49 Fun Facts About Parachute

What name did US paratroopers start shouting as they jumped from planes in 1940?

Geronimo: by the usual account, a soldier teased about his nerves the night before a test jump promised to yell it to prove he wasn't scared.

What do skydivers call pulling both steering toggles just before landing to slow a ram-air canopy?

Flaring pulls the canopy's tail down, turning forward speed into lift so the jumper can touch down softly.

In AD 852, Armen Firman is said to have jumped from a tower with a cloak in which Spanish city?

Córdoba, though the story may be a muddled version of that of Abbas ibn Firnas, a Córdoba inventor who is said to have tried to glide.

Leonardo da Vinci's parachute sketch gave its canopy which shape?

Pyramidal, and replicas really flew: British skydiver Adrian Nicholas tested one in 2000, and a Swiss jumper rode another all the way down in 2008.

Which unidentified hijacker parachuted from a Boeing 727 in 1971 with $200,000 and was never found?

D. B. Cooper jumped over the woods of Washington state, and the FBI stopped actively investigating in 2016 without ever identifying him.

Which NASA rover's supersonic parachute hid the motto 'Dare Mighty Things' in binary code?

Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, and internet users cracked its parachute's hidden code within about six hours of NASA releasing the landing video.

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

A dog: after testing his parachute on animals, including his own dog, Blanchard also claimed to have made successful jumps himself.

Which future US president survived being shot down in World War II by bailing out with a parachute?

George H. W. Bush was pulled from the sea by a US submarine after Japanese fire brought his plane down on a bombing run over the Pacific.

Who became the first woman to make a parachute descent?

Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin went on to make many ascents and parachute descents in towns across France and Europe.

Which Mediterranean island did Germany capture in May 1941 with an assault led by paratroopers?

Crete fell, but German losses were so heavy that Hitler curtailed large airborne operations afterwards, even as the Allies took the battle as a model for their own.

Which fabric were most parachutes made of until World War II cut off the supply?

Silk: soft, foldable silk canopies could be packed away instead of being held open by rigid frames like the earliest parachutes.

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.

Charles Broadwick demonstrated a backpack parachute deployed with what?

A static line pulled the canopy out of the pack and then snapped, the same principle Army paratroopers use today.

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

The Eiffel Tower: the police had approved tests with a dummy, but Reichelt jumped himself from its first platform.

Which nickname did Britain's 1st Airborne Division carry into battle at Arnhem in 1944?

The Red Devils lost about three quarters of the men who fought north of the Rhine before the survivors withdrew across the river.

Which Russian inventor designed an early knapsack parachute and tested a braking chute on a speeding car?

Gleb Kotelnikov turned to parachutes after watching the pilot Lev Matsievich fall to his death at a 1910 air festival.

Tiny Broadwick became the first woman to parachute from an airplane, jumping from one flown by which aviation pioneer?

Glenn L. Martin flew her, and in 1914 she demonstrated parachutes to the US Army.

In 1948, Idaho wildlife officers parachuted which animals into roadless backcountry to relocate them?

Beavers: horses and mules spooked when loaded with them, so 76 went in by air in boxes that sprang open on landing, and all but one survived.

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

Tethered observation balloons were filled with flammable hydrogen and made tempting targets, so crews jumped as soon as enemy fighters appeared.

Major Thomas Orde-Lees made a wartime parachute jump from which London structure?

Tower Bridge: Orde-Lees, a survivor of Shackleton's Endurance expedition, leapt from its parapet into the Thames to prove that parachutes worked.

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

The ripcord let the aviator choose when to open the canopy, so it could open only once clear of the disabled aircraft.

Which World War I flying ace survived a 1918 bailout after his parachute harness snagged on his plane's rudder?

Ernst Udet wrenched himself free and floated down into no man's land, one of the first fighter pilots ever saved by a parachute.

Which famous aviator saved his own life by parachute four times in 1925 and 1926?

Charles Lindbergh made all four emergency jumps before his 1927 flight from New York to Paris made him world-famous.

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

The caterpillar club took shape after Lt Harold Harris bailed out over Dayton in 1922, and parachute makers took to handing each new member a pin.

Which country formed one of the world's first airborne forces after an experimental parachute jump in 1930?

The Soviet Union's airborne force grew fast, and its 1935 manoeuvres near Kiev put mass parachute drops on show.

Which Belgian fort fell in May 1940 after airborne troops landed gliders on its roof?

Eben-Emael's guns were knocked out when glider troops blasted them with new hollow charges, opening Belgium to the invasion.

Which 1944 Allied airborne operation failed to hold the Rhine bridge at Arnhem?

Market Garden dropped British paratroopers up to eight miles from the Arnhem bridge, and fewer than 800 men managed to reach it.

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 first entered aviation in 1937, helping planes land on ice floes for expeditions where?

In the Arctic, the chutes let planes stop on small ice floes, and drag chutes are now widely used to shorten landings in aviation and spaceflight.

On D-Day, US paratrooper John Steele's parachute snagged on the church steeple in which Normandy town?

Sainte-Mère-Église: Steele hung from the steeple for hours, playing dead, before enemy soldiers took him prisoner.

Who conceived the ram-air multicell airfoil parachute canopy?

Domina Jalbert's multi-cell wing led to the square ram-air canopies that have largely replaced round parachutes in sport jumping.

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

The slider holds back the canopy's inflation, because an opening that is too fast can hit a jumper with injurious g-forces.

Which escape device did the Swedish aircraft maker SAAB develop during World War II?

The ejection seat fires the crewman clear, because climbing out over the side of ever-faster aircraft had become deadly.

In a stable belly-to-earth position, about how fast does a skydiver fall at terminal velocity?

About 200 km/h. The US Army's T-11 troop parachute was designed to sink more slowly than the T-10 before it, which cuts landing injuries.

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

About 1 in 1,000 openings. Most rigs also carry a device that fires the reserve automatically if the jumper is still falling too fast close to the ground.

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

Mae West: the pinched canopy bulges into two lobes, and around 1940 the same joke gave the buxom film star's name to the military's inflatable life jackets.

In 2005 the Huygens probe slowed its descent with parachutes to land on which moon?

Titan: slowed by a sequence of parachutes, Huygens bounced, slid and wobbled for about 10 seconds before coming to rest on the surface.

Which TV survival host broke his back in a 1996 parachute accident while serving with the SAS?

Bear Grylls fractured three vertebrae when his canopy failed over Zambia, yet less than two years later he stood on the summit of Everest.

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

Span means bridges, and Carl Boenish, who helped coin the acronym, died in a 1984 BASE jump in Norway.

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 skydiver jumped from 25,000 feet in 2016 without a parachute and landed in a giant net?

Luke Aikins had to steer himself onto the net through shifting winds, falling for about two minutes before landing safely.

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

New Mexico: launching from Roswell, Baumgartner nearly aborted when his visor fogged up, then broke the sound barrier on the way down.

Which 1960 record jumper served as Felix Baumgartner's mentor and radio link during his 2012 stratosphere jump?

Joseph Kittinger's 1960 jumps tested a parachute system meant to let pilots escape safely from very high altitude.

Felix Baumgartner made a BASE jump from the arm of which statue?

Christ the Redeemer: to get up there he used a crossbow to get a rope over the statue's arm, then climbed it.

Who broke Felix Baumgartner's exit-altitude record in October 2014?

Alan Eustace, a Google executive, fell faster than sound, and spectators on the ground heard his sonic boom.

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

Cruciform: the bigger cross-shaped canopy sinks more slowly, so a paratrooper can jump with a heavier load and still land safely.

Which film star made over 100 real parachute jumps to capture one high-altitude skydive for a 2018 action movie?

Tom Cruise's jump is set over Paris, but it was filmed over the United Arab Emirates, the only country that would allow the stunt.

In which James Bond film does 007 ski off a cliff and open a Union Jack parachute?

The Spy Who Loved Me: a stuntman really skied off Mount Asgard on Canada's Baffin Island to film the scene.

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

Certified riggers must pack a reserve within 180 days before it is used, while a skydiver may pack his or her own main canopy.