There’s no one who better personifies the term “Yankee ingenuity” than Sal Corio, founder of the Rhode Island company that makes the patented “SlideDown” fast and easy tie-downs. The RAF discovered this slick pilot-tested product and is proud to feature them in the RAF Outfitter.
THE MAN BEHIND SLIDEDOWNS: SAL CORIO
The RAF Sources Products Locally Across the US — Meet One of Our Many Vendors
Sal Corio of SlideDown fast and easy tie downs, Warwick, Rhode Island
Raised in a family jewelry business, Sal handed out his first business card at age nine, promoting his snow shoveling enterprise. By age 14, he was taking flying lessons from barnstormer and world War II Navy flight instructor Sabbi Ludovici. “Sabbi was more concerned about correctly tying his airplane down than flying,” Sal said. He soloed shortly after his 16th birthday, and has been flying ever since, enjoying regular flights to AirVenture, Sun n’ Fun and other aviation events. And the importance of securing an airplane obviously lodged in his mind.
Watching folks tie down their airplanes – some attacking their knot problem by just adding more knots – he knew there had to be a simpler solution. “I used a friend’s machine shop and after several design modifications, SlideDown was created,” he said.
Sal had graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1983 and by 1984 he was in the commercial auction business, putting him literally in touch with a variety of industrial machinery. “By 2012, I got inspired to begin making these things. Through my liquidations, I started acquiring the equipment I needed so I could make them myself.”
Rhode Island’s motto is simply “Hope” and Sal did a lot of that as he strolled past the hundreds of tied-down airplanes at Oshkosh, hoping he would not see anything that would make his design redundant. “I just knew they were out there somewhere.” But no one else had produced anything like his elegant “slide-down” design, so he decided, “I’m gonna make these things so the user doesn’t have to tie a knot. Sometimes, God puts you in just the right place,” he added, and explains that while camped at AirVenture’s North Forty, he became acquainted with the nearby campers. One happened to be a patent attorney, and helped him through that process.
In 2013 he loaded a pallet of SlideDowns bound for AirVenture, “Including a return bill of lading for the whole shipment in case no one wanted them,” he said. Skeptical people would grab a set and ask,“Does this thing really work?” After a quick demo, Sal would make a sale, then another, then another. . . “By day five or six, we were completely sold out.” Aircraft Spruce saw the potential and became Sal’s first distributor. He learned how to apply graphics to the radial surface, and now you’ll see branded SlideDowns sporting logos like the RAF. Sal reached out to AOPA, and ever since the year of the prize Debonair, its sweepstakes aircraft includes a set. “AOPA doesn’t go anywhere without their SlideDowns,” he said.
“Aviation is really my passion – always has been, and this business has connected me to people I’d never have met,” Sal says. He manages time to serve as president of the dynamic Rhode Island Pilot Association, and supports the RAF mission as well.
Another of his passions is producing his popular product entirely in his own shop with local employees. He’s had offers to multiply sales if production goes offshore. “Not gonna happen,” he says. He’s seen the sad results when manufacturing leaves its home place in search of cheaper production. “That’s when I end up liquidating someone’s dream,” he said. Nearby Providence used to be the costume jewelry capital of the world, but those factories stand silent, no longer buzzing with activity. “I was looking to make a quality tie-down entirely in Rhode Island. That’s how we’ve grown this little company,” he says, and is fulfilling his native state’s adage of “hope.”
Get your set at the RAF Outfitter, and learn more about all SlideDown products here.
By Carmine Mowbray
Submitted June 10, 2025
Posted in News
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At about this time, every year, we have this conversation at the RAF about what our year end letter (code for asking for your financial support) should say to you, and about the RAF and the accomplishments of the past year.
Our many RAF supporters have such vast and varied experience, and we’re capturing some of their words of wisdom to share with you. This guest editorial is by Stef Goza, a pilot and an RAF Alaska liaison.
Bill credits aviation for much of his success in business and the ability to serve his companies and family. What began in a Champ, and a Tri-Pacer owned by five people, turned into what Bill calls, “a key business tool” in which he accumulated 9,000 hours – in a Cheyenne, a Pilatus, and a TBM, where ninety-five percent of his flying was for business. “My retirement enabled me to recall ‘Why I Learned to Fly’, a slogan from an old RAF video.” Bill’s son, Patrick, purchased the C185 they now share. “While attending a business function, some associates arrived in corporate jets. As they joined up on the tarmac, the jet pilots gathered around Patrick’s 185, and one of the passengers asked, ‘What’s special about this?’ No explanation needed for this RAF audience,” Bill says. “My involvement in the RAF is, in a partial way, repaying the rewards aviation has endowed me with. Having been involved in many worthwhile nonprofits, this is one where financial support is only part of the picture. Physically participating in great projects that have a lasting effect, with good people, returns a great personal benefit,” he says. “My only regret is that I wasn’t there at the start.” Bill and his wife Jane are privileged to be able to split time between their long-time home in eastern Nebraska and Scottsdale, Arizona. While still serving on several boards, he enjoys golf “about every third shot,” biking, cars, and reading, but always looks forward to the time he can be involved in the RAF. “It’s flying with a purpose,” he adds. Bill can be reached at bdugan@theraf.org
AR Ambassador
A Christmas gift of flight lessons from his parents started Scott Anttila’s aviation journey in 1985. “I learned at Johnson Field, a small grass strip tucked into the woods in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and that early exposure to simple backcountry flying stuck with me,” Scott says. Growing up in the U.P., he spent a lot of time outdoors and found that flying was another way to get to the places he liked to explore—especially the ones most people never saw. As he earned more ratings and eventually moved to the Detroit area for work, Scott realized he needed a way to stay connected to northern Michigan. He bought an airplane and used it to get back to the smaller airstrips and lake country he enjoyed. Along the way, he also flew gliders out of Frankfort, soaring along the Sleeping Bear Dunes and towing sailplanes over the Great Lakes. “Those flights gave me a different appreciation for the landscape and made me even more interested in the small, out-of-the-way airports scattered around the state,” he says. Visiting those kinds of places, Scott first came across the Recreational Aviation Foundation. He started using RAF-supported airstrips both inside and outside Michigan. “I noticed how well-kept they were and how much access they opened up,” he says, adding, ”Over the years, I’ve watched a number of grass strips close, which made the RAF’s mission feel especially important to me. Maintaining these airstrips keeps aviation connected to the outdoors and makes it possible for more people to reach the quiet, remote areas that inspired me to fly in the first place.” Scott joins the other two RAF Michigan Liaisons, General Grant and Tanmoy Ganguly. He can be reached at santtila@theraf.org . Submitted December 11, 2025.
