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Amazing Parachute Facts & Stories
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DaVinci's concept
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When was the First Parachute and was it ever Jumped!
DaVinci sketched the design for the first parachute in 1485. On June 26,
2000--over 500 years later , Adrian Nicholas jumped an exact replica
of it...and it worked! The chute was built under the watchful eye of
Dr. Martin Kemp, a Oxford University DaVinci expert. It was made of wood,
canvas and rope. Its weight was 187 pounds. it was jumped from a balloon at
10,000 feet. Nicholas road it to 7,000 feet when he cut away from it and
used a traditional parachute for landing. (SkyXtreme magazine of the skydive world, vol #10,
July 2000)
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Other concepts
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Benjamin Franklin
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Who was the First American
Leader to recognize the value of Airborne Warfare!
Benjamin Franklin, America's versatile commissioner in Paris, was so
enthused by the success of hot air balloons in 1784 that he posed this
interesting military question. "Where is the prince who can afford
to cover his country with troops for its defense as that ten thousand men
descend from the clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of
mischief?". He was to describe what Airborne is all
about....back in 1784 (Airborne
Warfare 1918-1945)
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Who proposed the First American combat jump?
The plan to drop the U.S. 1st Infantry Division from a
Handley-Page Bomber on the German controlled city of Metz was devised by a
young officer on General Billy Mitchell's staff named Lewis H. Brereton .
He presented the plan to General Billy Mitchell who supported it and
took it to General "Black Jack" Pershing. The time was
October 1919 and the armistice was less then 3 weeks away. General Pershing
shelved the idea. (Airborne Warfare
1918-1945 Barry Gregory/John Batchelor)
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The 1st Infantry was to be the
first to use Airborne!
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What where the Special
"Phantom" Airborne Divisions of W.W.I.I.?
These are official U.S. Army Airborne Divisions that existed on paper.
They had personnel wear these patches around and in towns. The object was
to convince the spies in England that the American had more Airborne
Divisions then there really had. It worked.
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6th
Airborne 9th
Airborne 18th
Airborne 21th
Airborne 135th
Airborne
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CPT Kittinger in action
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What
is the Highest Parachute Jump?
From the very edge of space itself, almost 102, 800 feet above the
earth. This drop included a free fall lasting more than an incredible 4
1/2 minutes, during which Captain Kittinger reached a falling speed of
714 miles per hour before his parachute finally opened at 18,000 feet.(Life Mag, Aug1960) & www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/eagles/kittnger.htm
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A good strong exit!
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What
is the Lowest Parachute use?
Submerged 10-20 feet - A British navy flyer, LT. Bruce Mackfarlane
had an engine failure on takeoff, leading to an immediate ditching off the
carrier HMS Albion. Surprisingly, he survived the water impact and was
coherent enough to clearly recall seeing the water close over the canopy,
and begin to darken as the aircraft began to descend into the depths. His
training instincts took over and he yanked the canopy jettison handle with
his left hand, and immediately fired the seat with his right. At this
point, his memory becomes understandably blurred, but he recalls tumbling
free of the seat, still underwater. He had the presence of mind to release
his chute and activate his life vest. (He surfaced aft of the carrier,
almost directly under the 'Angel' rescue helo, which had moved into a hover
over the disturbance in the water from his aircraft splash. The helo crew
reported seeing his aircraft pass in two pieces along either side of the
hull of the carrier. This indicates that if the pilot had delayed his
attempt to escape a few seconds eariler, he would likely have been killed
when the bow of the ship sliced his bird in half. LT Mackfarlane is not
the only aviator to have such an experience.
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Fallschirmjager
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What
is the Lowest Combat Jump?
The lowest recorded combat jump is the German paratroopers
(Fallschirmjager) when then jump into Crete (WWII). The Fallschirmjager
jumped from 250 feet.
If any one knows of a lower combat jump (Bailing out doesn't count),
let me know.
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Tuck in those elbows...feet
and knees together!
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Cheryl Stearns
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What is the most jumps made by one person
in a single (24 hour) day ?
Cheryl
Stearns of Raeford, NC has landed her name in the parachuting world
record books once again! On November 9, 1995 she completed 24 hours of
continuous skydiving, with a total of 352 jumps! That equates to one
jump every 4.09 minutes for 24 hours!! The previously standing world
records, officially recognized by the United States Parachute Association
(USPA) and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) were: for women
- 255 jumps set by Cheryl Stearns in 1987 at Lodi, CA and for men - 331
jumps set by Jay Stokes earlier this year at Raeford, NC.
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Who
was the Oldest Jumper ?
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A 92-year-old man with artificial knees made it
into the record books by becoming the oldest person ever to jump out of
an airplane without holding on to anyone else. "What a
thrill!" Herb Tanner said seconds after he touched down Friday.
"That was beautiful. Just gorgeous. I'd love to do that again, but not
today." Tanner, of the Cleveland suburb of Mayfield Heights, looked to
the Guinness Book of World Records to see what kind of mark he could make
in parachuting. Jumping while attached to another parachutist was out. A
99-year-old woman already had done it, and the record for males was held by
a 95-year-old Englishman. But Tanner could still break a record if he
jumped solo. The record had been held by the late Edwin C. Townsend, who
was 89 when he jumped in Louisiana in 1986. After receiving basic jump
instruction and making 10 computer jumps using a virtual reality simulator,
Tanner was ready. The 105-pound Tanner -- fake knees, hearing aid and all
-- climbed into a jump suit and leaped from a plane at 3,500 feet. A
lifelong pilot, Tanner has flown for 63 years but never parachuted. "I
always wanted to parachute, but my wife wouldn't let me," he said.
"She said she would leave me if I jumped. She died two years
ago." Note: the oldest Tandem Jumper was 100 years old,
October 1999(Skydiving magazine)
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What is the Highest Jump
WITHOUT a Parachute?
1.
"Lieutenant I. M. Chisov of the former Soviet Union was flying his
Ilyushin 4 on a bitter cold day in January 1942, when it was attacked by 12
German Messerschmitts. Convinced that he had no chance of surviving
if he staged with his badly battered plane, Chisov bailed out at 21,980
feet. With the fighters still buzzing around, Chisov cleverly decided
to fall freely out of the arena. It was his plan not to open his
chute until he was down to only 1000 ft above the ground.
Unfortunately, he lost consciousness en route. As luck would have it,
he crashed at the edge of a steep ravine covered with 3 ft of snow.
Hitting at about 120 mi/h, he plowed along its slope until he came to rest
at the bottom. Chisov awoke 20 min later, bruised and sore, but
miraclously he had suffered only a concussion of the spine and a fractured
pelvis. Three and one-half months later he was back at work as a
flight instructor." Hecht, Eugene. Physics:
Calculus. 2nd ed. United States: Brooks/Cole, 2000. p 85
2. Flight Sergeant Nicholas Steven Alkemade was on a bombing mission
over Germany on 23 March 1944 when his Lancaster bomber flying at
18,000 feet was blazed apart and in flames when he was forced to jump, without
a parachute or be burn to death. He dove out of his destroyed aircraft
hoping on a quick death. His speed accelerated to over 120 miles per hour
and he impacted on a snow covered sloping forest. He was completely
uninjured and later captured by the Germans who refused to believe his
story. (www.urbanlegends.com/death)
3. The longest survivable fall, 26 January 1972, was Vesna
Vulovic a stewardess in a DC-9 which blew up at 33,330 feet. She was in the
tail section of the aircraft and though injured survived the fall.
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Hay! get off of my
chute!!!...Boy is this gonna hurt!
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Spectacular
Parachute Ejection Photos!
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OOPS !
We all have bad days
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Parachutes
for "airplanes"!, what next?
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How about a Powered Parachute!
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How about a Parachute for space recovery
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I bet they wished they had a parachute!
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These pictures and stories are taken from 173rdAirborne.com
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