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TWST: Would you give us a brief historical sketch of the company and a
picture of the things you are doing at the present time?
Mr. Williams: Ballistic Recovery Systems started 26 years ago when our
Founder was involved in an incident where he had a wing collapse on a
small airplane and actually crashed into a lake. He was pretty badly
injured. He tells the story that on his way down he decided there must
be a better way, and committed to coming up with a way to deploy a whole
airplane recovery parachute to avoid that sort of a situation. He was
the first one to really make a system that was commercially viable that
would actually bring the entire airplane and its occupants safely down.
Since that time, back in 1980, we've developed a number of products for
a number of different applications including ultralight aircraft, sport
aircraft, the new light-sport aircraft category, and all the way up to
general aviation airplanes. Our largest product is on the Cirrus Design
SR20 and SR22, which is a 3,400 pound airplane with four seats onboard.
We can successfully bring down that big of an airplane in the event of
an in-air type emergency such as losing an engine, mid-air collision,
incapacitation of the pilot, bad weather, or loss of control of the
airplane. We are now developing products and looking forward to having
parachute applications on the new very light jet category of airplanes,
which are bigger and faster aircraft. This is quite a technological
challenge for us. We see wider and wider acceptance in the marketplace
of whole-airplane parachute technology. So our business has been growing
steadily over the last several years. TWST: Was there a lot of skepticism in the beginning?
Mr. Williams: Yes, there has been a lot of skepticism. Typical pilots
are in control and can deal with various degrees of circumstances that
would constitute an emergency, but as we've now saved 190 lives, people
have started to understand there are environments where you do lose
control and that a parachute gives you that last level of safety to be
able to bring down the aircraft and save the occupants onboard. There is
also a lot of misconception that if you pull the parachute and bring the
airplane down it's going to destroy the airplane. However, the history
shows us that that is not actually the case. In almost all of the cases,
especially on the general aviation side, the airplanes have been
repaired and flying.
Tickers included in this excerpt: BRSI
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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