Parachuting History
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Reference Notes
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ca90BC
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a Chinaman escaped a fire in a tower by jumping with two conical
straw-hats as a drag or descent-delay parachute
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ca290BC-AD250
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numerous instances of "man-lifting" kites bearing an observer
aloft for military surveillance; as derived from the 5th Century
BC Chinese invention of the kite, called a "flying sail" ...
greatly anticipating the modern invention of the airfoil glider
and ascending parachute
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ca550-577
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Chinese archives document winged-flight experiments imitative of
birds
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ca1000
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Chinese officials experimented with parachute designs by
compelling condemned prisoners to jump from towers and cliffs,
according to archives translated by the French monk Vasson
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1192
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a Chinese acrobat stole some of the gold ornamentation off the
roof of the Islamic minaret in Canton, and escaped by jumping
with double umbrellas as a parachute
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ca1485/1495
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Leonardo daVinci designed a pyramid-shaped "tent" frame-style
parachute. In his 1514 sketchbook, he conjectured that it could
be used for military deployment if soldiers were launched into
the air by cannon
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ca1595/1617
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Fausto Veranzio (Fouste Veranzino), a Hungarian mathematician,
parachuted from a tower in Venice using a "fall breaker"
canvas-covered frame
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ca1687
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Siamese court tumblers used double-umbrellas to descend from a
height during their act, as reported by English ambassadors
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1783
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the Montgolfier brothers of France successfully dropped a sheep
from a tower using a seven-foot frame parachute; as a scientific
experiment, Joseph Montgolfier may have jumped from a balloon at
some later date
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1783
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Louis Sebastien Lenormand, of France, is generally credited with
being the first to successfully demonstrate the parachute
principle by descending in such a device from the top of the
Montpelier Observatory in Paris. He coined the word
'parachute', as derived from "sustain + fall"
(parer + chute) for a "deployable aerodynamic
decelerator".
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1785
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Jean Pierre Blanchard of France successfully dropped a dog from a
balloon by parachute. He may have attempted the feat himself, but
the act is not documented. He may have designed the first
frameless folding-cloth parachute
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22 Oct 1797
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Andrew/Andre Jacques Garnerin rode suspended in a basket beneath
a ribbed parachute canopy, which folded like a sunshade-parasol
(10m diameter, with 36 suspension lines) and had been stowed
below a balloon, from 700m/2300ft safely to land. A lack of vents
caused the canopy to oscillate violently, sickening the
parachutist. Vents were inserted into the canopy after his 21
September 1802 jump in England. He made a demonstration jump for
the French military on 23 September 1800 at Champs de Mars. His
wife, Genevieve LaBrosse, jumped in 1798, becoming the first
woman to parachute. His niece, Elisa, made forty jumps between
1815 and 1836.
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14 July 1808
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first recorded emergency parachute descent was made safely by the
Polish aeronaut, Jordaki Kuparento, from his burning balloon,
over the city of Warsaw
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ca1809-1853
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Chinese aeronautical experiments to fly imitative of a
"helicopter top" dragonfly; as inspired by 4th Century invention
of pinwheels, which "wind wheels" were sometimes attached to
kites to increase lift and propulsion
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1837
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the English artist, Robert Cocking, was killed when his
experimental parachute collapsed under excessive weight at an
altitude of 1700m. The English scholar, Sir George Cayley, had
proposed to remedy the oscillatory problem with a cone-shaped
parachute which would be used with the apex pointing downwards.
This developed design was used successfully in jumps from
30-120m/98-393ft heights by the German aeronaut, Lorenz Hengler.
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30 Jan 1887
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Thomas Baldwin, wearing a rope-harness attached to a folded silk
arched-canopy, which was collapsed and stowed in a canvas
container attached to the side of a balloon basket, jumped from
5000ft to land safely; Samuel and Thomas Baldwin designed this
first frameless parachute for their circus act. As with the 1804
French folded-canopy design by Bourget, it was opened by the wind
after the jumper's body-weight pulled it free from the container,
and air pressure kept the canopy deployed.
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1890's
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German circus performers Kathe/Kaethe Paulus and Paul
Letterman/Letteman jumped from a balloon wearing a "bag packed"
tandem parachute so they could deploy a second canopy in series
after discarding the first. This two 'chute backpack system and
"cut-away" technique is still used when a
reserve 'chute replaces a defective/malfunctioned main canopy.
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1908
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Leo Stevens devised the first "ripcord" actuated
parachute to be released by the jumper; but this
"freefall" system would not be substantially utilized
until 1920
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1910
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Pino, an Italian inventor, devised and patented a backpack
parachute which featured a small pilot 'chute, released
from the jumper's helmet, which deployed the primary or main
canopy from its container; a similar system is still in effect
for sport freefalls
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1911
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Grant Morton makes first freefall jump from an airplane, by
exiting a Wright Model B over Venice Beach California, with a
collapsed parachute held in his arms (early version of
"throw-out" deployment)
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28 Feb 1912
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Captain Albert Berry made the first container-deployed jump from
an airplane at 1500ft near St Louis, Missouri; the dome-shaped
metal canopy-container, designed by Leo Stevens, was attached to
the airplane's fuselage, and remained after releasing the
parachute
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1913
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Captain M. Douade designed an emergency parachute system to lower
an entire airplane; however his plans were cancelled by WWI
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1914-1922
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Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick, an American balloon-jumper and
barnstormer, was the first woman to make an airplane jump, near
San Diego, California; subsequently completing over 1100 jumps.
Her step-father, Charles Broadwick, developed the first
vest-style backpack, called the "parachute coat", which
used a breakaway static-line to deploy the canopy.
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1919
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the "GUARDIAN ANGEL" emergency parachute system was
manufactured by E.R. Cathrop Ltd, of London England. This system
was used to safely lower the entire airplane, and was credited
with saving many lives. In a 1996 prototype made
by Ballistic Recovery Systems Inc (BRSI) for Cessna light
airplanes, the FAA approved aircraft descent parachutes;
and the Cirrus light plane became the first production model to
have a built-in ballistic parachute for emergency descent.
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28 Apr 1919
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Leslie L. "SkyHigh" Irvin developed the first freefall or
delayed-opening parachute, which used a small spring-loaded
pilot 'chute, and employed an H-harness to connect the
jumper's body to the suspension lines (which later became
"risers"). This 32-foot backpacked parachute was
actuated by the jumper at will with the
"ripcord" of steel cable that "locked" the
backpack with pins. Irvin made the first military freefall from
1500ft over McCook Field, Ohio, during safety tests to acquire a
new parachute for pilots of the U.S. Army Air Service, which
experiments were supervised by Floyd Smith and Major W.L./E.L.
Hoffman.
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24 Sep 1927
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first mass military jump by five US Marines and four USN sailors,
from 1500ft, at Anacostia Flats, Washington DC
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6 Nov 1927
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Italian Air Force experiments by parachuting nine aviators, from
1600ft
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Oct 1928
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Brigadier General William C. "Billy" Mitchell directed that six
soldiers exit a Martin bomber airplane by parachute with
full-field equipment, land, and set-up a machinegun on the Drop
Zone at Kelly Field, Texas; thus becoming the first
"paratroopers" (aka: air-infantry,
air-grenadiers) in the world. As other countries (ie:
France, Russia, Germany) developed "air-delivered forces",
General G.C. Marshall directed the Infantry Board to commence
training an all-volunteer Parachute Test Platoon during
July 1940.
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1929
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Captain Roscoe Turner landed his airplane with a parachute,
before 15,000 spectators in an air-show at Santa Ana, CA; as a
result of research on vehicle recovery later begun in
1961, NASA adopts parachutes for the final phase
of re-entry in the Gemini space-capsule program
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1936
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on maneuvers, the U.S.S.R. demonstrated the functional
airborne regiment concept to allied observers
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1938
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successful German paratroop assaults on Norway and Holland, but
after the landing on Crete, in which two of every three
parachutes was an equipment container and casualties were very
high, the elite German Army airborne was grounded
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22 Jun 1940
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British Army forms paratroops under direction of Sir Winston L.S.
Churchill
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25 Jun 1940
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at GEN G.C. Marshall's direction, a 50-man U.S. Army Parachute
Test Platoon was established by the Infantry Board to develop
doctrine and techniques for airborne operations, using the
28-foot T-4 static-line parachute, newly developed for
low-altitude use by field-equipped soldiers, and the smaller
22-foot back-up "reserve" parachute for emergency deployment in
case of malfunction (nb: USA was the first to equip troops with
reserve 'chutes, and the only country to do so during WWII);
which resulted in five (ie: 11, 13, 17, 82, 101) divisions and
six (ie: 503, 509, 517, 550, 551, 555) separate units for WWII.
The U.S. Army Parachute Qualification Badge, originally worn only
while assigned to an airborne unit, was first awarded 23
March 1941, having been designed by Captain Yarborough
and Second Lieutenant Minter. The Army parachute badge acquired a
cloth background-oval or wing-trimming, distinctive for each
unit, to distinguish between troopers on active jump-status and
those who are simply jump qualified. The Army parachute badge was
originally worn by Marine parachutists, but the Marine Rigger
badge was later modified and adopted as the official Marine badge
after WWII. The Rigger badge, for parachute packers and
repairers, is a separate non-jump qualification of the
quartermaster corps (QMC).
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12 July 1940
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first operational firefighter jump by Rufus Robinson and Earl
Cooley in the Martin Creek area of the Nezperce National Forest,
Idaho; following experimental training since Spring 1939
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Oct 1940
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U.S. Marine Corps establishes airborne training, forming two
parachute battalions, later expanded to a regiment authorized
four battalions, but never jumped in combat; used as elite
infantry until reduced ranks compelled disbandment; remainder
assigned with Raider remnants as replacements to 5th Mar Div
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1941
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Arthur H. Starnes made the first authenticated "high-altitude
low-opening" (HALO) controlled freefall with adaptive equipment
from 30,800ft to opening at 1500ft; to prove aviators could
survive extreme delayed-opening ejections from disabled aircraft
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1930's-1950
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American skydivers and stunt-jumpers developed more sophisticated
methods and controlled freefall techniques for stabilization and
"relative work" (RW). Leo "Birdman" Valentin is credited with
perfecting freefall aerobatics and sport parachuting [nb: he died
in a jump involving equipment failure in 1956]. In 1948, Francis
Rogallo patented the flexible "delta wing" steerable airfoil,
subsequent to the glider and flight research of pioneer
aeronautical engineers Otto Lilienthal, Octave Chanute, Orville
& Wilbur Wright.
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post-1950
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well-organized and regulated sport/military parachuting,
including competitions, establishment of rating and
certification, advances in training methods and equipment design,
improvements in materials, innovations in techniques, and
proliferating support groups. A Swiss engineer and physicist,
August Pica , lofted a sealed ("air cabin") capsule by
balloon to 53,400ft during 1954 in conjunction
with work on deep-ocean submersion by "bathoscaf" vehicles. The
Parachute Club of America was formed in 1957,
later becoming the United States Parachute Association; the
unique U.S.P.A. badge was designed and adopted by its membership
in September 1961, and trademarked in 1962.
Special Operations Forces began formal Military Free Fall (MFF)
parachute instruction for both high- and low-altitude insertions
in 1964. The 'Rogallo wing', which could be controlled like a
glider, led to para-gliding and ascending parachutes in the
mid-1960s, to hang-gliding after 1966, to para-skiing from 1971,
to ultra-light, autogyro, and other experimental minimal aircraft
from 1974. Some senior parachutists formed the Parachutists Over
Phorty Society (POPS) in 1966, declaring that
"You don't quit skydiving because you got old, you got old
because you quit skydiving!" (by Bill Wood); and this
association has since extended to Skydivers Over Sixty (SOS),
Jumpers Over Seventy (JOS), Jumpers Over Eighty Society (JOES),
and Jumpers Over Ninety Society (JONS).
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