50 Fun Facts About Parachute

Who coined the word 'parachute' in 1785, two years after making the first recorded public jump?

He fused the Italian 'para' (to shield) with the French 'chute' (fall), and had been inspired by a 1691 account of umbrella jumpers in Siam.

The word 'parachute' combines an Italian prefix meaning 'to shield' with the French word for what?

The same French word gives us 'chute' as in a laundry chute.

In AD 852 Armen Firman jumped from a tower with a cloak to slow his fall in which Spanish city?

The chronicle records that 'there was enough air in the folds of his cloak to prevent great injury when he reached the ground'.

Leonardo da Vinci's parachute sketch used a square wooden frame that gave the canopy what shape?

The design was successfully tested in 2000 by Adrian Nicholas and again in 2008 by Olivier Vietti-Teppa.

The oldest known parachute design, from a 1470s manuscript, is attributed to which Italian engineer?

It shows a man clutching a crossbar under a conical canopy; the surface area is far too small to have worked.

Croatian polymath Faust Vrančić published his 'Homo Volans' parachute in which 1615-16 book?

The picture shows a man descending from a tower, presumably St Mark's Campanile in Venice; the story that he actually jumped is now thought to be a misreading.

Jean-Pierre Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations in 1785 used what as the passenger?

He later claimed to have used one himself in 1793 when his balloon ruptured, though nobody witnessed it.

Over which Paris park did Garnerin make the first frameless parachute descent in 1797?

The date fell on 1 Brumaire, Year VI of the republican calendar; he had earlier been a prisoner of the British.

Who became the first woman to parachute, descending from a balloon at 900 metres on 12 October 1799?

She went on to make many descents across France and Europe.

In 1804 the astronomer Jérôme Lalande introduced what canopy feature to stop violent oscillations?

A round canopy with no hole is still prone to swinging and is not considered steerable.

Which light, strong material did Blanchard adopt for parachutes in the 1790s?

It stayed the standard until the Second World War cut off supplies from Japan.

Adeline Gray's June 1942 jump used a canopy of which material, which the industry then adopted?

The war had cut off silk imports from Japan, and the synthetic turned out to be tougher anyway.

In 1907 Charles Broadwick demonstrated a backpack parachute deployed with what?

The line attached to the balloon pulled the chute from the pack and then snapped; the same principle is used by paratroopers today.

Franz Reichelt jumped to his death in 1912 testing his wearable parachute from which landmark?

A dummy test at the same tower a year earlier had worked; Reichelt insisted on trying it himself.

Grant Morton made the first parachute jump from an aeroplane in 1911 over which Californian beach?

The aircraft was a Wright Model B, and Morton simply held the folded canopy in his arms and threw it out as he left.

Which Russian inventor built the first knapsack parachute in 1911 and demonstrated the drogue chute on a speeding car?

The car test near Tsarskoye Selo in 1912 opened a canopy fixed to the back seat of a Russo-Balt at top speed.

Georgia 'Tiny' Broadwick, the first woman to leap from a moving aircraft, became in 1914 the first to do what?

During demonstrations for the US Army she deployed her chute by hand instead of relying on a static line.

Which country's air service became the first in the world to issue a standard parachute, in 1918?

The Heinecke design was made by the Schroeder company of Berlin; around a third of the first 70 airmen to bail out with it still died.

The first military use of parachutes in World War I was by observers escaping from what?

The hydrogen-filled balloons were tempting targets, so crews jumped as soon as enemy fighters appeared.

Balloon officer Thomas Orde-Lees, the 'Mad Major', made a wartime parachute jump from which London structure?

The stunt persuaded the Royal Flying Corps' balloonists to adopt parachutes.

Van Meter's 1916 'Aviatory Life Buoy' patent introduced which quick-release mechanism?

It let a falling aviator open the canopy only once clear of the disabled aircraft.

Which famous German fighter pilot was among those saved by a parachute during World War I?

No parachutes were issued to Allied aeroplane crews at all, though the story that this was to stop pilots abandoning aircraft has no documentary support.

Leslie Irvin, who made the first premeditated free-fall jump in 1919, was on a US Army team led by which major?

Their Type-A parachute combined a soft backpack, a ripcord and a pilot chute, and won Hoffman the Collier Trophy in 1926.

The club for those who have parachuted from a disabled aircraft is named after which creature?

Two Dayton newspaper reporters proposed it after Lt Harold Harris's life-saving jump at McCook Field in 1922; the name nods to silk.

Which country established the world's first regular airborne troops, in 1931?

Italy had experimented with dropping soldiers as early as 1927, but the Soviets built the first standing force.

The 1940 German attack on which Belgian fort was among the first large-scale opposed paratrooper landings?

The airborne assault on The Hague the same day was the other; Crete and Market Garden followed on a much larger scale.

Which 1944 operation is described as the largest airborne military operation ever?

The Polish parachute brigade jumped at Driel on the south bank of the Rhine after bad weather held them up in England.

The first US Army parachute test jump, on 16 August 1940, took place at Lawson Field on which base?

The jump was from a B-18 bomber, and the Army's parachute school was established there under William Lee.

Drag chutes were first used in aviation in 1937 by Soviet aircraft supporting expeditions where?

The chutes let planes land safely on small ice floes while supplying the drifting station North Pole-1.

Some skydivers nickname round canopies after which sea creature?

Rounds are pure drag devices with no lift, and modern sport jumpers rarely use them.

Which Canadian conceived the ram-air multicell airfoil parachute canopy in 1963?

Its two fabric layers form cells that inflate through forward-facing vents into a wing shape.

What is the grommeted fabric rectangle that slows a ram-air canopy's opening called?

It slides down the lines during deployment, limiting how fast they can spread; older ram-air designs opened brutally hard.

Roughly what deceleration does a skydiver feel during a normal canopy opening?

The canopy takes about three to four seconds to slow the fall from around 190 km/h to 28 km/h.

In a stable belly-to-earth position, a skydiver's terminal velocity is roughly what?

Head-down and more streamlined positions go considerably faster.

Approximately how often does a sport main parachute malfunction badly enough to require the reserve?

The reserve is packed only by a certified rigger, and the 2017 US fatality rate was 1 in 133,571 jumps.

A round-canopy malfunction that squeezes the chute into a huge brassiere shape is nicknamed after which actress?

Friction heats the nylon so fast that opposite sides can fuse together, so the canopy can never open fully.

Ribbon parachutes made of Kevlar, built to open at supersonic speed, are fitted to what?

The B61 and B83 use them; a conventional canopy would shred instantly at those speeds.

The first World Parachuting Championships were held in 1951 in which town, now in Slovenia?

The early contests were centred on landing accuracy, and the FAI began recognising records at the same time.

In BASE jumping, what does the 'S' stand for?

Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs); the acronym was coined by filmmaker Carl Boenish and friends.

Modern BASE jumping dates to 1978, when Carl Boenish filmed jumps from which Yosemite rock face?

Michael Pelkey and Brian Schubert had jumped from the same cliff back in 1966.

Which French skydiver developed the self-inflating wingsuit in the early 1990s?

After his death in 1998, Robert Pečnik and Jari Kuosma launched the commercial BirdMan suits in 1999.

Felix Baumgartner's 2012 stratospheric jump for Red Bull Stratos landed him in which US state?

He fell roughly 39 km and became the first person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.

Baumgartner's 4:19 free fall was 17 seconds short of his mentor's 1960 record. Who was the mentor?

Kittinger was in radio contact with him throughout the 2012 jump.

Baumgartner set the record for the lowest BASE jump ever, 29 metres, from the hand of which statue?

He also jumped from the Petronas Towers in 1999 and, without permission, from Taipei 101 in 2007.

Who broke Baumgartner's exit-altitude record in October 2014, jumping from 41,422 metres?

The Google executive used a drogue for stability, so Baumgartner's speed and free-fall records stand in their category.

The US Army's T-11 canopy, replacing the round T-10, is based on which shape?

The cross-shaped design cuts oscillation and lowers the descent rate by about 30 percent, reducing landing injuries.

Which Frenchman invented the pull-down apex round parachute?

The first widely used canopy of this type was the Para-Commander, made by the Pioneer Parachute Co.

What does a skydiver pull to jettison a malfunctioning main canopy?

It sits on the front right of the harness and releases the main via the 3-ring system; the reserve handle is on the left.

In the US, who must pack emergency and reserve parachutes?

Sport skydivers are trained to pack their own main canopies, but reserves require trained, certified specialists.

By what percentage does the US Army's ATPS system cut the descent rate versus the old T-10?

The T-11's slower fall, from 6.4 to 4.8 metres per second, cuts landing impact energy by nearly a quarter.