LOS GATOS, California USA - After months of test marketing, Gene Engelgau is ready to take the wraps off his family-run business, Fruity Chutes, a custom parachute and recovery system manufacturer just south of San Jose. Engelgau co-owns the company with his wife, Paula.

"We've been making parachutes for the high power rocketry community here in California for about six months and so far the feedback is very good," Engelgau said. "We've designed a product squarely targeting the high-end market. Despite our fun name and logo, we are serious about our product and quality".

Customer Aaron Stanley's level 3 rocket, a Competitor 4, under an 84" Fruity Chute.

And it is a family-run business, too. With guidance from Gene, Paula does all the sewing and is an expert seamstress. The Engelgau's daughter Janice, age 15, has a great artistic flair and is herself a young entrepreneur — Janice designed the original artwork and has attended launches selling parachutes.

For the name, "we wanted something really fun and easy to remember," Engelgau said. "With companies named after mad bovines, we felt we could have fruit flavored parachutes." Of course, Engelgau is referring to Madcow Rocketry, whose owner Mike Stoop happens to be a Fruity Chutes customer.

As for the parachutes, they use a classic multi-gore canopy having an ellipsoid shape, like a flattened hemisphere. The material used is 1.1oz calendared rip stop nylon and meets Mil Spec PIA-C 44378 specifications. "Getting material this good was not a trivial task. Most of it is controlled by the professional parachute industry," Engelgau said.

The design has several key advantages:

1. The shape has a very high drag coefficient of 1.5
2. The canopy is smaller for a given descent weight capacity and uses less material
3. Has the lightest weight per descent capacity
4. Packs into the smallest volume

All parachutes are custom made to order, so don't call expecting to order out of stock. Customers have a choice of eight vibrant colors as well as many other options. Chutes come complete, ready to go with a bridle and swivel matched to the parachute's size — just add the quick link. You can also order a deployment bag matched to your parachute and airframe size.

Delivery is usually within one to two weeks — if a customer needs it sooner, let them know and they can expedite it. "Most of our chutes go into larger projects that take time to build, so a custom-made chute worked perfectly with most of our customer schedule," Engelgau stated. "Scale flyers like our product, too, wanting the classic parachute shape with red and white being the most popular."

For more information or to order, please visit the Fruity Chutes website at: http://www.fruitychutes.com/, or email Gene directly at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

03-20-2008 10:04 PM  #1
Tom Rouse New Member   Joined: Oct 2006 Posts: 4	Re: New parachute manufacturer ready for recovery business Well done Gene. Have fun with your wife and daughter with the new business. T

03-20-2008 11:14 PM  #2
C.O.B.H.C. New Member   Joined: Mar 2008 Posts: 3	Re: New parachute manufacturer ready for recovery business Thanks again Gene for the great parachute. I look forward to doing business with you again.