country, from the 13th to the 17th of February, Skydive Oz in Moruya hosted Jyro boogie 2. With more coaches and more participants, the stage was set for this thing to be kicked into another gear and it most definitely was. Amazing jumps, awesome people and of course a party Jyro would have been proud of, or at least we think so, the details are a little fuzzy… Where to next you say? We’ll let you know when the dust has settled from the epicness that was Jyro Boogie 2, might be a couple of years…
2020
The great Global weather hold
It was late March and we were keeping an eye on the unfolding global situation Covid-19, but before we knew it, like most of the world, New Zealand was put into a strict lockdown. We had a fire sale on our stock canopies, shipped every order we could in our remaining days of freedom and finally migrated back to our homes not knowing for how long. While our office staff set up their home offices (also known as a laptop in bed) and learned all about zoom meetings, our factory staff enjoyed same extra family time which maybe at some points was a little too much extra. Production ceased and plans were being made for when the doors could finally open again. When this did happen and we came out of hibernation 2 months later, production kicked back into gear but it was clear that things would never quite be the same and there would be more challenges to come…
Moving time
2020
2020
Moving time
In November of 2020 a new era was beginning. Due to the continued growth of the company and the financial pressure that Covid-19 had created, it was time to start our next chapter. From a boujee office space in central Auckland to a larger more practical space further south, we had found the place we would call home for years to come. It might not be close to all the fancy bars but the beer fridge still works and the place is equipped to make the worlds best canopies (we might be a little biased). The move began in November and was complete by Christmas but there are still a few final touches to be added, such is the way when moving house.
2021
Another Tiny World Record
In 2006 Luigi Cani landed a JVX 37, it was the smallest canopy every landed making it an “unofficial” world record. Then in 2014 an “official” Guinness world record was set by Ernesto Gainza, landing a JVX 35 and beating the previous record. In 2020 Luigi decided he was going to beat it again and in January 2021 after meticulous training on slightly larger canopies (still considered beach towels), he did just that and landed a Sleia 34. Although considered “unofficial” to some, it’s official in our eyes and that’s good enough for us, not to mention all of the canopies used are made right here in NZ!
2022
What’s happening now and where to next?
As we begin 2022 the ongoing affects of Covid-19 remain. With multiple lockdowns happening since the first one back in March of 2020, we are working hard to bring our lead times down and press forward with R&D. Our goal is always to be the innovators of the industry and this hasn’t changed despite the position we and many other companies have found themselves in. Luci has grown into a leader her dad Jyro would be proud of and together with the shareholders are insuring NZ Aerosports has a future to look forward to.