The story
Founded by Jean Saint-Germain in 1979.1
In 1979 the Canadian inventor Jean Saint-Germain came up with the idea of the first vertical wind tunnel for bodyflight. After accumulating investments of $450,000, he opened the first commercial wind tunnel in Saint-Simon-de-Bagot, 50 miles east of Montreal. Saint-Germain, who was a former parachutist in the army, owned two parachute schools as he came to the idea that an Aerodium would help his students to practice free falling more efficiently.
In 1982 Jean Saint-Germain sold the vertical wind tunnel concept to Les Thompson and Marvin Kratter, who went on to build their own wind tunnels in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Las Vegas, Nevada, respectively. Soon after, Saint-Germain sold the franchising rights to Kratter for $1.5 million.
Originally known as the "Aérodium", it was patented as the "Levitationarium" by Jean Saint-Germain in the US in 1984 and 1994 under Patent Nos. 4,457,509 and 5,318,481, respectively.
In 2003, after meeting François Saint-Germain (son of Jean Saint-Germain), the Latvian entrepreneur Ivars Beitāns decided to elaborate on the Aerodium wind tunnel concept. In summer 2005 the first wind tunnel in Eastern Europe was opened in Sigulda, Latvia. Step by step improving and upgrading the technical solutions, the company started manufacturing commercial wind tunnels in Latvia under the name Aerodium Technologies.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aerodium, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4