The first aircraft evacuation slide was developed and produced by Air Cruisers, founded by James F. Boyle, inventor of the World War II life vest, the "Mae West".[3] The patent for the inflatable escape chute assembly was submitted by Boyle in 1954 and the designs was patented in 1956 under patent number 2,765,131.[4] Today Air Cruisers is part of Zodiac Aerospace and ultimately owned by Safran who are the world's largest provider of evacuation slides.[5] Prior to inflatables, some passenger aircraft utilized canvas type slides which required the crew to undertake an extensive rigging procedure. Canvas type slides are still found on some out of production Russian aircraft.