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Klapmeier brothers

January 20, 2023

The Klapmeier brothers, Alan Lee Klapmeier (born October 6, 1958)[1] and Dale Edward Klapmeier (born July 2, 1961),[1] are retired American aircraft designers and aviation entrepreneurs who together founded the Cirrus Design Corporation in 1984. Under the leadership of the Klapmeiers, Cirrus was the first aircraft manufacturer to install a whole-plane parachute recovery system as a standard on all its models—designed to lower the airplane (and occupants) safely to the ground in case of an emergency.[2] The device is attributed with saving over 200 lives to date.[3] From the brothers' use of all-composite airframe construction and glass panel cockpits on production aircraft, Cirrus is known for having revolutionized general aviation for modern light aircraft pilots.[4][5][6][7][8]

The Klapmeier brothers
Dale (left) and Alan Klapmeier speaking at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2008
Occupation(s)Aviation entrepreneurs, aircraft designers
Years active1979–2009 (as duo)
Known forCirrus Aircraft founders, Cirrus SR20 and SR22, Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, Cirrus Vision SF50, pioneers of manufactured composite-airframes and glass cockpits
Parent(s)Larry and Carol Klapmeier
AwardsSee below
Alan Klapmeier
Born (1958-10-06) October 6, 1958 (age 64)
Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
Alma materRipon College Wisconsin
Years active2010–2021 (as head of Kestrel)
Spouse(s)Patti Graves (divorced)
Sara Dougherty
Children2
Board member ofEAA, MVP.aero (current)
GAMA, Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association (SAMA), AERObridge, AOPA's Air Safety Foundation (former)
Dale Klapmeier
Born (1961-07-02) July 2, 1961 (age 61)
Rockford, Illinois, US
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Years active2009–2019 (as head of Cirrus)
Spouse(s)Patricia Meyer
Children2
Board member ofAKIA, AirSpace Minnesota (current)
EAA's Young Eagles Program, Red Tail Squadron, NASA's Research & Technology Roundtable, Scott D. Anderson Leadership Foundation (former)

Forbes magazine named Cirrus's highly popular single-engine SR-series (the SR20 and SR22, certified in 1998 and 2000 respectively) Best Private Airplane, saying "the Klapmeier brothers built the first genuinely new plane in the sky in many years",[9] Time magazine regarded them as "giving lift to the small-plane industry with an easy-to-fly design",[10] and Flying magazine ranked Alan and Dale at number 17 on its list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation; they are the two highest-ranked living people on the list.[6] The Klapmeier brothers were inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2014.[8][11]

The brothers started Cirrus in the basement of their parents' rural dairy barn near Baraboo, Wisconsin.[12][13] Their first design, the VK-30 homebuilt aircraft, was introduced in 1987, although sales of the kit fluctuated and deliveries ultimately ceased only a few years later.[14] As the company grew they moved it in 1994 to Duluth, Minnesota, where from 2003 until his departure from Cirrus in 2009, Alan had heavy influence over the early design and development of the Vision Jet. Dale then continued the program, leading it to certification in 2016 and production in the ensuing years. The aircraft won the Collier Trophy in 2018 for representing the first jet of its kind to enter the market.[15][16]

After Cirrus, Alan became CEO of Kestrel Aircraft in 2010, which merged with Eclipse Aerospace in 2015 to form One Aviation.[17][18] The company ended operations in 2021.[19] Dale remains at Cirrus as a senior advisor and served as its CEO from 2011 to 2019.[20][21]

Background

Early life

Alan and Dale Klapmeier grew up in DeKalb, Illinois and attended DeKalb High School.[22] Their parents bought a second home in the early 1970s on a small, rural farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin. Aviation was a part of the brothers' lives from a very early age; Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that when he was a baby, the only way his mother could get him to stop crying at times was to bring him to an airport and park the car at the end of the runway so he could watch airplanes.[10] As young children the brothers frequently built model airplanes and rode their bicycles to local airports.[10][23] When Dale reached the age of 15, he learned to fly in a Cessna 140 before learning to drive a car.[10][22] Alan joined the Civil Air Patrol at age 17 as a way of receiving more affordable flying lessons. In his youth he often spoke about how he and his younger brother would one day design and build aircraft that would compete with Cessna.[22][24][25]

Family

Alan and Dale are two of three children born to Larry and Carol Klapmeier. They come from an entrepreneurial family. The eldest brother, Ernie Klapmeier, opened his own accessory store of military reenactment goods and regalia in Aurora, Illinois and managed the shop for many years since its founding in 1997;[10][26] their uncle, Jim Klapmeier, and grandfather, Elmer Klapmeier, were both entrepreneurs in the boat manufacturing industry and started as a two-person company building pontoon-like houseboats on Rainy Lake, Minnesota throughout the 1950s.[27] Elmer ran a second business flying a "puddle jumper" plane around Wisconsin delivering parts to dairy farmers,[25] while Jim later moved the boat project to a facility in Mora, Minnesota where he grew and retained it for several decades, transitioning into the market of fiberglass motor yachts.[27]

Larry and Carol were also entrepreneurs who founded a successful nursing home near Chicago, of which the three brothers worked at as kids doing janitorial chores during the 1960s and 1970s.[25][28]

Education

Alan graduated in 1980 from Wisconsin's Ripon College with degrees in physics and economics.[17][29] While a senior there in 1979, he began developing sketches of an airplane that would become the Cirrus VK-30,[11] and worked for more than three years in the Ripon admissions office while Dale finished college.[30] Dale graduated in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point with degrees in business administration and economics.[31][32] He once said that his fall-back plan was to become a banker had their early career in aviation never succeeded.[32]

Career

Early work

In 1979, Dale discovered a wrecked 1960 Aeronca Champ flipped over and abandoned at an airport in northern Wisconsin. The brothers then bought the plane from its owner with the very little money they had and rebuilt it in the shed at their family farmhouse.[10] This was their first experience working on an aircraft as a self-taught restoration project, followed by the making of a Glasair I they saw introduced by homebuilt aircraft engineer and entrepreneur Tom Hamilton at the 1980 EAA Convention and Fly-In (now called AirVenture) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. David Gustafson of Aircraft Spruce reported that the only way the Klapmeier brothers' parents would lend them the money to buy a Glasair was if they wrote up a business plan explaining why constructing a homebuilt would further their professional lives.[24]

Cirrus Aircraft

1980s: VK-30, barn, inspiration for parachute, municipal airport

 
Klapmeier brothers in 1984 outside their parents' dairy barn near Baraboo, Wisconsin. (Alan sitting in chair as Dale holds up a cutout of the first Cirrus VK-30 kit)

Soon after Dale graduated from college the brothers formed an aircraft company in January 1984,[30] which they named "Cirrus Design" (now known as Cirrus Aircraft) in remembrance of a summer drive they had a few years back where they saw cirrus clouds on the horizon and wished that they were flying.[33] Once they started the company, the Klapmeiers called upon Alan's former college roommate, Jeff Viken, to help out with their new design: the VK-30 (VK standing for Viken-Klapmeier). Viken was an aeronautical engineer who eventually married another aeronautical engineer, Sally Viken, and the unpaid Cirrus staff grew to four volunteers (with occasional help from the Klapmeiers' high school friend, Scott Ellenberger).[24] The Cirrus VK-30 was a single-engine five-seat composite pusher with conventional wings and tail. Alan and Dale moved into the family farmhouse to be closer to the project and began work on the airplane in the basement of the barn "down where the cows were".[10] They all pitched in with the designing and balanced that with hands-on labor. Jeff designed the airfoil while Sally designed the flap system. The four of them would finish designing a part or a system, build it, and return to designing.[24] Experimental aircraft innovator Molt Taylor gave the Klapmeiers and Vikens technical advice surrounding the VK-30.[14]

 
Dale (left) and Alan spreading resin over the VK-30's fiberglass mold in the basement of their barn, about 1985

The Klapmeier brothers would often fly their Champ from the farm up to their uncle's boat-building business in Mora to borrow tools and other supplies—such as polyester resin—for building the plane and molding its fuselage.[22][24] To reduce cost, they went to different junk yards around Wisconsin and bought what they needed: a control system out of a wrecked Piper aircraft, a Cherokee nose landing gear to weld parts onto it and convert it to a retractable gear, and an O-540 (290 hp) engine they got off a scrapped de Havilland Heron. The first VK-30 slowly took shape.[24]

In 1985, near the Sauk–Prairie Airport shortly after takeoff, Alan was involved in a fatal mid-air collision where the airplane he was flying, a Cessna 182, lost a portion of its wing including half of the aileron. The other plane, a Piper PA-15, spun into the ground killing the pilot, but Alan was able to maneuver a landing back on the runway by keeping high airspeed and using full aileron deflection. From surviving this incident, Alan sought to make flying safer—ultimately leading to the brothers' pursuit of implementing a parachute on all their designs starting in the mid-1990s.[10][34][35][36][37]

 
Original Cirrus Design headquarters on the Baraboo-Dells Airport

In 1986, the Klapmeiers hired their first paid-employee, an experienced welder and aluminum component designer by the name of Dennis Schlieckau.[38] They then borrowed money from friends and family in order to build a hangar on the Baraboo-Wisconsin Dells Airport, and moved the VK-30 project from the barn to their new Baraboo headquarters with now only three other employees assisting them (a few years later they would build a second hangar for the production of more prototypes).[22][39][40]

 
VK-30 on ramp in Baraboo

Their first display of the VK-30 was at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in 1987.[24] In 1988, the Cirrus team was gradually beginning to grow with over a dozen employees. That year the Klapmeiers hired a couple of their most vital employees to date: Patrick Waddick, Cirrus's current President and Chief Operating Officer (originally hired as an intern sweeping floors),[41] and Paul Johnston, the company's Chief Engineer, also known as one of their most gifted designers.[36] After conducting multiple stress-tests on the wing, the first VK-30 prototype was ready to fly. Both Alan and Dale wanted to make the first flight, but their mother would not let them. Jeff Viken knew a test pilot from NASA Langley named Jim Patton, who made the first test flight on February 11, 1988.[14][24] They sold their first few kits at EAA AirVenture later that same year.[24] Jeff and Sally Viken left the company shortly thereafter.[10]

 
Cirrus team circa 1989-1990. (Dale top far left, Alan top far right)

At the end of the 1980s, the Klapmeier brothers approached inventor Sam Williams of Williams International about the possibility of installing a small, single fan-jet engine on the VK-30. The idea never materialized at the time; however, this effort is what would significantly inspire the design of the original Vision Jet concepts from the early-to-mid 2000s.[42]

1990s: ST50, factory, SR20, company innovation and flight-testing

In the early 1990s, sales of the VK-30 were dwindling down; it became a market failure.[43] By the time they discontinued production in the middle of the decade they had sold and shipped out 40 kits, of which only 13 were finished and flown.[14][24] Towards the end of 1991, the brothers began to question their goals and started thinking about their lifelong dream of getting into the world of certified aircraft. Alan began making sketches for the ST-50, a five-seat single-engine turboprop. Dale wanted something simpler and began fiddling with a concept that was to evolve into the SR20.[24]

Towards the mid '90s, Cirrus started designing the ST-50 under contract to Israeli aircraft manufacturer IsrAviation. The aircraft was configured like the VK-30 but was powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-135, in place of the piston engine used in the VK-30. The prototype was first flown on December 7, 1994.[44] During the beginning of that year, Alan and Dale moved the company from their headquarters in Baraboo to a 30,000-square-foot research and development facility in Duluth, Minnesota, bringing 35 employees with them and hiring another 15 at once. They began work on the Cirrus SR20, a four-passenger, single-engine, piston-powered composite aircraft.[10][22][2] That's when Cirrus released its new marketing campaign: "Hangar X". It displayed a secret facility with nothing but a dim light and slightly cracked door. Inside was the "mysterious to-be-certified aircraft", but its unveiling would not come for a few more months, during the summer of 1994.[5][45]

Around this time, the brothers had the roles of Alan traveling around the country looking for investors and raising the capital Cirrus needed to certify the SR20, and Dale staying back at the factory overseeing operations by keeping the design, testing and production moving.[39]

The first prototype of the SR20 made its maiden flight in March 1995. The following year, the company broke ground on a 67,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Grand Forks, North Dakota. In 1997, Cirrus started assembly of its first production prototype and added another 80,000-square-feet onto their Duluth facility for manufacturing purposes.[10]

 
Cirrus SR20 test deployment of CAPS in 1998, Scott Anderson piloting

Through the Klapmeiers' vision, the SR20 became the first of many production advancements within light general aviation aircraft, including glass computer-monitored flight-displays instead of round analog dials (which would boast flat-panel avionic utilities such as satellite weather, traffic awareness and GPS steering), side-yoke flight controls instead of traditional yoke or stick consoles, all-composite construction instead of aluminum, and, most popularly known, the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS).[4][5][46][47] The Cirrus team spent several weeks during the summer of 1997 in the high desert of southern California testing the parachute. They would drop barrels of sand out a C-123 Cargo plane and flip a switch that would deploy the chutes when the barrels reached nearly 200 mph. The parachutes failed to deploy on multiple drop-tests before properly functioning.[36] By the summer of 1998, they were ready to try the tests with an actual SR20. Chief Test Pilot Scott D. Anderson, a Stanford graduate, military F-16 pilot and "Renaissance man" who was known as a beloved and charismatic figure in Duluth,[48] successfully made the first deployment of CAPS, and would go on to make all eight of the inflight test-deployments for development and certification of the SR20.[49][50] The airplane became FAA approved and type certified in October 1998.[22]

 
Receiving type certificate for the SR20 in 1998. (From left to right: Alan Klapmeier, Cirrus President Patrick Waddick, and Dale Klapmeier far right)

On March 23, 1999, tragedy struck Cirrus when Scott Anderson was killed in a crash near the Duluth International Airport as he put the first production SR20 through torture-test maneuvers before it went on sale.[39] The plane Anderson was flying had an aileron jam and was not yet equipped with the standard ballistic parachute that would come certified on every aircraft.[50] Dale spoke at his induction into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame on April 24, 2010, saying, "Scott was an exemplary pilot and person… To date, 17 CAPS deployments have saved 35 lives due to Scott's pioneering work."[49] Despite the tragedy, and the Klapmeier brothers losing a close friend and their most talented test pilot, Cirrus fixed the problem that killed Anderson and continued on to deliver the first SR20 in July 1999—receiving 400 orders by the first year alone.[39]

2000s: SR22, success and company growth, Vision Jet, recession

In the early 2000s, sales of the SR20 were steadily rising. This led to the Cirrus SR22, a faster, higher and more powerful version of the SR20.[51] Production on the new aircraft started in 2001. In August of that year, Cirrus sold 58% of the company for $100 million to Crescent Capital, the US arm of the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain (now called Arcapita), making the Klapmeier brothers minority stakeholders in their own company.[12][22]

 
2003 piston-powered Cirrus SR22

By the middle of 2003, the SR22 had become the highest-selling general aviation aircraft in the world, beating out even that of Cessna Aircraft and achieving the brothers' lifelong dream.[25][52] Cirrus had more than 600 employees then;[53] two years later that number would reach to just over 1,000. The company was quickly expanding.[47] Success for the Klapmeier brothers continued when they received the prestigious 2004 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award for Manufacturing.[54]

In 2006, Cirrus accomplished all-time record deliveries, celebrating their 3,000th SR-series aircraft off the production line only seven years after deliveries commenced,[55] something that no other aviation company had done in the last half-century.[56][57] Thirty-five special edition turbocharged SR22s were released that same year. They were entitled "Signature Editions", and came with several additional features including the signatures of both Alan and Dale imprinted on the plane's cowling.[55] In June 2007, the Klapmeiers—along with Vice President of Advanced Development Mike Van Staagen—unveiled their next design, "The-Jet by Cirrus" (now known as the Vision SF50), a single-engine, composite, seven-seat very light jet aircraft, also intended to be equipped with the company's CAPS parachute.[58][59] The first flight of the jet occurred on July 3, 2008.[60]

In September 2008, the global sales slump in piston-engined aircraft impacted the company and they laid off 100 workers, 8% of their workforce. This included 79 people at the main plant in Duluth, Minnesota, and 29 employees at the composite construction plant in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After this round of layoffs, Cirrus had 1,230 employees remaining. Alan, the then-CEO, announced in October 2008 that due to the economic recession and resulting lack of demand for Cirrus aircraft, the company was moving to a three-day work week. He reported that sales were down 10% over the same period in the previous year. Compared to the industry average in that same period, sales were down 16%.[61]

Cirrus eliminated 208 employee positions in the fall of 2008 and cut aircraft production from 14 to 12 aircraft per week in response to the economic situation. In November of that year, the company announced that it would furlough about 500 production employees to allow for reductions in excess stock of aircraft produced.[62][63]

On December 18, 2008, it was made public that Chief Operating Officer Brent Wouters would replace Alan as CEO effective February 1, 2009. Alan continued as Chairman of the board with Dale as Vice-Chairman.[64]

 
Cirrus Vision SF50 single-engine jet

On June 26, 2009, Alan announced that he had assembled a team to acquire the aircraft manufacturer's Vision SF50 single-engine jet program from majority owner Arcapita Bank and produce it under a new company.[65] Dale came out in support of his efforts and said that Alan was the only person Cirrus would consider letting take over the jet project.[66] Over a month later the attempt failed and Wouters announced that Alan's contract as Chairman would not be renewed when it expired at the end of August (a decision Wouters said Alan had known about for "several months" prior). Alan left Cirrus soon after this while Dale stayed with the company.[67][68][69]

2010s: End of business partnership, separate career paths

Alan and Kestrel
Main articles: Kestrel Aircraft and One Aviation

At the 2010 EAA airshow, Alan introduced his new venture, the Kestrel Aircraft Company, and would serve as its CEO. Kestrel was to produce the Kestrel K-350, a single turboprop-engined all-composite six-seat aircraft. Some of his ex-Cirrus colleagues joined him in the project, including Steve Serfling, Cirrus' former Director of Product Development.[70] The company was originally set to locate its headquarters in Brunswick, Maine, but after complications with state tax credits, Alan decided in 2012 to move manufacturing operations to Superior, Wisconsin, where they received a better financial package. The total value of loans, grants and tax credits was $118 million, $112 million from the state, with the expected eventual creation of around 600 new jobs by 2016, the most in Superior since World War II.[71] In 2013, Kestrel employed about 60 workers in Superior, located across the border from Cirrus, and about 40 in Brunswick, where composite components for the plane were being created.[72]

In May 2014, it was reported that Kestrel had fallen months behind on loan payments to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) due to financing delays. Alan spoke on the matter saying, "We're obviously still very excited about the program. We've made a lot of progress on the design, what we expect to build, what we expect to do with the FAA, but there are other frustrations. Certainly financing the project has been slower than we had hoped and expected." It was also reported that the delay in financing had impacted hiring, causing the company to reduce its staff in Superior.[73]

On 15 April 2015, Kestrel merged with Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Eclipse Aerospace to form One Aviation, with Alan appointed CEO.[18] The company faced many legal and financial challenges. In September 2015, Alan indicated that Kestrel's resulting lack of economic and developmental progress "never would have happened if the state [of Wisconsin] had come through with the financing on time."[74][75] He told AINonline in 2017 that development of the K-350 "had been shelved" while One Aviation focuses on certifying the Eclipse 700 very light jet, with Wisconsin taking legal action against the Kestrel division of One.[76] In October 2018, the company voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[77] A bankruptcy exit plan was approved in September 2019 for Chinese company Citiking International to purchase One Aviation,[78] however, by October 2020, it was reported that Citiking had been "ousted from the sale process" and in February 2021, One Aviation entered Chapter 7 liquidation.[79][19]

Dale and Cirrus
See also: Cirrus Aircraft § 2010s

In September 2009, Dale became interim Chairman of Cirrus.[80] On 19 September 2011, Cirrus named him the new CEO, and announced that Brent Wouters "is no longer with the company".[20] In April 2012, after more than three years of significant financial struggle, the company informed that its Vision SF50 jet program was fully funded through certification and early production, with a major investment from their newly acquired owners China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Company (CAIGA) (an acquisition that was initially met with much local skepticism at the time of its announcement in early 2011[81]). Dale called the jet investment a "tremendous milestone" for the company and said that the new owners "are actively partnering with Cirrus while providing substantial resources for us to meet and exceed our shared goals."[82]

In 2013 and 2014, Cirrus had its strongest years in sales and deliveries since before the 2008 recession, naming its SR22/22T model the best-selling general aviation airplane for the 12th year in a row and making Cirrus the world's largest producer of piston-powered aircraft.[52][83][84] The company flew three new Vision SF50 conforming prototypes and employed over 800 people in 2014, having hired more than 300 of them in the past three years alone.[83] In May 2015, Dale and Chief Customer Officer Todd Simmons announced that Cirrus will be expanding to an additional facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, called the "Vision Center", where all customer activities for the company will take place.[85]

On 28 October 2016, Cirrus received type certification for the SF50, making it the first single-engine civilian jet to become certified with the FAA.[86] Deliveries began in December 2016.[87] In June 2018, Dale accepted the Collier Trophy on behalf of Cirrus and the Vision Jet team. The trophy is awarded for "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America" in the preceding year.[15][16]

On 19 December 2018, it was made public that Dale will step down as CEO sometime in the first-half of 2019 and transition into a senior advisory role for the company.[88][89] On 4 June 2019, Cirrus announced that former Tesla Inc. executive Zean Nielsen had been selected to succeed Dale as its next CEO.[21] By the end of 2019, Cirrus had 1,600 employees and accomplished its best year ever in sales,[90] naming its Vision SF50 the most-delivered general aviation jet for the last two years and introducing its "Safe Return" emergency autoland system by Garmin.[91]

Management distinctions

Professionally, Alan is known as more of the talkative, risk-taking "dreamer" out of the two, whereas Dale has been known to be the more taciturn, hands-on "practical one". Many say this is partly what made the duo so successful—Alan would think up creative ideas and Dale would figure out how to get them done.[10][36][39]

Dale told the Duluth News Tribune in 2009 that, "The difference between the two of us is that Alan is a dreamer, and he's extremely aggressive in what he wants. I'm far more conservative than he is, and I've always loved the hands-on stuff";[69] and Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that, "Dale is more practical [than me]—unbelievably practical, in fact. Dale figures out how to make [the design] work."[10]

Throughout most of the brothers' early career, Alan administered as president at Cirrus with Dale as vice president. In a 1999 IndustryWeek article featuring the Klapmeiers, Alan joked that he was president simply "because he is the older brother";[92] and in an article published by Aircraft Spruce in 2012, about the Klapmeiers' homebuilding efforts throughout the 1980s, Dale credited Alan with being the "inspiration, the driving force" behind their goals.[24]

Boards and other affiliations

The Klapmeier brothers have both served on numerous aviation boards and programs. Alan served on the board of AOPA's Air Safety Foundation, AERObridge, the Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association, and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), acting as the organization's chairman in 2008. He currently serves on the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s board and the advisory board for MVP Aero Inc.[29][93] Dale served on the Red Tail Project (now Red Tail Squadron), EAA's Young Eagles Program, the founding board of the Scott D. Anderson Leadership Foundation, and NASA's Aeronautics Research & Technology Roundtable, chairing its general aviation subcommittee in 2013. He is currently on AirSpace Minnesota's board as its founding chairman and the advisory board for the Aircraft Kit Industry Association (AKIA).[31][94]

In 2003, Alan and Dale donated a fully operational SR20 to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, as a learning tool for school students.[95] Ten years later, Dale donated an SR22 to Minneapolis-based STEM learning center AirSpace Minnesota.[96]

For much of the 2000s, Alan was part-owner of Bluewater Yachts, a central-Minnesota boat manufacturing company that the brothers' uncle founded in the 1970s, with the slogan "Different By Design".[27]

Dale participates in a snowmobiling fundraising event called the "Black Woods Blizzard Tour", an annual snowmobile excursion around northern Minnesota that raises money to fight ALS.[97] He has also been involved in the charity flight organization Angel Flight West.[98]

Personal lives

There have been reports of a bitter personal falling-out between the brothers that occurred around the time of Alan's departure from Cirrus in 2009.[99] Alan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2012 that he had not spoken to Dale in several years but would not discuss the reasons why on record.[17]

General Aviation News reported in 2011 that Alan had considered running for Congress,[100] although he ultimately decided against it.

In March 2014, Alan brought Cirrus to court over a violated non-disparagement clause involving a 2011 interview with former Cirrus CEO Brent Wouters, in which Wouters allegedly criticized Alan's ability to lead a large company during times of "economic downturn". A Minnesota jury awarded Alan $10 million in lost profits and out-of-pocket expenses. Cirrus, which was under the leadership of Dale at the time, appealed the verdict and the state Court of Appeals overturned the ruling in a 2-1 decision, stating that the calculation of damages was "too speculative" and failed to demonstrate the amount to a "reasonable degree of certainty". The Minnesota Supreme Court denied to hear Alan's appeal and the lawsuit ended in December 2015.[101]

Alan was married to Sara Dougherty from 2002 until their divorce in 2016.[102] Together with his first wife, Patti Graves, whom he was married to from 1987 to 1999, he has two daughters: Kathryn (born 1989) and Sarah (born 1993).[1]

Dale has been married to Patricia Meyer since 1984 and together they have two sons: Ryan (born 1988) and Blake (born 1992).[1]

Dale said in a 2008 interview that one of his main incentives behind co-designing the Cirrus SR20 was that it had to be an airplane that Patricia "would want to fly in more than drive", which helped change the direction of the company in the 1990s.[103]

Reputation and recognition

 
Klapmeiers' Wright brothers-inspired SR22 in 2005

Through Cirrus, the Klapmeier brothers are credited with revolutionizing the personal aircraft industry for the modern era.[6][8][37][56]

They have been referenced several times in national articles and columns such as The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine by journalist, author and former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, James Fallows,[36][39][104] who said in a 2010 article that the brothers "absolutely transformed what had been a stagnant, declining industry."[99] They were also a central theme in Fallows' 2001 book, Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel.[105]

Aviation communities have often compared the Klapmeier brothers to the Wright brothers, giving them the nickname, "modern day Wright brothers".[104][105] Some say this gave more public sentiment to Cirrus' 2003 release of the "Centennial Edition", an SR22 that celebrated 100 years of flight with a mural of the Wright Flyer coating the tail of the plane.[7] The story of Cirrus has also garnered comparisons to Apple Inc., while Alan and Dale have been called "aviation’s equivalent of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak".[106]

The first time the Klapmeiers gained national exposure was in 1998 when radio commentator Paul Harvey spoke positively about Cirrus and the SR20 on his syndicated program.[92] In the 2004 vice-presidential debate, former Vice President Dick Cheney indirectly mentioned the Klapmeier brothers, calling them and Cirrus "a great success story".[107] The Klapmeiers have also been praised for their efforts by former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. After a visit to the Duluth Cirrus factory in 2003, Pawlenty thanked Alan and Dale for "their foresight in creating a new aircraft, bringing it to the market, and the associated risks they took to make it happen."[108] The late 18-term Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar was a strong supporter of the Klapmeiers as well, and was one of the main proponents behind bringing Cirrus to Duluth, Minnesota—along with Cirrus Vice President of Business Administration Bill King and former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty.[109]

The Klapmeier brothers received the Living Legends of Aviation award in 2007 at a ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Among the attendees that year were aerospace pioneers and celebrities such as Bob Hoover, Buzz Aldrin, Steve Fossett, Michael Dorn, Patty Wagstaff, Cliff Robertson, Chuck Yeager, and many more.[110]

British business magnate Alan Sugar said that he admired the Klapmeier brothers for starting Cirrus from "virtually scratch" and for their use of technologies like ballistic parachutes, glass cockpits, and manufactured composite airframes.[111]

Besides Lance Neibauer of Lancair, who delivered nearly 600 Columbia-series aircraft, the Klapmeier brothers are the only kit-makers to ever successfully transition into the design and production of certified aircraft. In both separate cases, the EAA served as a crucial "training ground" for Neibauer and the Klapmeiers to stimulate their ambitions.[24][112]

Since 2022, the brothers are featured in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum along with a 2003 Cirrus SR22 (N266CD), the first piston aircraft with a full glass cockpit.[113]

Awards and accolades

External video
  Klapmeier brothers receiving the 2007 EAA Freedom of Flight Award from Tom Poberezny

See also

References

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External links

  • Dale and Alan Klapmeier biography from the National Aviation Hall of Fame
  • and
  • Video of Dale Klapmeier speaking at Redbird Migration in 2016

Articles

  • Heart of glass - article in The Economist where Alan Klapmeier talks about the importance of glass cockpits (2004)
  • Experts Differ on Value Of Parachutes for Aircraft - Washington Post article on the controversy of Cirrus' parachutes (2006)
  • Inside the National Air and Space Museum - article written by Alan Klapmeier in The Atlantic (2011)
  • From Minnesota to the moon - article written by Dale Klapmeier in the Star Tribune (2013)

Interviews

  • Video interview with Alan Klapmeier on AOPA Live in 2015
  • 2017 Forbes interview with Dale Klapmeier

January 20, 2023
klapmeier, brothers, alan, klapmeier, born, october, 1958, dale, edward, klapmeier, born, july, 1961, retired, american, aircraft, designers, aviation, entrepreneurs, together, founded, cirrus, design, corporation, 1984, under, leadership, klapmeiers, cirrus, . The Klapmeier brothers Alan Lee Klapmeier born October 6 1958 1 and Dale Edward Klapmeier born July 2 1961 1 are retired American aircraft designers and aviation entrepreneurs who together founded the Cirrus Design Corporation in 1984 Under the leadership of the Klapmeiers Cirrus was the first aircraft manufacturer to install a whole plane parachute recovery system as a standard on all its models designed to lower the airplane and occupants safely to the ground in case of an emergency 2 The device is attributed with saving over 200 lives to date 3 From the brothers use of all composite airframe construction and glass panel cockpits on production aircraft Cirrus is known for having revolutionized general aviation for modern light aircraft pilots 4 5 6 7 8 The Klapmeier brothersDale left and Alan Klapmeier speaking at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2008Occupation s Aviation entrepreneurs aircraft designersYears active1979 2009 as duo Known forCirrus Aircraft founders Cirrus SR20 and SR22 Cirrus Airframe Parachute System Cirrus Vision SF50 pioneers of manufactured composite airframes and glass cockpitsParent s Larry and Carol KlapmeierAwardsSee belowAlan KlapmeierBorn 1958 10 06 October 6 1958 age 64 Saint Paul Minnesota USAlma materRipon College WisconsinYears active2010 2021 as head of Kestrel Spouse s Patti Graves divorced Sara DoughertyChildren2Board member ofEAA MVP aero current GAMA Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association SAMA AERObridge AOPA s Air Safety Foundation former Dale KlapmeierBorn 1961 07 02 July 2 1961 age 61 Rockford Illinois USAlma materUniversity of Wisconsin Stevens PointYears active2009 2019 as head of Cirrus Spouse s Patricia MeyerChildren2Board member ofAKIA AirSpace Minnesota current EAA s Young Eagles Program Red Tail Squadron NASA s Research amp Technology Roundtable Scott D Anderson Leadership Foundation former Forbes magazine named Cirrus s highly popular single engine SR series the SR20 and SR22 certified in 1998 and 2000 respectively Best Private Airplane saying the Klapmeier brothers built the first genuinely new plane in the sky in many years 9 Time magazine regarded them as giving lift to the small plane industry with an easy to fly design 10 and Flying magazine ranked Alan and Dale at number 17 on its list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation they are the two highest ranked living people on the list 6 The Klapmeier brothers were inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2014 8 11 The brothers started Cirrus in the basement of their parents rural dairy barn near Baraboo Wisconsin 12 13 Their first design the VK 30 homebuilt aircraft was introduced in 1987 although sales of the kit fluctuated and deliveries ultimately ceased only a few years later 14 As the company grew they moved it in 1994 to Duluth Minnesota where from 2003 until his departure from Cirrus in 2009 Alan had heavy influence over the early design and development of the Vision Jet Dale then continued the program leading it to certification in 2016 and production in the ensuing years The aircraft won the Collier Trophy in 2018 for representing the first jet of its kind to enter the market 15 16 After Cirrus Alan became CEO of Kestrel Aircraft in 2010 which merged with Eclipse Aerospace in 2015 to form One Aviation 17 18 The company ended operations in 2021 19 Dale remains at Cirrus as a senior advisor and served as its CEO from 2011 to 2019 20 21 Contents 1 Background 1 1 Early life 1 2 Family 1 3 Education 2 Career 2 1 Early work 2 2 Cirrus Aircraft 2 2 1 1980s VK 30 barn inspiration for parachute municipal airport 2 2 2 1990s ST50 factory SR20 company innovation and flight testing 2 2 3 2000s SR22 success and company growth Vision Jet recession 2 2 4 2010s End of business partnership separate career paths 2 2 4 1 Alan and Kestrel 2 2 4 2 Dale and Cirrus 3 Management distinctions 4 Boards and other affiliations 5 Personal lives 6 Reputation and recognition 7 Awards and accolades 8 See also 9 References 10 External links 10 1 Articles 10 2 InterviewsBackground EditEarly life Edit Alan and Dale Klapmeier grew up in DeKalb Illinois and attended DeKalb High School 22 Their parents bought a second home in the early 1970s on a small rural farm near Baraboo Wisconsin Aviation was a part of the brothers lives from a very early age Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that when he was a baby the only way his mother could get him to stop crying at times was to bring him to an airport and park the car at the end of the runway so he could watch airplanes 10 As young children the brothers frequently built model airplanes and rode their bicycles to local airports 10 23 When Dale reached the age of 15 he learned to fly in a Cessna 140 before learning to drive a car 10 22 Alan joined the Civil Air Patrol at age 17 as a way of receiving more affordable flying lessons In his youth he often spoke about how he and his younger brother would one day design and build aircraft that would compete with Cessna 22 24 25 Family Edit Alan and Dale are two of three children born to Larry and Carol Klapmeier They come from an entrepreneurial family The eldest brother Ernie Klapmeier opened his own accessory store of military reenactment goods and regalia in Aurora Illinois and managed the shop for many years since its founding in 1997 10 26 their uncle Jim Klapmeier and grandfather Elmer Klapmeier were both entrepreneurs in the boat manufacturing industry and started as a two person company building pontoon like houseboats on Rainy Lake Minnesota throughout the 1950s 27 Elmer ran a second business flying a puddle jumper plane around Wisconsin delivering parts to dairy farmers 25 while Jim later moved the boat project to a facility in Mora Minnesota where he grew and retained it for several decades transitioning into the market of fiberglass motor yachts 27 Larry and Carol were also entrepreneurs who founded a successful nursing home near Chicago of which the three brothers worked at as kids doing janitorial chores during the 1960s and 1970s 25 28 Education Edit Alan graduated in 1980 from Wisconsin s Ripon College with degrees in physics and economics 17 29 While a senior there in 1979 he began developing sketches of an airplane that would become the Cirrus VK 30 11 and worked for more than three years in the Ripon admissions office while Dale finished college 30 Dale graduated in 1983 from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point with degrees in business administration and economics 31 32 He once said that his fall back plan was to become a banker had their early career in aviation never succeeded 32 Career EditEarly work Edit In 1979 Dale discovered a wrecked 1960 Aeronca Champ flipped over and abandoned at an airport in northern Wisconsin The brothers then bought the plane from its owner with the very little money they had and rebuilt it in the shed at their family farmhouse 10 This was their first experience working on an aircraft as a self taught restoration project followed by the making of a Glasair I they saw introduced by homebuilt aircraft engineer and entrepreneur Tom Hamilton at the 1980 EAA Convention and Fly In now called AirVenture in Oshkosh Wisconsin David Gustafson of Aircraft Spruce reported that the only way the Klapmeier brothers parents would lend them the money to buy a Glasair was if they wrote up a business plan explaining why constructing a homebuilt would further their professional lives 24 Cirrus Aircraft Edit 1980s VK 30 barn inspiration for parachute municipal airport Edit Klapmeier brothers in 1984 outside their parents dairy barn near Baraboo Wisconsin Alan sitting in chair as Dale holds up a cutout of the first Cirrus VK 30 kit Soon after Dale graduated from college the brothers formed an aircraft company in January 1984 30 which they named Cirrus Design now known as Cirrus Aircraft in remembrance of a summer drive they had a few years back where they saw cirrus clouds on the horizon and wished that they were flying 33 Once they started the company the Klapmeiers called upon Alan s former college roommate Jeff Viken to help out with their new design the VK 30 VK standing for Viken Klapmeier Viken was an aeronautical engineer who eventually married another aeronautical engineer Sally Viken and the unpaid Cirrus staff grew to four volunteers with occasional help from the Klapmeiers high school friend Scott Ellenberger 24 The Cirrus VK 30 was a single engine five seat composite pusher with conventional wings and tail Alan and Dale moved into the family farmhouse to be closer to the project and began work on the airplane in the basement of the barn down where the cows were 10 They all pitched in with the designing and balanced that with hands on labor Jeff designed the airfoil while Sally designed the flap system The four of them would finish designing a part or a system build it and return to designing 24 Experimental aircraft innovator Molt Taylor gave the Klapmeiers and Vikens technical advice surrounding the VK 30 14 Dale left and Alan spreading resin over the VK 30 s fiberglass mold in the basement of their barn about 1985 The Klapmeier brothers would often fly their Champ from the farm up to their uncle s boat building business in Mora to borrow tools and other supplies such as polyester resin for building the plane and molding its fuselage 22 24 To reduce cost they went to different junk yards around Wisconsin and bought what they needed a control system out of a wrecked Piper aircraft a Cherokee nose landing gear to weld parts onto it and convert it to a retractable gear and an O 540 290 hp engine they got off a scrapped de Havilland Heron The first VK 30 slowly took shape 24 In 1985 near the Sauk Prairie Airport shortly after takeoff Alan was involved in a fatal mid air collision where the airplane he was flying a Cessna 182 lost a portion of its wing including half of the aileron The other plane a Piper PA 15 spun into the ground killing the pilot but Alan was able to maneuver a landing back on the runway by keeping high airspeed and using full aileron deflection From surviving this incident Alan sought to make flying safer ultimately leading to the brothers pursuit of implementing a parachute on all their designs starting in the mid 1990s 10 34 35 36 37 Original Cirrus Design headquarters on the Baraboo Dells Airport In 1986 the Klapmeiers hired their first paid employee an experienced welder and aluminum component designer by the name of Dennis Schlieckau 38 They then borrowed money from friends and family in order to build a hangar on the Baraboo Wisconsin Dells Airport and moved the VK 30 project from the barn to their new Baraboo headquarters with now only three other employees assisting them a few years later they would build a second hangar for the production of more prototypes 22 39 40 VK 30 on ramp in Baraboo Their first display of the VK 30 was at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in 1987 24 In 1988 the Cirrus team was gradually beginning to grow with over a dozen employees That year the Klapmeiers hired a couple of their most vital employees to date Patrick Waddick Cirrus s current President and Chief Operating Officer originally hired as an intern sweeping floors 41 and Paul Johnston the company s Chief Engineer also known as one of their most gifted designers 36 After conducting multiple stress tests on the wing the first VK 30 prototype was ready to fly Both Alan and Dale wanted to make the first flight but their mother would not let them Jeff Viken knew a test pilot from NASA Langley named Jim Patton who made the first test flight on February 11 1988 14 24 They sold their first few kits at EAA AirVenture later that same year 24 Jeff and Sally Viken left the company shortly thereafter 10 Cirrus team circa 1989 1990 Dale top far left Alan top far right At the end of the 1980s the Klapmeier brothers approached inventor Sam Williams of Williams International about the possibility of installing a small single fan jet engine on the VK 30 The idea never materialized at the time however this effort is what would significantly inspire the design of the original Vision Jet concepts from the early to mid 2000s 42 1990s ST50 factory SR20 company innovation and flight testing Edit In the early 1990s sales of the VK 30 were dwindling down it became a market failure 43 By the time they discontinued production in the middle of the decade they had sold and shipped out 40 kits of which only 13 were finished and flown 14 24 Towards the end of 1991 the brothers began to question their goals and started thinking about their lifelong dream of getting into the world of certified aircraft Alan began making sketches for the ST 50 a five seat single engine turboprop Dale wanted something simpler and began fiddling with a concept that was to evolve into the SR20 24 Cirrus Israviation ST50 at the Paris Air Show in 1997 Towards the mid 90s Cirrus started designing the ST 50 under contract to Israeli aircraft manufacturer IsrAviation The aircraft was configured like the VK 30 but was powered by a Pratt amp Whitney Canada PT6 135 in place of the piston engine used in the VK 30 The prototype was first flown on December 7 1994 44 During the beginning of that year Alan and Dale moved the company from their headquarters in Baraboo to a 30 000 square foot research and development facility in Duluth Minnesota bringing 35 employees with them and hiring another 15 at once They began work on the Cirrus SR20 a four passenger single engine piston powered composite aircraft 10 22 2 That s when Cirrus released its new marketing campaign Hangar X It displayed a secret facility with nothing but a dim light and slightly cracked door Inside was the mysterious to be certified aircraft but its unveiling would not come for a few more months during the summer of 1994 5 45 Around this time the brothers had the roles of Alan traveling around the country looking for investors and raising the capital Cirrus needed to certify the SR20 and Dale staying back at the factory overseeing operations by keeping the design testing and production moving 39 The first prototype of the SR20 made its maiden flight in March 1995 The following year the company broke ground on a 67 500 square foot manufacturing facility in Grand Forks North Dakota In 1997 Cirrus started assembly of its first production prototype and added another 80 000 square feet onto their Duluth facility for manufacturing purposes 10 Cirrus SR20 test deployment of CAPS in 1998 Scott Anderson piloting Through the Klapmeiers vision the SR20 became the first of many production advancements within light general aviation aircraft including glass computer monitored flight displays instead of round analog dials which would boast flat panel avionic utilities such as satellite weather traffic awareness and GPS steering side yoke flight controls instead of traditional yoke or stick consoles all composite construction instead of aluminum and most popularly known the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System CAPS 4 5 46 47 The Cirrus team spent several weeks during the summer of 1997 in the high desert of southern California testing the parachute They would drop barrels of sand out a C 123 Cargo plane and flip a switch that would deploy the chutes when the barrels reached nearly 200 mph The parachutes failed to deploy on multiple drop tests before properly functioning 36 By the summer of 1998 they were ready to try the tests with an actual SR20 Chief Test Pilot Scott D Anderson a Stanford graduate military F 16 pilot and Renaissance man who was known as a beloved and charismatic figure in Duluth 48 successfully made the first deployment of CAPS and would go on to make all eight of the inflight test deployments for development and certification of the SR20 49 50 The airplane became FAA approved and type certified in October 1998 22 Receiving type certificate for the SR20 in 1998 From left to right Alan Klapmeier Cirrus President Patrick Waddick and Dale Klapmeier far right On March 23 1999 tragedy struck Cirrus when Scott Anderson was killed in a crash near the Duluth International Airport as he put the first production SR20 through torture test maneuvers before it went on sale 39 The plane Anderson was flying had an aileron jam and was not yet equipped with the standard ballistic parachute that would come certified on every aircraft 50 Dale spoke at his induction into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame on April 24 2010 saying Scott was an exemplary pilot and person To date 17 CAPS deployments have saved 35 lives due to Scott s pioneering work 49 Despite the tragedy and the Klapmeier brothers losing a close friend and their most talented test pilot Cirrus fixed the problem that killed Anderson and continued on to deliver the first SR20 in July 1999 receiving 400 orders by the first year alone 39 2000s SR22 success and company growth Vision Jet recession Edit In the early 2000s sales of the SR20 were steadily rising This led to the Cirrus SR22 a faster higher and more powerful version of the SR20 51 Production on the new aircraft started in 2001 In August of that year Cirrus sold 58 of the company for 100 million to Crescent Capital the US arm of the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain now called Arcapita making the Klapmeier brothers minority stakeholders in their own company 12 22 2003 piston powered Cirrus SR22 By the middle of 2003 the SR22 had become the highest selling general aviation aircraft in the world beating out even that of Cessna Aircraft and achieving the brothers lifelong dream 25 52 Cirrus had more than 600 employees then 53 two years later that number would reach to just over 1 000 The company was quickly expanding 47 Success for the Klapmeier brothers continued when they received the prestigious 2004 Ernst amp Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award for Manufacturing 54 In 2006 Cirrus accomplished all time record deliveries celebrating their 3 000th SR series aircraft off the production line only seven years after deliveries commenced 55 something that no other aviation company had done in the last half century 56 57 Thirty five special edition turbocharged SR22s were released that same year They were entitled Signature Editions and came with several additional features including the signatures of both Alan and Dale imprinted on the plane s cowling 55 In June 2007 the Klapmeiers along with Vice President of Advanced Development Mike Van Staagen unveiled their next design The Jet by Cirrus now known as the Vision SF50 a single engine composite seven seat very light jet aircraft also intended to be equipped with the company s CAPS parachute 58 59 The first flight of the jet occurred on July 3 2008 60 In September 2008 the global sales slump in piston engined aircraft impacted the company and they laid off 100 workers 8 of their workforce This included 79 people at the main plant in Duluth Minnesota and 29 employees at the composite construction plant in Grand Forks North Dakota After this round of layoffs Cirrus had 1 230 employees remaining Alan the then CEO announced in October 2008 that due to the economic recession and resulting lack of demand for Cirrus aircraft the company was moving to a three day work week He reported that sales were down 10 over the same period in the previous year Compared to the industry average in that same period sales were down 16 61 Cirrus eliminated 208 employee positions in the fall of 2008 and cut aircraft production from 14 to 12 aircraft per week in response to the economic situation In November of that year the company announced that it would furlough about 500 production employees to allow for reductions in excess stock of aircraft produced 62 63 On December 18 2008 it was made public that Chief Operating Officer Brent Wouters would replace Alan as CEO effective February 1 2009 Alan continued as Chairman of the board with Dale as Vice Chairman 64 Cirrus Vision SF50 single engine jet On June 26 2009 Alan announced that he had assembled a team to acquire the aircraft manufacturer s Vision SF50 single engine jet program from majority owner Arcapita Bank and produce it under a new company 65 Dale came out in support of his efforts and said that Alan was the only person Cirrus would consider letting take over the jet project 66 Over a month later the attempt failed and Wouters announced that Alan s contract as Chairman would not be renewed when it expired at the end of August a decision Wouters said Alan had known about for several months prior Alan left Cirrus soon after this while Dale stayed with the company 67 68 69 2010s End of business partnership separate career paths Edit Alan and Kestrel Edit Main articles Kestrel Aircraft and One Aviation At the 2010 EAA airshow Alan introduced his new venture the Kestrel Aircraft Company and would serve as its CEO Kestrel was to produce the Kestrel K 350 a single turboprop engined all composite six seat aircraft Some of his ex Cirrus colleagues joined him in the project including Steve Serfling Cirrus former Director of Product Development 70 The company was originally set to locate its headquarters in Brunswick Maine but after complications with state tax credits Alan decided in 2012 to move manufacturing operations to Superior Wisconsin where they received a better financial package The total value of loans grants and tax credits was 118 million 112 million from the state with the expected eventual creation of around 600 new jobs by 2016 the most in Superior since World War II 71 In 2013 Kestrel employed about 60 workers in Superior located across the border from Cirrus and about 40 in Brunswick where composite components for the plane were being created 72 In May 2014 it was reported that Kestrel had fallen months behind on loan payments to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation WEDC due to financing delays Alan spoke on the matter saying We re obviously still very excited about the program We ve made a lot of progress on the design what we expect to build what we expect to do with the FAA but there are other frustrations Certainly financing the project has been slower than we had hoped and expected It was also reported that the delay in financing had impacted hiring causing the company to reduce its staff in Superior 73 On 15 April 2015 Kestrel merged with Albuquerque New Mexico based Eclipse Aerospace to form One Aviation with Alan appointed CEO 18 The company faced many legal and financial challenges In September 2015 Alan indicated that Kestrel s resulting lack of economic and developmental progress never would have happened if the state of Wisconsin had come through with the financing on time 74 75 He told AINonline in 2017 that development of the K 350 had been shelved while One Aviation focuses on certifying the Eclipse 700 very light jet with Wisconsin taking legal action against the Kestrel division of One 76 In October 2018 the company voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy 77 A bankruptcy exit plan was approved in September 2019 for Chinese company Citiking International to purchase One Aviation 78 however by October 2020 it was reported that Citiking had been ousted from the sale process and in February 2021 One Aviation entered Chapter 7 liquidation 79 19 Dale and Cirrus Edit See also Cirrus Aircraft 2010s In September 2009 Dale became interim Chairman of Cirrus 80 On 19 September 2011 Cirrus named him the new CEO and announced that Brent Wouters is no longer with the company 20 In April 2012 after more than three years of significant financial struggle the company informed that its Vision SF50 jet program was fully funded through certification and early production with a major investment from their newly acquired owners China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Company CAIGA an acquisition that was initially met with much local skepticism at the time of its announcement in early 2011 81 Dale called the jet investment a tremendous milestone for the company and said that the new owners are actively partnering with Cirrus while providing substantial resources for us to meet and exceed our shared goals 82 In 2013 and 2014 Cirrus had its strongest years in sales and deliveries since before the 2008 recession naming its SR22 22T model the best selling general aviation airplane for the 12th year in a row and making Cirrus the world s largest producer of piston powered aircraft 52 83 84 The company flew three new Vision SF50 conforming prototypes and employed over 800 people in 2014 having hired more than 300 of them in the past three years alone 83 In May 2015 Dale and Chief Customer Officer Todd Simmons announced that Cirrus will be expanding to an additional facility in Knoxville Tennessee called the Vision Center where all customer activities for the company will take place 85 On 28 October 2016 Cirrus received type certification for the SF50 making it the first single engine civilian jet to become certified with the FAA 86 Deliveries began in December 2016 87 In June 2018 Dale accepted the Collier Trophy on behalf of Cirrus and the Vision Jet team The trophy is awarded for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America in the preceding year 15 16 On 19 December 2018 it was made public that Dale will step down as CEO sometime in the first half of 2019 and transition into a senior advisory role for the company 88 89 On 4 June 2019 Cirrus announced that former Tesla Inc executive Zean Nielsen had been selected to succeed Dale as its next CEO 21 By the end of 2019 Cirrus had 1 600 employees and accomplished its best year ever in sales 90 naming its Vision SF50 the most delivered general aviation jet for the last two years and introducing its Safe Return emergency autoland system by Garmin 91 Management distinctions EditProfessionally Alan is known as more of the talkative risk taking dreamer out of the two whereas Dale has been known to be the more taciturn hands on practical one Many say this is partly what made the duo so successful Alan would think up creative ideas and Dale would figure out how to get them done 10 36 39 Dale told the Duluth News Tribune in 2009 that The difference between the two of us is that Alan is a dreamer and he s extremely aggressive in what he wants I m far more conservative than he is and I ve always loved the hands on stuff 69 and Alan told Airport Journals in 2006 that Dale is more practical than me unbelievably practical in fact Dale figures out how to make the design work 10 Throughout most of the brothers early career Alan administered as president at Cirrus with Dale as vice president In a 1999 IndustryWeek article featuring the Klapmeiers Alan joked that he was president simply because he is the older brother 92 and in an article published by Aircraft Spruce in 2012 about the Klapmeiers homebuilding efforts throughout the 1980s Dale credited Alan with being the inspiration the driving force behind their goals 24 Boards and other affiliations EditThe Klapmeier brothers have both served on numerous aviation boards and programs Alan served on the board of AOPA s Air Safety Foundation AERObridge the Small Aircraft Manufacturers Association and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association GAMA acting as the organization s chairman in 2008 He currently serves on the Experimental Aircraft Association EAA s board and the advisory board for MVP Aero Inc 29 93 Dale served on the Red Tail Project now Red Tail Squadron EAA s Young Eagles Program the founding board of the Scott D Anderson Leadership Foundation and NASA s Aeronautics Research amp Technology Roundtable chairing its general aviation subcommittee in 2013 He is currently on AirSpace Minnesota s board as its founding chairman and the advisory board for the Aircraft Kit Industry Association AKIA 31 94 In 2003 Alan and Dale donated a fully operational SR20 to the Museum of Flight in Seattle Washington as a learning tool for school students 95 Ten years later Dale donated an SR22 to Minneapolis based STEM learning center AirSpace Minnesota 96 For much of the 2000s Alan was part owner of Bluewater Yachts a central Minnesota boat manufacturing company that the brothers uncle founded in the 1970s with the slogan Different By Design 27 Dale participates in a snowmobiling fundraising event called the Black Woods Blizzard Tour an annual snowmobile excursion around northern Minnesota that raises money to fight ALS 97 He has also been involved in the charity flight organization Angel Flight West 98 Personal lives EditThere have been reports of a bitter personal falling out between the brothers that occurred around the time of Alan s departure from Cirrus in 2009 99 Alan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2012 that he had not spoken to Dale in several years but would not discuss the reasons why on record 17 General Aviation News reported in 2011 that Alan had considered running for Congress 100 although he ultimately decided against it In March 2014 Alan brought Cirrus to court over a violated non disparagement clause involving a 2011 interview with former Cirrus CEO Brent Wouters in which Wouters allegedly criticized Alan s ability to lead a large company during times of economic downturn A Minnesota jury awarded Alan 10 million in lost profits and out of pocket expenses Cirrus which was under the leadership of Dale at the time appealed the verdict and the state Court of Appeals overturned the ruling in a 2 1 decision stating that the calculation of damages was too speculative and failed to demonstrate the amount to a reasonable degree of certainty The Minnesota Supreme Court denied to hear Alan s appeal and the lawsuit ended in December 2015 101 Alan was married to Sara Dougherty from 2002 until their divorce in 2016 102 Together with his first wife Patti Graves whom he was married to from 1987 to 1999 he has two daughters Kathryn born 1989 and Sarah born 1993 1 Dale has been married to Patricia Meyer since 1984 and together they have two sons Ryan born 1988 and Blake born 1992 1 Dale said in a 2008 interview that one of his main incentives behind co designing the Cirrus SR20 was that it had to be an airplane that Patricia would want to fly in more than drive which helped change the direction of the company in the 1990s 103 Reputation and recognition Edit Klapmeiers Wright brothers inspired SR22 in 2005 Through Cirrus the Klapmeier brothers are credited with revolutionizing the personal aircraft industry for the modern era 6 8 37 56 They have been referenced several times in national articles and columns such as The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine by journalist author and former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter James Fallows 36 39 104 who said in a 2010 article that the brothers absolutely transformed what had been a stagnant declining industry 99 They were also a central theme in Fallows 2001 book Free Flight Inventing the Future of Travel 105 Aviation communities have often compared the Klapmeier brothers to the Wright brothers giving them the nickname modern day Wright brothers 104 105 Some say this gave more public sentiment to Cirrus 2003 release of the Centennial Edition an SR22 that celebrated 100 years of flight with a mural of the Wright Flyer coating the tail of the plane 7 The story of Cirrus has also garnered comparisons to Apple Inc while Alan and Dale have been called aviation s equivalent of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 106 The first time the Klapmeiers gained national exposure was in 1998 when radio commentator Paul Harvey spoke positively about Cirrus and the SR20 on his syndicated program 92 In the 2004 vice presidential debate former Vice President Dick Cheney indirectly mentioned the Klapmeier brothers calling them and Cirrus a great success story 107 The Klapmeiers have also been praised for their efforts by former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty After a visit to the Duluth Cirrus factory in 2003 Pawlenty thanked Alan and Dale for their foresight in creating a new aircraft bringing it to the market and the associated risks they took to make it happen 108 The late 18 term Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar was a strong supporter of the Klapmeiers as well and was one of the main proponents behind bringing Cirrus to Duluth Minnesota along with Cirrus Vice President of Business Administration Bill King and former Duluth Mayor Gary Doty 109 The Klapmeier brothers received the Living Legends of Aviation award in 2007 at a ceremony in Beverly Hills California Among the attendees that year were aerospace pioneers and celebrities such as Bob Hoover Buzz Aldrin Steve Fossett Michael Dorn Patty Wagstaff Cliff Robertson Chuck Yeager and many more 110 British business magnate Alan Sugar said that he admired the Klapmeier brothers for starting Cirrus from virtually scratch and for their use of technologies like ballistic parachutes glass cockpits and manufactured composite airframes 111 Besides Lance Neibauer of Lancair who delivered nearly 600 Columbia series aircraft the Klapmeier brothers are the only kit makers to ever successfully transition into the design and production of certified aircraft In both separate cases the EAA served as a crucial training ground for Neibauer and the Klapmeiers to stimulate their ambitions 24 112 Since 2022 the brothers are featured in the Smithsonian Institution s National Air and Space Museum along with a 2003 Cirrus SR22 N266CD the first piston aircraft with a full glass cockpit 113 Awards and accolades EditExternal video Klapmeier brothers receiving the 2007 EAA Freedom of Flight Award from Tom PobereznyEAA s Dr August Raspet Memorial Award 1992 114 Ernst amp Young Entrepreneurs of the Year for Manufacturing 2004 54 Air Safety Foundation s Admiral de Florez Award 2005 Alan Klapmeier 115 CAFE Foundation s PADA Trophy 2006 Alan Klapmeier 116 Living Legends of Aviation Award Aviation Entrepreneurs of the Year 2006 110 Aero Club of New England s Dr Godfrey L Cabot Award 2007 117 EAA s Freedom of Flight Award 2007 118 Joel Labovitz Entrepreneurial Achievement Award 2008 119 Oshkosh Wisconsin s Key to the City Award 2008 120 Deke Slayton Airfest s Distinguished Wisconsin Aviators Award 2009 citation needed Wiley Post Spirit Award 2011 Dale Klapmeier 121 Fliegermagazin s Industry Leader of the Year 2012 Dale Klapmeier 122 Ranked No 17 on Flying Magazine s list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation 2013 6 National Aviation Hall of Fame Inductees 2014 8 11 Minnesota Business Hall of Fame Inductee 2015 Dale Klapmeier 89 123 Atlanta Aero Club s Phoenix Award 2015 Alan Klapmeier 124 Angel Flight West s Inspiration Endeavor Award 2018 Dale Klapmeier amp Cirrus 98 Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame Inductee 2022 Dale Klapmeier 125 See also EditB amp F Fk14 Polaris Cirrus SR Sport Paul Poberezny who helped popularize aircraft homebuilding founder of the EAA Boris Popov who invented a ballistic parachute for use in ultralights founder of BRS Burt Rutan who pioneered the use of composites in homebuilts and 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b Cirrus Aircraft CEO Co Founder Dale Klapmeier Stepping Down Next Year Twin Cities Business December 19 2018 Retrieved April 27 2019 DePass Dee February 20 2020 Duluth s Cirrus Aircraft posted its best sales year ever in 2019 Star Tribune Retrieved June 9 2020 Cirrus Aircraft Delivers Record Year Fueled by Vision Jet Growth Yahoo Finance February 19 2020 a b Strozniak Peter January 1999 Growth Takes Flight at Cirrus How Alan and Dale Klapmeier Took Cirrus Design to New Heights of Aviation Innovation Retrieved March 3 2015 MVP Aero developing light sport amphib AOPA July 27 2014 Retrieved April 19 2016 Advisory Board AKIA Archived from the original on August 3 2015 SR20 Goes to Seattle for Kids July 2003 Retrieved December 4 2017 Pope Stephen May 31 2013 Cirrus SR22 to be Donated to AirSpace Minnesota Flyingmag com Retrieved September 30 2015 Black Woods Blizzard Tour a ride to fight ALS 2009 Recap Archived from the original on July 14 2014 Retrieved July 9 2014 a b Cirrus Aircraft 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Retrieved July 25 2014 Freedom of Flight Award EAA AirVenture Oshkosh Eaa org Retrieved July 25 2014 UMD Currents Newsletter D umn edu Archived from the original on March 3 2016 Retrieved September 30 2015 Klapmeier brothers get keys to aviation s city Flyin airventure org August 2 2008 Archived from the original on October 6 2014 Retrieved July 25 2014 Weekly Communication 5 26 2011 PDF Cirrus Aircraft 2011 Retrieved February 24 2017 Cirrus Aircraft News Dale Klapmeier Awarded Prestigious Industry Leader of the Year 2012 Cirrusaircraft com May 3 2012 Archived from the original on July 14 2014 Retrieved July 25 2014 Dale Klapmeier Why Duluth Was The Right Choice For Cirrus YouTube 2015 Retrieved April 3 2016 Atlanta Aero Club Alan Klapmeier Youtube Retrieved August 21 2016 2022 Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame Midwestflyer com May 2022 Retrieved June 4 2022 External links EditDale and Alan Klapmeier biography from the National Aviation Hall of Fame Story Profile on the Klapmeier brothers in Flying Adventures and PrivateAir Video of Dale Klapmeier speaking at Redbird Migration in 2016Articles Edit Heart of glass article in The Economist where Alan Klapmeier talks about the importance of glass cockpits 2004 Experts Differ on Value Of Parachutes for Aircraft Washington Post article on the controversy of Cirrus parachutes 2006 Inside the National Air and Space Museum article written by Alan Klapmeier in The Atlantic 2011 From Minnesota to the moon article written by Dale Klapmeier in the Star Tribune 2013 Interviews Edit Video interview with Alan Klapmeier on AOPA Live in 2015 2017 Forbes interview with Dale Klapmeier Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Klapmeier brothers amp oldid 1124605433, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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