Parachute (history of invention). Who and when invented the very first parachute When was the parachute invented in what year
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It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci invented the parachute 530 years ago, in 1483. Why he did this, no one knows. Leonardo himself apparently did not know this. After all, in those distant, distant times it was impossible to use a parachute, because there was nothing to fly then - no balloons, no aircraft. And there was no landing force then either. Leonardo could only jump from different buildings, for example from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But why jump from it? For what? That is, the invention appeared before the need for it. Therefore, due to its uselessness, the parachute was forgotten for 300 years.
A parachute is a necessary thing
People remembered about the “anti-fall” device (and this is how the word “parachute” is translated) only in the 18th century, when the first hot air balloons appeared, which often fell along with their passengers. Parachutes were then made from flax, and although they were strong, they were heavy. They were tied to the bottom or side of the balloon. Later, the fabric began to be rubberized, and the parachute became even heavier. In addition, the folded parachute took up a lot of space. Therefore, when the first airplanes began to fly, parachutes were either not used or were stowed along the fuselage. In short, this thing used to be very inconvenient to use.
And in 1911, an ordinary Russian actor of the St. Petersburg People's House, Gleb Evgenievich Kotelnikov (1872–1944), came up with a parachute design that became popular all over the world. Moreover, this design, with some minor changes, is still in use today.
Kotelnikov significantly reduced the weight of the parachute. He replaced heavy linen with strong but light silk. He sewed a thin elastic cable into the edge of the parachute, and divided the lines into two groups, which were attached to the shoulder girths of the harness. This allowed the parachutist to control the flight of his saving friend. People stopped floating aimlessly and limply in the air under the influence of the wind. It has even become possible to hold landing accuracy competitions.
And finally, Kotelnikov’s most important invention - he placed the parachute in a small metal backpack attached to the parachutist’s body. At the bottom of the backpack there was a special shelf, and under it there were strong springs that instantly threw the parachute out when the jumper pulled out the locking ring. The parachute has become maneuverable, compact and convenient.
Kotelnikov's backpack
Kotelnikov named the first parachute model RK-1, which meant “Kotelnikov’s Backpack”. A few years later he improved the RK-1, and the RK-2 and RK-3 appeared. The metal backpack was replaced with a canvas one in the form of an envelope, and there were also “honeycombs” that protected the lines from tangling. Modern parachutes have almost the same design.
To be sure of the reliability of the device, Gleb Evgenievich personally conducted numerous tests on smaller models. The rescue pack worked flawlessly!
A parachute in aviation is a harmful thing
Kotelnikov, of course, wanted to quickly register and put into production this important invention for aviation, which could save the lives of many pilots. But then he encountered the ruthless Russian bureaucratic system.
First, Gleb Evgenievich went to the Main Military Engineering Directorate. But the head of the department directly stated:
“A parachute in aviation is a harmful thing, since at the slightest danger pilots will escape by parachute, leaving the planes to die.”
Then Kotelnikov turned to the War Ministry. The inventor asked for subsidies to make an experimental parachute and conduct more serious tests. But even here he was refused, since one authoritative member of the commission believed that “the aviator’s legs would be torn off from the impact when the parachute opens.”
In 1912, Kotelnikov, with the help of St. Petersburg entrepreneur V. A. Lomach, was able to build two prototypes of his backpack parachute. Full-scale tests in the air were successfully carried out: different aviators dropped a dummy of Ivan Ivanovich with a parachute at different altitudes. Kotelnikov’s invention worked perfectly - it never failed, and Ivan Ivanovich did not receive any damage.
In the same year in Paris, at an international parachute competition, Lomach showed Kotelnikov’s invention in action. The French were delighted and bought both samples from him, and then set up their own production.
There is no prophet in his own country...
And in Russia they remembered about Kotelnikov’s parachutes only two years later, when the First World War began. An experimental batch was made for Sikorsky aircraft, but then officials still decided to purchase parachutes abroad. Although foreign analogues were exactly the same as Kotelnikov’s, because they were made according to his samples.
Already in Soviet times, Gleb Evgenievich developed the world's first cargo parachute RK-4. Its dome had a diameter of 12 meters, so it could lower up to 300 kilograms of cargo.
Overall material rating: 4.9
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Back in 1483, the brilliant Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramidal parachute in his notebooks and described the principle of its operation. However, the implementation of the idea was delayed for centuries. The first parachute jump was made by the Croatian Faust Vrancic in 1597, but the invention did not take root for many years. Officially, Vrancic is considered the inventor of the first parachute.There are ancient records indicating that Leonardo da Vinci made an attempt to master airspace long ago. People tried to descend from heights using umbrella-like devices.
Half a century later, the French criminal Lavin took advantage of the idea - he made something like a tent from sheets and tied it with whalebone, and then made a successful jump from the window of a prison cell. After some time, another criminal sentenced to death was offered to test the so-called “Professor Fontage’s flying cloak.” He jumped successfully, and he was given. But the “parachute” was introduced into human use by the French inventor Louis-Sébastien Lenormand, who jumped from the Montpellier tower in 1783. He did not reinvent the wheel and only slightly modernized the design proposed by Vrancic. After this, people could not decide to jump for a long time and tested new models with domestic animals, sheep and cats. There were also several unsuccessful jumps that ended in the death of the testers.
Inventors of modern parachutes
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the German woman Kat Pauls invented the first collapsible parachute. Pauls is considered a legendary figure and the first female skydiver. A few years later, the Russian military man Greb Kotelnikov, upset by the death of the famous pilot Matsievich, invented a fundamentally new type of parachute RK-1. This is no longer the grandfather, but the father of the modern parachute. Its sail was made of silk, which was attached with slings to the shoulder girths. For the first time, a parachute was compactly packed into a backpack. Kotelnikov had remarkable commercial acumen and patented his invention as an aviation backpack parachute.Kotelnikov's grave turned into a place of pilgrimage for paratroopers. They tie ribbons to tighten parachutes on tree branches near the grave, believing that this will protect them in the air.The invention was adopted by the Soviet army. Parachuting developed in the USSR with unprecedented speed and force. In 1926, Kotelnikov donated his invention to the Soviet government.
Who invented the first parachute?
- Parachute (French parachute, from Greek para against and French chute fall) a device used for a soft landing of people or objects. There are different programs for training, the main ones are AFF and Classic
In 1483, Leonardo da Vinci drew a sketch of a pyramidal parachute. He wrote:
If a person has a tent of starched linen 12 cubits wide and 12 cubits high, then he will be able to throw himself from any height without danger to himself.
The surface of the device proposed by Leonardo da Vinci for lowering a person is approximately 60 square meters. m. These data are close to a modern parachute for people. The lack of practical need for using a parachute served as an obstacle to the invention and improvement of such projectiles, and only the development of aeronautics and frequent disasters prompted inventors to work closely on creating a device for the safe descent of a person from a great height.
The French physicist Lenormand was the first to build and test such a device, who gave it the name parachute (from the Greek para against and the French chute fall). At first, parachutes were made in the form of umbrellas or from rubberized fabric and were very imperfect and took up a lot of space.
Frenchman Louis Sebastian Lenormand flies with the first parachute from the tower in Montpellier on December 26, 1783. Colored engraving of the late 18th century.Faust Vrancic from Croatia is considered the inventor of the parachute. In 1597, he jumped from the 87-meter-high bell tower onto the market square in Bratislava.
On October 3, 1785, Jean Pierre Blanchard lowered a dog from a balcony and, on August 23, 1786, a sheep by parachute.
The first person to voluntarily (with a parachute) jump from a hot air balloon was the French aeronaut Andre-Jacques Garnerin, this happened on October 22, 1797. His jump from a height of 400 meters above the Parisian Parc Monceau was the first parachute jump in Europe. A physicist who was present at this jump, seeing how Garnerin’s parachute was swinging, suggested making a small hole in the center of the dome so that the air would escape through it. Garnerin agreed and since then every round parachute has a pole hole.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the German woman Käthe Paulus invented a folding parachute. She is one of the first female skydivers.
In 1911, the Russian military man Kotelnikov, impressed by the death of the Russian pilot Captain Matsievich at the All-Russian Aeronautics Festival in 1910, invented a fundamentally new parachute RK-1. Kotelnikov's parachute was compact. Its dome is made of silk, the slings were divided into 2 groups and attached to the shoulder girths of the suspension system. The canopy and lines were placed in a wooden, and later aluminum, backpack. Later, in 1923, Kotelnikov proposed a backpack for stowing a parachute, made in the form of an envelope with honeycombs for lines. During 1917, 65 parachute descents were registered in the Russian army, 36 for rescue and 29 voluntary. After the revolution, the first forced jump from an airplane was performed on June 23, 1927 by test pilot M. M. Gromov, later a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Varieties of parachute
There are two types: a round canopy parachute (round parachute) and a rectangular (or elliptical) canopy parachute (wing parachute). A special feature are parachutes, which are used to reduce the speed of airplanes and spacecraft during landing. The range of speeds and loads varies radically.
- There is probably no exact answer to this question. In the 13th century, the famous humanist Roger Bacon described the principle of operation of an apparatus that slows down the fall in his treatise “On the Secret Works of Art and Nature.” But he was not the first. The same devices were mentioned in ancient Chinese legends two thousand years ago. Allegedly, the local Emperor Shun jumped from the attic of a burning house, hanging from two large hats woven from reeds. Then, as you know, there was the Italian artist, scientist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, who developed in detail the design of an apparatus that slows down the fall. “If a person takes a stretched linen dome,” wrote this genius, whose works have not yet been fully studied, “each side of which is 12 cubits wide and 12 cubits high, he can safely throw himself from any height.” Mathematical calculations show that the Italian predicted the true dimensions of a modern parachute with almost perfect accuracy! The word “parachute” itself has been known since the end of the 18th century, when the French physicist Louis Sebastian Lenormand created a dome vaguely reminiscent of modern analogues. He called his brainchild a “parachute,” which literally means “anti-fall.” This happened in 1783... Russia did not remain aloof from the general search for a device to descend from the sky. During the time of Ivan the Terrible, one of the tsar’s slaves tried to descend from the bell tower using his own invention. It’s easy to guess how such sacrilege ended for him.
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By the beginning of the twentieth century, almost all developed countries of the world had their own developments in the parachute business. True, so far the main use of aerial vehicles has been only in the field of entertainment, especially since jumps were usually made only from balloons. There were even their own record holders who traveled around Russia showing acrobatic performances on parachutes. One of them, Jozef Drevnicki, made over 400 jumps in different cities.
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But man is a capricious creature. Soon the usual sight ceased to be surprising, and the money collected began to fall. Even in the 22nd volume of the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedic dictionary, in the article on the parachute, you can read the following: “At present, parachutes as a life-saving device are almost out of use.”
—————————————————————————And it was fair. Only large aviation gave parachutes a second life. More details here
INVENTOR OF THE PARACHUTE
The first design of a backpack parachute was developed by retired artillery lieutenant Gleb Evgenievich Kotelnikov (18/2 1944). The peculiarity of this parachute is that it is placed in a backpack and deploys during a jump from an aircraft. Previously, it was believed that the canopy of a parachute must be fully open before a jump. In 1784, the French mechanic Louis Sébastien Lenormand proposed the design of a fully deployed parachute with rigid spokes and suspended under a balloon. And the first technical design of a parachute belongs to Leonardo da Vinci (late 15th century).
On September 24, 1910, in St. Petersburg, at the All-Russian Aeronautics Festival, aviator Captain L. M. Matsievich died. G. E. Kotelnikov turned out to be a witness to this tragedy. The death of the young pilot on that memorable day, he later wrote, shocked me so much that I decided at all costs to build a device that would protect the pilot’s life from mortal danger. Already in 1911, Kotelnikov was working hard on the project. After numerous successful tests of a model of a backpack parachute one-tenth of its natural size, he turned to the Main Engineering Directorate of the War Ministry and received the first refusal decision. There were many of them. The first patent for the invention was issued to Kotelnikov by the French...
The first parachute designed by Kotelnikov RK-1 appeared in 1012. The development of parachute technology has continued for more than 100 years. The amazing story of the creation of a parachute
This is how planes and pilots appeared
From time immemorial, people looked into the sky, at the stars... This tempting depth of height attracted with its inexplicable spaciousness. The creation of the first aircraft that took to the Sky was a miracle! Contrary to all the laws of gravity, this structure took off from the ground and flew across the Sky like a huge roaring bird, charming some and frightening others. This is how planes and pilots appeared... :)) And to save pilots in the event of an extreme situation, they began to use long folded umbrellas that were attached to the plane. Their design was heavy and unreliable, and in order not to increase the weight of the aircraft, many pilots preferred to fly without this saving element - not to use an umbrella in flight.
When a plane crashed, in a rare case, the pilot was able to unfasten the umbrella, open it and jump from the plane to soften the impact on the ground.
On January 18 (30), 1872, in St. Petersburg, a son was born into the family of Kotelnikov, a professor of mechanics and higher mathematics, who sang and played the violin from childhood, and often went to the theater with his parents. This boy also liked to make different toys and models. Gleb, that was the boy’s name, remained interested in theater and construction as he grew older.
Invention of the backpack parachute
If not for this story, it is not known when it would have taken place. invention of the backpack parachute.
In 1910, the All-Russian Aeronautics Festival took place in St. Petersburg. A magnificent holiday with several demonstration flights by the best pilot of those times, Lev Makarovich Matsievich. The day before, Stolypin flew into the Sky with him, he enthusiastically admired St. Petersburg and its surroundings.
And on the day of aeronautics, the highest ranks of officers with Matsievich rose into the Sky. And also... influential people... Imagine how happy they were...! Flying on an airplane...! And there was probably even more pride... :))
The holiday was in full swing, and the day was approaching evening, and before the last flight, Matsievich was conveyed a wish from Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich to show something like that... some kind of aviation achievement. And Matsievich set a record.
He decided to fly as high as possible... as high as his beloved Farmon-IV, this light, amazingly beautiful, as if translucent, plane could. The maximum flight speed that Farmon could reach was 74 km/h.
This was a very bold and decisive step, because in those days it was believed that the closer to the ground, the safer the flight. Lev Makarovich Matsievich in the set took his Farmon 1000 meters from the ground - that's about half a mile... and suddenly... suddenly... the plane began to fall, crumbling in the air... the pilot fell out of the randomly falling plane... and following the wreckage of his car, he fell to the ground... in front of the spectators...
An archival photo of that tragic moment has been preserved. Seconds... and the last meeting with the ground...
This tragedy lay deep in the soul of Gleb Kotelnikov, and he began to develop a system that could save the pilot. A little over a year later, Kotelnikov already tried to register his first invention - backpack parachute free action. But for unknown reasons, he was denied registration of a patent.
On March 20, 1912, after the second attempt, already in France, Kotelnikov received patent No. 438,612.
Parachute RK-1
Parachute RK-1(Russian, Kotelnikova, model one) had a round shape and fit into a metal backpack. The backpack was attached to the harness system, which was worn on a person, at two points. Kotelnikov divided the parachute lines into two parts and brought them out to two free ends. A unique reconstruction of the attachment of the canopy to the suspension system took place, which eliminated the involuntary rotation of the parachutist under the canopy, where all the lines were attached to one halyard. In the air, after pulling out the ring, a satchel opened, at the bottom of which there were springs under the dome... they threw the dome out of the satchel... and without fail... there was not a single failure...
Can you imagine what a strong shock the person experienced after the tragic death of the pilot, and how strong the desire was to save, to eliminate the possibility of the pilot’s death when the airplane failed in the airspace. Kotelnikov invented all the keys necessary for the normal operation of the parachute system.
The first tests took place on the ground. The car to which the parachute was attached accelerated, and Kotelnikov activated the parachute, which, coming out of the backpack, instantly opened, and the car stalled from an unexpected jerk back... history tells...
Further tests of the RK-1 parachute system continued from the balloon. A mannequin weighing 80 kg jumped - the testers' best friend. They threw from different heights, and all the dummy's jumps were successful.
But the parachute system was not accepted into production due to the fact that the Chief of the Russian Air Force, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, expressed concern that pilots would abandon the expensive machine in the air at the slightest failure of the aircraft. Airplanes are expensive and are imported from abroad. You need to take care of airplanes, but people will be found. Parachutes are harmful; with them, at the slightest danger, aviators will save themselves and expose the airplane to destruction.
No, no... and soon the RK-1 parachute designed by G.E. Kotelnikov was submitted to the competition in Paris and Rouen, and the parachute was represented by the commercial company Lomach and Co.
First parachute jump RK-1. The road to life.
On January 5, 1913, in Rouen, the first parachute jump RK-1 from the bridge over the Seine. Height 60 meters...!!! A student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Vladimir Ossovsky, made a magnificent fearless jump...!!! The parachute worked perfectly and showed the ability to deploy when jumping from a low altitude. Now you and I understand how risky this jump was, but in those days we believed that this was the safest option for the jump, especially since the Seine River below would save you in an emergency. But you can imagine how spectacular the jump turned out to be! The competition was brilliant! The Russian invention has received recognition abroad.
In Russia, the tsarist government remembered Kotelnikov’s parachute only during the First World War...
But I remembered... :))
Thanks to the pilot G.V. Alekhnovich... he managed to convince the command of the need to supply the crews of multi-engine aircraft with RK-1 parachutes. The first production of backpack parachute systems for aviators under the direction of Kotelnikov began.
A new system was created, the RK-2 parachute.
Kotelnikov was not satisfied with the metal backpack with springs. Create, create like that! And a parachute appeared RK-3 with soft backpack, in which springs were replaced by honeycombs for laying lines - this technique of laying lines is still used today.
Cargo parachute RK-4 was created in 1924, the Dome with a diameter of 12 meters was designed for a load of up to 300 kg.
Gleb Evgenievich Kotelnikov paved the way to Heaven, created something that immediately took off and went into rapid development. All tests were successful, which meant that the path was correct.
In 1926, Kotelnikov transferred all his inventions to the Soviet government.
Not far from the test site where Kotelnikov’s parachute was first tested, near the village of Salizi (since 1949 Kotelnikovo), monument with a picture of a parachute.
The inscription on the monument: “In the area of this village in 1912, the world’s first aviation backpack parachute, created by G.E. Kotelnikov, was tested.” But 100 years have already passed... Thank you for the joy, smart Kotelnikov!
In St. Petersburg there is Kotelnikov Alley
At the Novodevichy cemetery, the grave of Gleb Evgenievich Kotelnikov is the place where parachutists constantly tie ribbons and parachute strings to trees.
Currently, 100 years later, the Parachute Research Institute has created an excellent parachute system that is being tested -
Aeronautics has always been a very extreme activity. Therefore, in parallel with the conquest of the Fifth Ocean, flight safety equipment was improved, the most important of which is parachute.
Many peoples of the world have legends associated with the parachute. Already in ancient Chinese chronicles there are references to the first attempts. The Emperor of the Shun Dynasty, according to the chronicles, jumped from the attic of a house engulfed in flames, hanging from two large hats woven from reeds, and landed happily.
The principle of the parachute was first formulated by the famous 13th century humanist Roger Bacon.
In his essay “On the Secret Works of Art and Nature,” Bacon recognized the possibility of building flying machines and indicated that it was possible to rely on the air using a concave surface.
The great Leonardo da Vinci developed this idea. In one of his manuscripts there is a drawing of a pyramid-shaped parachute with the caption underneath:
“If a man has a tent of starched linen, each side of which is twelve cubits wide and the same in height, he can throw himself from any height without exposing himself to any danger.”
In 1595, the work of a certain Faustus Verachio “New Machines” was published in Italy. The book contained a drawing of such a device: a piece of square canvas attached to a frame, to the corners of which ropes were tied. They, in turn, were attached to the suspension system, which the person put on.
The man who is known for certain to have made a parachute descent was the Frenchman Laven. In the 20s of the 17th century, Laven was imprisoned in a fortress. Deciding to escape, he secretly made himself a parachute from sheets sewn together with an attached whalebone, which prevented the dome from collapsing.
The descent was completely calm, but the guards noticed the fugitive and detained him.
In 1777, the Parisian professor Desfontages invented the “flying cloak” - a device that, according to him, guaranteed safe descent from any height. However, the Frenchman did not dare to test his brainchild personally. He appealed to the judicial authorities with a request to provide him with the “cloak” of a criminal sentenced to death for testing.
The professor received such a death sentence. It was a prisoner Bastille Jacques Doumier, robber and murderer. He jumped from the roof of a Parisian armory and - to Desfontage's great joy - remained alive, only slightly injuring his knee upon landing.
After this, the death penalty was replaced by lifelong hard labor.
The further fate of parachuting is connected with the development of aeronautics. In 1783, French physicist Sebastian Lenormand made and personally tested a parachute by jumping from an observatory. Lenormand was the first to name his invention - " parachute".
In 1791, Jean-Pierre Blanchard took to the air over Varna and dropped the dog from the parachute. Two years later he dared to take the leap himself. The attempt was not entirely successful - the aeronaut broke his leg.
The first successful parachute jump from a balloon basket was made in Paris in 1797 by Anre Jacques Garnerin from a balloon that rose to a height of 680 meters. His parachute (round, soft, without frame, with a pole hole) is very close to the most common type of modern parachutes - umbrella.
Many inventors died while testing their products. Austrian Franz Reichelt designed something like a parachute - a special suit for a pilot with a total braking area of about ten square meters.
Wanting to test the suitability of the device for use, he jumped from one of the platforms of the Eiffel Tower and died. Almost simultaneously with him, designer Bittener died in Berlin, and Jim Cocking died in England.
The jump made by American captain Erwin Baldwin from a balloon in 1880 was a milestone in the history of parachute business.
It is interesting because the parachute opened automatically. A cord was attached to the upper node of the slings, the second end of which was attached to the basket or shell of the balloon. When the parachutist separated from the balloon, the cord broke under his weight, the fabric canopy without any frame first stretched out to its full length due to the speed of the fall, and then filled with air and opened.
This principle of automatic parachute deployment has been preserved to this day.
During the 19th century, the parachute was improved, but there were no significant changes in technology.
Interest in parachutes began to decline along with the narrowing of the scope of balloons. However, very little time will pass and, in connection with the development of aircraft manufacturing, a new page will open in the history of the parachute.
The fact is that with progress in aviation, the accident rate will also increase. The need for a reliable rescue device for pilots will revive parachutes and bring them back from obscurity.