History of Parachuting

MANADO, ZONAUTARA.com – Parachuting is a method of transiting from a high point to Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent with the use of a parachute.

In the beginning around 15th century. A famous painter in the world Leonardo da Vinci revealed on his book Codex Atlanticus (1484), he makes a sketch by drawing some parachutes gear. But, he never makes a real of his sketch. Leonardo had design in triangle shape.

Almost one hundred years lapsed before the concept of the parachute was again recorded. In 1595, Fausto Veranzio, a Hungarian mathematician living in Italy, published the idea of a parachute being used as a “fall breaker”, and described several successful trial jumps which he claimed to have made from a tower in Venice. This claim to have had successful jumps, however, have not been substantiated. Fausto Veranzio published Machinae Novae, in which he describes in text and picture about forty sketches with several engine designs and an equipment.

As qoted from theinventors.org, Jean Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) a Frenchman was probably the first person to actually use a parachute for an emergency. In 1785, he dropped a dog in a basket, to which a parachute was attached, from a balloon high in the air. In 1793, Blanchard claims to have escaped from an exploded hot air balloon with a parachute. Blanchard, it should be noted, also developed the first foldable parachute made from silk, up until that point all parachutes were made from rigid frames.

In 1797, Andrew Garnerin was the first person recorded to jump with a parachute without a rigid frame. Garnerin jumped from hot air ballons as high as 8,000 feet in the air. Garnerin also designed the first air vent in a parachute intended to reduce oscillations.

Captain Thomas Baldwin, 1887, invented the first parachute harness and in 1890, Paul Letteman and Kathchen Paulus invented the method of folding or packing the parachute in a knapsak to be worn on the back before its release. Kathchen Paulus was also behind the invention of the intentional breakaway, which is when one small parachute opens first and pulls open the main parachute. Two parachuters claim to be the first man to jump from an airplane, both Grant Morton and Captain Albert Berry parachuted from an airplane in 1911. In 1914, Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick made the first freefall jump.

Currently, Parachuting is performed as a hobby and a competitive sport, widely considered an extreme sport due to the risks involved.

Writer: Tesa Senduk

Editor: Eva Aruperes