The parachute invention.

 

The first known written concept of a parachute is found in da Vinci's notebook (cl495). The picture he drew consisted of a cloth material pulled tightly over a rigid pyramidal structure. Although da Vinci never made the invention.

 

Fauste Veranzio constructed a thing similar to da Vinci's drawing and jumped from a tower in Venice in 1617.

More than a century would pass before the famous balloonists, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier made more developments. At the same time Sebastian Lenormand jumped from a tower using a 14-foot diameter parachute.

 

At that time, the parachute had a trapeze bar for the pilot to hold on to as he jumped and descended to the ground. Also in 1911, an Italian inventor called Pino, created the pilot chute. He attached a small parachute with a rigid frame to his helmet.

From World War I to the early 1930's, conventional round silk (now known as solid cloth) parachutes remained unchanged in structure and military air corps in Europe, Russia, and the United States primarily used them.

After World War II Knacke invented the ring slot parachute which is used for moderate speeds. The ring slot parachute is significantly cheaper to manufacture than the ribbon parachute.

The development of sport parachutes became solid cloth parachutes in the early 1960's. After that,

during the early space projects, Rogallo developed a single membrane flexible wing, known as the parawing. Then,by the late 1970's, the parawing was replaced by the parafoil, invented in the middle 1960's by Domina Jalbert.

 

 

Rebeca Díez & Sandra Garcia 2nd A