The Apollo 15 capsule landed safely despite a parachute failure.

U.S. Army paratroopers training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Model of Leonardo da Vinci parachute design

Faust Vrančić sketched designs used for one of the first parachutes in 1595.

An American paratrooper using an MC1-1C series 'round' parachute

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Parachutes (70990)

A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are normally used to slow the descent of a person or object to Earth or another celestial body within an atmosphere. more...

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Drogue parachutes are also sometimes used to aid horizontal deceleration of a vehicle (a fixed-wing aircraft, or a drag racer), or to provide stability (tandem freefall, or space shuttle after touchdown). The word "parachute" comes from a French word with a Latin root: "para", meaning "against" or "counter" in Latin, and "chute", the French word for "fall". Therefore "parachute" actually means "against the fall". Many modern parachutes are classified as semi-rigid wings, which are quite maneuverable, and can facilitate a controlled descent similar to that of a glider. But older stle parachutes were little more than cloth and sticks. The design has changed considerably over the years from roughly cut shapes to aero-dynamic ram parachutes. Although skydiving can have its thrills and excitements, it can be very dangerous too. Folding a parachute requires a high degree of skill, and an improperly folded parachute will not deploy, which could end up with fatal results.

Parachutes were once made from silk but now they are almost always constructed from more durable woven nylon fabric, sometimes coated with silicone to improve performance and consistency over time. Eventually the parachute will have to be replaced because it will cease to preform properly and could result in injuries or even death.

When square (also called ram-air) parachutes were introduced, manufacturers switched to low-stretch materials like Dacron or zero-stretch materials like Spectra, Kevlar, Vectran and high-modulus aramids. Kevlar is rarely seen except on reserve canopies.

Early forms

In the 9th century, an Arab Muslim daredevil named Armen Firman jumped from a tower in Córdoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts to arrest his fall with only minor injuries. According to Joseph Needham there were working parachutes in China as early as the 12th century.

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute while he was living in Milan around 1480-1483. However, the idea of the parachute may not have originated with him: the historian Lynn White has discovered an anonymous Italian manuscript from about 1470 that depicts two designs for a parachute, one of which is very similar to da Vinci's. The first successful test of such a parachute was made in 1617 in Venice by the Dalmatian inventor Fausto Veranzio which he named Homo Volans (Flying Man).

Modern parachutes

The modern parachute was invented in 1783 by Sébastien Lenormand in France. Lenormand also coined the name parachute. Two years later, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot air balloon. While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with a dog as the passenger, he later had the opportunity to try it himself in 1793 when his hot air balloon ruptured and he used a parachute to escape.