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.

[15] 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.

[29] Elmer ran a second business flying a "puddle jumper" plane around Wisconsin delivering parts to dairy farmers,[27] 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.

David Gustafson of Aircraft Spruce noted in 2012 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.

[36] 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).

[15] 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.

[26][37] 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.

[47] 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.

[49] 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 (known as "Mr. Outside"), and Dale staying back at the factory overseeing operations by keeping the design, testing and production moving (known as "Mr.

[11] 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).

[23] 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.

"[53] 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.

[59] 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.

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.

[68] 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.

[74] 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.

"[78][79] 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.

[21] 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[85]).

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.

[100] 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".

[29] Dale participates in an annual fundraising event called the "Black Woods Blizzard Tour", a snowmobile excursion around northern Minnesota that raises money to fight ALS.

[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.

[107][108] 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.

[109] 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.

[96] In the 2004 vice-presidential debate, former Vice President Dick Cheney indirectly mentioned the Klapmeier brothers, calling them and Cirrus "a great success story".

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.

Among the attendees that year were aerospace pioneers and celebrities such as Bob Hoover, Buzz Aldrin, Clay Lacy, Michael Dorn, Patty Wagstaff, Cliff Robertson, Chuck Yeager, and many more.

[114] 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.

[26][116] 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.