BRS, Inc., the world's leading maker or whole-aircraft emergency parachutes, has announced a sweepstakes that will run throughout 2004.

"It's because of the saves," an insider told Aero-News on condition of anonymity. "People are flying less, and they're flying more carefully. They don't do nearly as much dumb [expletive] like fly ultralights into thunderstorms and try to aerobat stuff made from lawn-chair factory seconds. This adds up to fewer deployments. We'll never see our next big milestone of 200 saves if we don't take action. How can we save people unless they have an incentive to try to kill themselves?"

The sweepstakes is simple enough. In the next twelve months, special canopies will be fitted to BRS chutes, both new and repacks. One says "GRAND PRIZE WINNER!" and there are two "FIRST PRIZE!" and "SECOND PRIZE!" chutes. Everybody else, on activation of his BRS chute, will look up and see: "SORRY, PLEASE TRY AGAIN!" Since the winner will need to send in his chute for repacking anyway, the factory will easily be able to verify the win.

"Gee, I hope they understand, we mean try the game, not the chute," the BRS insider revealed. "We got the idea from that game with Pepsi bottlecaps. I won a free Pepsi once!"

The sweepstakes is void where prohibited, and is only available with BRS chutes for ultralight and experimental craft. BRS marketing managers wanted to extend the game to the company's growing line of certified chutes, but balked at the $1.4 million price tag to recertify the canopies with the dyed-on lettering.

FMI: www.brsparachutes.com