A Message From The CEO

At Airborne Systems, we are dedicated to delivering “best value” and services to customers worldwide. We are an organization with deep historic roots in parachute development and innovation founded upon the simple concept of “landing aviators safely”.

We have gone well beyond our company’s original founding principle of landing aviators safely, to designing and manufacturing parachute systems for many kinds of missions with parachute applications ranging in size from the very small, for carrying a few ounces, to the very large, for decelerating objects weighing many tons.

Airborne Systems is a company brought together from the merged entities of well known parachute and parachute related businesses--GQ Parachutes, Irvin Aerospace, Para-Flite and Aircraft Materials (AML). We cherish and honor the history and multitude of past accomplishments of these individual companies that are now merged into one company with one common set of objectives, all focused around an uncompromising commitment to provide best of class parachute products and services to customers worldwide.

Our history and legacy began in 1919, when Leslie Irvin, the founder of the Irvin Airchute Company, made the first ever freefall parachute jump with a parachute that he had designed to be manually releasable in freefall. Through Irvin Airchute Company, we have well established roots in North America. Para-Flite was founded in 1969 and led the development of ram air and gliding parachutes. Our roots in the United Kingdom date back to 1932, when GQ Parachutes was established by James Gregory and Sir Raymond Quilter. Aircraft Materials (AML) was later founded in 1953. From that first historic jump, and those early beginnings, we have grown and now have Headquarter Operations in North America and the United Kingdom, serving customers globally.

As the world’s first parachute designer and manufacturer, we have hundreds of man years of experience with parachute design. When we started in 1919, we did not have computers, we just had people; our designs and planning were developed using pencil and paper. We now have and apply the latest state-of-the-art technology. But our services still revolve around the experience, commitment, and pride of the Airborne Systems team to deliver “best value” to our customers.

We deliver “best value” by applying that accumulated know how to develop innovative, technically superior products, manufactured to the highest quality standards. Delivering those products on time at reasonable cost is what we stand for at Airborne Systems.

Innovation that delivers advantage to our customers is one of our fundamental objectives. At Airborne Systems, continuous change and added capabilities occur within all operating functions of the organization--manufacturing, information technology, creative design, project management and systems engineering, all using the latest technological tools. We have simplified complicated engineering requirements and helped hundreds of companies and governments achieve solutions to critical delivery, launch and recovery needs--and given thousands of individuals the capability to “land safely”. Our commitment to what we stand for is embodied in our principle company statement: “Dedicated To Preserving The Safety Of The Mission And Its People”.

Today, Airborne Systems is creating value for customers worldwide by inventing the future through team-work, innovation, and continuous improvement. We are especially proud of our creative design team and our simulation and analytical capabilities. Delivering advantage, benefit, value, and satisfaction is our commitment to you and central to everything we do.

Elek Puskas
Chief Executive Officer

Understanding Parachute Flight

Delivering Superior Technology, Innovation and Solutions

Customers have come to know and benefit from a long list of advantages that Airborne Systems delivers with every parachute product. Advantages include: