Up in the air and back on ground safely : Read to know more about history of parachutes.

I was on a short weekend trip to Bengaluru and got the much-awaited chance to catch up with Prakhar. We went back in time and were narrating all the funny stories of college days to our respective better halves. Meanwhile, a skydiving video played on the TV through youtube autoplay. The skydivers made several formations and held hands while falling freely under gravity. All of us had watched the video umpteen times earlier but it created same thrill every time. The divers continued to perform various stunts like somersaults and vaults like movement while falling before they ultimately opened a parachute which would eventually help them land safely on the ground. Thrilling and safe. Together.

Man skydiving with packed parachute

Parachutes are one of the simplest yet effective inventions of modern era. Or should I say Renaissance since the oldest evidence of the design of parachutes date back to 15^th century. Parachutes are mostly dome shaped and made of strong and light weight fabric, like nylon. The parachute creates a drag force and thus opposes the motion of free falling body through atmosphere.

In 15^th century, Leonardo Da Vinci also contributed to the design on parachute. His design was bigger and used a wooden frame to keep the canopy shape of the parachute. The design was further enhanced by a Croatian inventor, Fausto Veranzio, who used a sail like cloth to provide better deceleration.  

The designs evolved and in late 18^th century, and a French inventor, Louis-Sébastien Lenormand invented the modern parachute in 1783. He is also attributed to come up with the term ‘parachute’ two years later, in 1785, by combining the Italian word ‘para’ meaning to defend or resist and French word ‘chute’ meaning fall. So, the word ‘parachute’ would translate to resisting the fall, describing its function. In the same year, 1785, another French inventor, Jean-Pierre Blanchard used parachute to demonstrate the safe evacuation from a hot air balloon. He used a dog as a passenger. Man’s best friends truly, dogs have been helpful even to the science.

Further enhancements to the design were focused to reduce the closed size of the parachute and to make it easy to carry. Parachutes found use in military actions as well during WWI when they were used as evacuating devices from the observation balloons. The designs and uses kept on enhancing with prime uses ranging from evacuating an airplane that has been hit to dropping the soldiers in to the enemy areas.

Parachutes in clouds

Nerd Note 1: Drogue chute is a parachute used to slow down the horizontal motion of a body like airplane.

Nerd Note 2: Various designs which control or enhance the horizontal motion of the parachutes are developed. This is achieved by altering the shape and size of the canopy thus controlling their motion through air. Few of these types are: Cruciform, Annular and pull-down apex, Rogallo wing, Ribbon and Ring, Ram-air. Tell us in comments if you know or want to know more about these types.

Science continues to amaze us and utilize the components of nature for the best of mankind. And its beauty lies in its simplicity.  WittyScribble continues to explore such amazing applications of science and takes pleasure to bring such information to you.

And as always,

Thanks for reading.

Ayush!!!