Exploring the nations paving the way for the future of AI
On June 26, 2000, British balloonist Adrian Nicholas made da Vinci’s invention exactly as the artist specified, and was hoisted to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) by a hot air balloon to test it out. He gently floated down in da Vinci’s parachute, though he had to ditch it at the end for fear that the wood frame would injure him upon landing.
The oldest conical parachute was designed in the 1470s in Renaissance Italy, with the purpose of helping people escape burning buildings, though there’s no evidence of it ever working. Then in the 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci created an improved version with a pyramid-shaped canopy held open by a square wooden frame.
To demonstrate it, Vrančić reportedly jumped from a Venice tower in 1617 using it and landed safely. With every alteration he made, he improved deceleration.
Lenormand was actually the first to create the word parachute two years after jumping with one, in 1785. He used the Latin preposition "para" (against) and the French word "chute" (fall) to create a new word that would mean "to avert a fall."
Then came the modern parachute, which was invented in the late 18th century by French physicist and inventor Louis-Sébastien Lenormand. He also made the first recorded public jump with it in 1783.
Two years after that, a French inventor named Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated the parachute as a means of safely disembarking from a hot air balloon. He first used a dog in his test, and then in 1793 he allegedly tried it himself when his hot air balloon ruptured—though there were no witnesses.
In the late 1790s, Blanchard then decided to change up the old parachute structure of linen stretched over a wood frame and instead started making parachutes from folded silk because of the fabric's strength and lightness.
The beginnings of the idea for a parachute can be traced to China 4,000 years ago when people noticed that air resistance slowed free falls. In the 9th-century region of Al-Andalus (on the Iberian Peninsula), Abbas ibn Firnas reportedly jumped off a tower in Cordova using a large cloak like a wing. Later, in the 1100s, people in China began base jumping, which was jumping from cliffs using rigid umbrellas, as stunts to entertain the monarchy.
Not long after, Garnerin designed the first air vent in a parachute to improve the stability of the descent. When opened, his canvas parachute resembled a huge umbrella about 30 feet (9 m) in diameter.
In 1837, Robert Cocking became the first person on record to die from a parachute accident. The British artist had an amateur interest in science and was inspired by Garnerin's jump in England to improve the design. He tested his parachute and after a few seconds the whole thing turned inside out and he plunged downwards at increasing speed, the parachute breaking up before it hit the ground, and the basket detaching from the remains of the canopy at about 200 to 300 feet (around 60-90 m) before hitting the ground. He died instantly.
To remove the problem of a basket detaching, in 1887 Captain Thomas Baldwin invented the first parachute harness. Three years later, in 1890, Paul Letteman and Katharina "Käthe" Paulus (pictured) invented the compact parachute, which could fit in a backpack before release. Paulus also created the intentional breakaway, which is when one small parachute opens first and pulls open the main parachute.
In 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin became the first person to jump using a parachute without a rigid frame. He reportedly attached the parachute to a hydrogen balloon and ascended to an altitude of 3,200 feet (975 m), then severed the parachute from the balloon. He failed to include an air vent at the top of the parachute and consequently oscillated wildly in his descent, and though he landed safely he was scared enough to make significant improvements in the design.
In 1595, Croatian inventor Faust Vrančić (sometimes referred to as Fausto Veranzio) designed another parachute-like device with a rigid frame, which he called Homo Volans ("Flying Man").
In 1799, Garnerin's wife, Jeanne-Genevieve (pictured), became the first female parachutist. He took it to ever greater heights and in 1802 jumped from 8,000 feet (2,438 m) during an exhibition in England. He later died in 1832, in a balloon accident where he was preparing to test a new parachute.
Parachuting, in which the parachute is deployed right away, was the norm until 1919, when Leslie Irvin made the first premeditated free fall parachute jump from an airplane. This was an early version of skydiving, which is the free fall before deploying a parachute to land safely.
Both Grant Morton and Captain Albert Berry claimed to be the first people to parachute from an airplane in 1911. In 1914, Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick (pictured) became the first woman to jump from an airplane. She later invented the ripcord.
Italy is credited with doing the first combat jump with parachutes in 1918, and later began using parachutes to drop soldiers behind enemy lines. Then in 1930 the Soviet Union started mass parachuting, creating the first airborne unit the following year. In World War II, airborne operations grew exponentially, hitting a peak with Operation Market Garden in 1944.
In 1931, Willi Ruge parachuted out of a single-engine aircraft flying over Berlin with a bulky camera, and became the first parachutist to document his own jump—something that is now taken for granted. He landed with a shattered shinbone, which he is said to have stoically ignored, perhaps thanks to all the adrenaline.
Polish-American Stanley Switlik founded the Switlik Parachute & Equipment Company, and in 1934 he and George Palmer Putnam, Amelia Earhart's husband, reportedly built a 115-foot (35-m) tall tower on Switlik's farm in Ocean County to train airmen in parachute jumping. The first public jump from the tower, however, was made by Amelia Earhart on June 2, 1935.
After the turn of the century, speeds got faster and free falls were higher. Obstacle courses were introduced, and people started to jump off anything that flies, hovers, glides, or floats.
Parachute jumping as a sport began in the 1960s when new "sports parachutes" were first designed, and prior to that it was mostly only former Army airborne soldiers using surplus military gear. The sports parachutes offered greater stability and horizontal speed.
One of the biggest risks in skydiving is a parachute malfunction. Around one in 1,000 parachute openings reportedly don't go according to plan, which is why people rarely fly with only one parachute anymore. In 1997, Jeremy Newman was infamously paralyzed in a skydiving accident when he hit the ground at 100 miles (160 km) an hour after a parachute malfunction. "I'm a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie and I love the feeling of the rush," he said, highlighting a dangerous draw of the sport.
Free falling with an unopened parachute became a chance to show off aerial maneuvers in competitions, which included jumping for style, landing with accuracy (in which the diver has to land on a 5-cm target), and performing formations in teams.
Free fall speeds for skydivers falling “belly to earth,” which is the standard arched position, can range from 110-130 miles per hour (180-210 km per hour). However, divers falling headfirst can reach speeds in excess of 330 mph (530 kmph) in speed skydiving competitions.
The Soviet Union's mass jumps in the 1930s led to parachuting as a sport, as record keeping reportedly began in 1932, and the first title was created in 1934. In the '40s, national championships began, and in 1950 there was international regulation.
French-American parachutist Raymond Young is credited with the coining the word “skydiving” in an article for the April 1954 issue of Flying Magazine. Five years later, Lew Sanborn and Jacques-André Istel opened the first non-military drop zone and school for skydiving.
If you ever ask a skydiver whether it's safe, they'll almost always remind you of this rather concerning fact: we actually put ourselves at a higher risk every time we get into our cars than if we were going to jump from a plane with a parachute!
See also: Inventors killed by their own creations
Other risks include injury upon landing, just like Willi Ruge, if one fails to lift their legs upon landing. Another risk is injury in the air, as there have been recorded cases of people jumping together and knocking into one another while free falling.
In the 1970s, the increase of high performance gear led to more competitive disciplines and rigorous training. By the '90s, computer designs helped improve performance and create even more disciplines.
Growing up in the modern world, we tend to take things for granted, like safety measures, sports, and general principles of physics. But these things were actually hard-won triumphs of human invention.
It can be almost unfathomable to many people to jump off a tall tower or from a helium balloon using a cloth we ourselves attached to a wooden frame, but many people made dangerous choices in the past so we could be safe today. And more than just safe, but also expansive in our ideas of what is humanly possible.
With all this said, click through to learn more about the impressive history of the parachute.
The crazy (and dangerous) history of the parachute
From the the first prototypes to the daring sport of skydiving
LIFESTYLE Extreme sports
Growing up in the modern world, we tend to take things for granted, like safety measures, sports, and general principles of physics. But these things were actually hard-won triumphs of human invention.
It can be almost unfathomable to many people to jump off a tall tower or from a helium balloon using a cloth we ourselves attached to a wooden frame, but many people made dangerous choices in the past so we could be safe today. And more than just safe, but also expansive in our ideas of what is humanly possible.
With all this said, click through to learn more about the impressive history of the parachute.