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The Klapmeier brothers, Alan Lee Klapmeier (born October 6, 1958) and Dale Edward Klapmeier (born July 2, 1961), 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. The device is attributed with saving over 200 lives to date. 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.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", Time magazine regarded them as "giving lift to the small-plane industry with an easy-to-fly design", 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. The Klapmeier brothers were inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2014.The brothers started Cirrus in the basement of their parents' rural dairy barn near Baraboo, Wisconsin. 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. 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.After Cirrus, Alan became CEO of Kestrel Aircraft in 2010, which merged with Eclipse Aerospace in 2015 to form One Aviation. The company ended operations in 2021. Dale remains at Cirrus as a senior advisor and served as its CEO from 2011 to 2019.