Editing Parachute (section)

== History ==
{{See also|Early flying machines|History of aviation|History of ballooning}}

=== Middle Ages ===
In 852, in [[Córdoba, Spain]], the Andalusian [[Armen Firman]] attempted unsuccessfully to fly by jumping from a tower while wearing a large cloak. It was recorded that "there was enough air in the folds of his cloak to prevent great injury when he reached the ground."<ref>{{cite book |last=Moolman |first=Valerie |title=The Road to Kitty Hawk |publisher=[[Time-Life Books]] |year=1980 |isbn=9780809432608 |location=[[New York City|New York]] |pages=19–20}}</ref>

=== Early Renaissance ===
[[File:Conical Parachute, 1470s, British Museum Add. MSS 34,113, fol. 200v.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The oldest known depiction of a parachute, attributed to [[Francesco di Giorgio Martini]] (Italy, 1470s)]]

The earliest evidence for the true parachute dates back to the [[Renaissance]] period.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 466">{{harnvb|White|1968|p=466}}</ref> The oldest parachute design appears in a manuscript from the 1470s attributed to [[Francesco di Giorgio Martini]] (British Library, Add MS 34113, fol. 200v), showing a free-hanging man clutching a crossbar frame attached to a conical canopy.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 462f.">{{harnvb|White|1968|pp=462f.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/leonardo-man-saved-science-leonardo-really-invent-parachute/3479/ | title=Leonardo, the Man Who Saved Science ~ Did Leonardo Really Invent the Parachute? &#124; Secrets of the Dead &#124; PBS | website=[[PBS]] | date=4 April 2017 }}</ref> As a safety measure, four straps ran from the ends of the rods to a waist belt.  Although the surface area of the parachute design appears to be too small to offer effective air resistance and the wooden base-frame is superfluous and potentially harmful, the basic concept of a working parachute is apparent.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 465"/>

The design is a marked improvement over another folio (189v), which depicts a man trying to break the force of his fall using two long cloth streamers fastened to two bars, which he grips with his hands.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 465">{{harnvb|White|1968|p=465}}</ref>

Shortly after, a more sophisticated parachute was sketched by the [[polymath]] [[Leonardo da Vinci]] in his ''[[Codex Atlanticus]]'' (fol. 381v) dated to {{circa|1485}}.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 462f."/> Here, the scale of the parachute is in a more favorable proportion to the weight of the jumper. A square wooden frame, which alters the shape of the parachute from conical to pyramidal, held open Leonardo's canopy.<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 465"/> It is not known whether the Italian inventor was influenced by the earlier design, but he may have learned about the idea through the intensive oral communication among [[Renaissance technology|artist-engineers of the time]].<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 465f.">{{harnvb|White|1968|pp=465f.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Marc |last=van den Broek |author-link=Marc van den Broek |title=Leonardo da Vinci Spirits of Invention. A Search for Traces |publisher=A.TE.M. |location=[[Hamburg]] |isbn=978-3-00-063700-1 |date=2019 |language=en}}</ref> The feasibility of Leonardo's pyramidal design was successfully tested in 2000 by [[British people|Briton]] [[Adrian Nicholas]] and again in 2008 by the Swiss skydiver Olivier Vietti-Teppa.<ref>{{cite news |publisher=[[BBC News]] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/808246.stm |title=Da Vinci's Parachute Flies |year=2000}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |publisher=[[Fox News]] |url=https://www.foxnews.com/story/swiss-man-safely-uses-leonardo-da-vinci-parachute |title=Swiss Man Safely Uses Leonardo da Vinci Parachute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100421072140/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352917,00.html |archive-date=21 April 2010 |url-status=live |year=2008}}</ref> According to historian of technology [[Lynn White]], these conical and pyramidal designs, much more elaborate than early artistic jumps with rigid [[parasol]]s in Asia, mark the origin of "the parachute as we know it."<ref name="Lynn White 1968, 466"/>
[[File:Homo Volans.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Fausto Veranzio]]'s parachute design, titled ''Homo Volans'' ("Flying Man"), from his ''Machinae Novae'' ("New Contraptions", published in 1615 or 1616)]]

The [[Croats|Croatian]] polymath and inventor [[Fausto Veranzio]], or Faust Vrančić (1551–1617), examined da Vinci's parachute sketch and kept the square frame but replaced the canopy with a bulging sail-like piece of cloth that he came to realize decelerates a fall more effectively.<ref name=" Lynn White 1968, 465"/> A now-famous depiction of a parachute that he dubbed ''Homo Volans'' (Flying Man), showing a man parachuting from a tower, presumably [[St Mark's Campanile]] in [[Venice]], appeared in his book on mechanics, ''Machinae Novae'' ("New Machines", published in 1615 or 1616), alongside a number of other devices and technical concepts.<ref name="World in Air">{{cite book |first=Francis Trevelyan |last=Miller |author-link=Francis Trevelyan Miller |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MdDNAAAAMAAJ |title=The world in the air: the story of flying in pictures |publisher=[[G.P. Putnam's Sons]] |year=1930 |pages=101–106 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

It was once widely believed that in 1617, Veranzio, then aged 65 and seriously ill, implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from St Mark's Campanile,<ref name="Paratroops">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/HesInTheParatroopsNow |title=He's in the paratroops now |first=Alfred Day |last=Rathbone |location=New York |publisher=[[Robert M. McBride & Company]] |year=1943 |via=[[University of California]], [[Internet Archive]] |access-date=5 December 2022}}</ref> from a bridge nearby,<ref name="Croatian Language">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9kWNmVnolz0C&pg=PA8 |last=Bogdanski |first=René |title=The Croatian Language by Example |year=2007 |quote=[As an example for [[Synchronic analysis|Diachronic analysis]]:] "One of his most important inventions, is, without doubt, the parachute, which he experimented and tested on himself, by jumping off a bridge in Venice. As documented by the English bishop John Wilkins (1614–1672) 30 years later, in his book ''Mathematical Magic'' published in London in 1648." |page=8 |publisher=GRIN Verlag |isbn=9783638740869 |via=Google Books}}</ref> or from [[St. Martin's Cathedral, Bratislava|St Martin's Cathedral]] in [[Bratislava]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.321chutelibre.fr/parachute/parachute-1.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120204857/http://www.321chutelibre.fr/parachute/parachute-1.php |archive-date=20 January 2012 |title=Parachute |website=321chutelibre |language=fr}}</ref> Various publications incorrectly claimed the event was documented some thirty years later by [[John Wilkins]], one of the founders of, and secretary of, the [[Royal Society]] in [[London]], in his book ''[[Mathematical Magick|Mathematical Magick or, the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry]]'', published in London in 1648.<ref name="Croatian Language" /> However, Wilkins wrote about flying, not parachutes, and does not mention Veranzio, a parachute jump, or any event in 1617. Doubts about this test, which include a lack of written evidence, suggest it never occurred, and was instead a misreading of historical notes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aero.com/publications/parachutes/9511/pc1195.htm |title=Parachuting |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117014746/http://www.aero.com/publications/parachutes/9511/pc1195.htm |archive-date=17 November 2015 |website=Aero.com |quote=Like his countryman's concept, Veranzio's seems to have remained an idea only. Though his idea was greatly publicized, no evidence has been found that there ever was a homo volans of his or any other time who tested and proved Veranzio's plan.}}</ref>

===18th and 19th centuries===
{{More citations needed section|date=January 2009}}
[[File:Early flight 02561u (3).jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Louis-Sébastien Lenormand]] jumps from the tower of the Montpellier observatory, 1783. Illustration from the late 19th century.]]
[[File:Early flight 02561u (4).jpg|thumb|upright| The first use of a frameless parachute, by [[André-Jacques Garnerin|André Garnerin]] in 1797]]
[[File: First parachute2.jpg|thumb|upright|Schematic depiction of Garnerin's parachute, from an early nineteenth-century illustration.]]
The modern parachute was invented in the late 18th century by [[Louis-Sébastien Lenormand]] in [[France]], who made the first recorded public jump in 1783. Lenormand also sketched his device beforehand.

Two years later, in 1785, Lenormand coined the word "parachute" by hybridizing an Italian prefix ''para'', an imperative form of ''parare'' = to avert, defend, resist, guard, shield or shroud, from ''paro'' = to parry, and ''chute'', the French word for ''fall'', to describe the aeronautical device's real function.

Also in 1785, [[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 claimed to have had the opportunity to try it himself in 1793 when his hot air balloon ruptured, and he used a parachute to descend. (This event was not witnessed by others.)

On 12 October 1799, [[Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin]] ascended in a gondola attached to a balloon. At 900 meters she detached the gondola from the balloon and descended in the gondola by parachute. In doing so, she became the first woman to parachute.<ref>{{cite book |title=Folies, tivolis et attractions: les premiers parcs de loisirs parisiens |author=Gilles-Antoine Langlois |year=1991 |language=fr |publisher=Délégation à l'action artistique de la ville de Paris |page=144 |isbn=9782905118356 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qJ8kAQAAIAAJ}}</ref> She went on to complete many ascents and parachute descents in towns across France and Europe.<ref name="Duhem">{{cite book|first=Jules |last=Duhem|title=Histoire des idées aéronautiques avant Montgolfier|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X7SqV0wAYP0C&pg=PA263|accessdate=25 July 2012|year=1943|publisher=Nouvelles Editions Latines|page=263|language=French|editor-first=Fernand |editor-last=Sorlot}}</ref>

Subsequent development of the parachute focused on it becoming more compact. While the early parachutes were made of [[linen]] stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded [[silk]], taking advantage of silk's strength and light [[weight]]. In 1797, [[André-Jacques Garnerin|André Garnerin]] made the first descent of a "frameless" parachute covered in silk.<ref name="soden">{{cite book |last=Soden |first=Garrett |title=Defying Gravity: Land Divers, Roller Coasters, Gravity Bums, and the Human Obsession with Falling |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B4K0rfx_E_kC&pg=PA18 |year=2005 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]] |isbn=978-0-393-32656-7 |pages=21–22 |via=Google Books}}</ref> In 1804, [[Jérôme Lalande]] introduced a vent in the canopy to eliminate violent oscillations.<ref name="soden"/> In 1887, [[Park Van Tassel]] and [[Thomas Scott Baldwin]] invented a parachute in San Francisco, California, with Baldwin making the first successful parachute jump in the western United States.<ref name="fogel">{{cite book |last=Fogel |first=Gary B. |author-link=Gary B. Fogel |title=Sky Rider: Park Van Tassel and the Rise of Ballooning in the West |url=https://unmpress.com/books/sky-rider/9780826362827 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211122010926/https://unmpress.com/books/sky-rider/9780826362827 |archive-date=22 November 2021 |year=2021 |publisher=[[University of New Mexico Press]] |isbn=978-0-8263-6282-7 |pages=38–43 |access-date=5 December 2022}}</ref>

===Eve of World War I===
[[File:FirstParachute.png|left|thumb|upright|Picture published in the Dutch magazine ''[[De Prins der Geïllustreerde Bladen]]'' (18 February 1911).<ref name="DePrins">''De Prins der Geillustreerde Bladen'', 18 February 1911, pp. 88-89.</ref>]]
[[File:Gleb Kotelnikov.jpg|left|thumb|upright|[[Gleb Kotelnikov]] and his invention, the [[knapsack]] parachute]]
In 1907 [[Charles Broadwick]] demonstrated two key advances in the parachute he used to jump from [[hot air balloon]]s at [[fair]]s: he folded his parachute into a [[backpack]], and the parachute was pulled from the pack by a [[static line]] attached to the balloon. When Broadwick jumped from the balloon, the static line became taut, pulled the parachute from the pack, and then snapped.<ref name="airspace2010">{{cite magazine |last=Ritter |first=Lisa |title=Pack Man: Charles Broadwick Invented a New Way of Falling |magazine=[[Air & Space/Smithsonian|Air & Space]] |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=68–72 |date=April–May 2010 |url=http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/Pack-Man-.html |access-date=1 March 2013}}</ref>

In 1911 a successful test took place with a [[Crash test dummy|dummy]] at the [[Eiffel Tower]] in [[Paris]]. The puppet's weight was {{convert|75|kg|abbr=on}}; the parachute's weight was {{convert|21|kg|abbr=on}}. The cables between the puppet and the parachute were {{convert|9|m|abbr=on}} long.<ref name="DePrins" /> On February 4, 1912, [[Franz Reichelt]] jumped to his death from the tower during initial testing of his wearable parachute.

Also in 1911, [[Grant Morton]] made the first parachute jump from an [[airplane]], a [[Wright Model B]] piloted by [[Phil Parmalee]], at [[Venice, Los Angeles#Venice Beach|Venice Beach]], [[California]]. Morton's device was of the "throw-out" type where he held the parachute in his arms as he left the aircraft. In the same year (1911), Russian [[Gleb Kotelnikov]] invented the first knapsack parachute,<ref name="history">{{cite web |url=http://www.bibliotekar.ru/divo/40-22.htm |title=Parachuting |website=Divo: The Russian Book of records and achievements |language=ru}}</ref> although [[Hermann Lattemann]] and his wife [[Katharina Paulus|Käthe Paulus]] had been jumping with bagged parachutes in the last decade of the 19th century.

[[File:Albert Berry parachute.jpg|right|thumb|[[Albert Berry (parachutist)|Albert Berry]] collapses his parachute on Kinloch Field at [[Jefferson Barracks Military Post|Jefferson Barracks]], [[Missouri]], after his jump on 1 March 1912.]]

In 1912, on a road near [[Tsarskoye Selo]], years before it became part of [[St. Petersburg]], Kotelnikov successfully demonstrated the braking effects of a parachute by accelerating a [[Russo-Balt]] automobile to its top speed and then opening a parachute attached to the back seat, thus also inventing the [[drogue parachute]].<ref name="history"/>

On 1 March 1912, [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] Captain [[Albert Berry (parachutist)|Albert Berry]] made the first (attached-type) parachute jump in the [[United States]] from a [[fixed-wing aircraft]], a [[Benoist Aircraft|Benoist]] pusher, while flying above [[Jefferson Barracks]], [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. The jump utilized a parachute stored or housed in a cone-shaped casing under the airplane and attached to a harness on the jumper's body.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Reichhardt |first=Tony |date=29 February 2012 |title=Berry's Leap |url=http://blogs.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/2012/02/berrys-leap/ |url-status=live |department=The Daily Planet |magazine=[[Air & Space/Smithsonian]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426101011/http://blogs.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/2012/02/berrys-leap/ |archive-date=26 April 2012}}</ref>

[[Štefan Banič]] patented an umbrella-like design in 1914,<ref>{{US patent|1108484}}</ref> and sold (or donated) the patent to the United States military, which later modified his design, resulting in the first military parachute.<ref name="obit">[http://www.mat.savba.sk/MATEMATICI/matematici.php?cislo=7 Štefan Banič, Konštruktér, vynálezca], Matematický ústav, Slovenská akadémia vied, obituary. Retrieved 21 October 2010.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.osobnosti.sk/osobnost/stefan-banic-982 |title=Banic: The inventor of the parachute |website=osobnosti.sk |language=sk}}</ref> Banič had been the first person to patent the parachute,<ref name="dcmp.org">{{cite web |url=https://dcmp.org/media/7825-inventions-that-shook-the-world-1910s |title=Inventions That Shook The World: 1910s |website=dcmp.org |language=en |access-date=2018-03-05}}</ref> and his design was the first to properly function in the 20th century.<ref name="dcmp.org"/>{{clarify|date=September 2018}}

On June 21, 1913, [[Georgia Broadwick]] became the first woman to parachute-jump from a moving aircraft, doing so over [[Los Angeles, California]].<ref name="airspace2010"/> In 1914, while doing demonstrations for the [[U.S. Army]], Broadwick deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump [[free-fall]].

===World War I===
[[File: Photography Q27506.jpg|thumb|Kite balloon observers preparing to descend by parachute.]]
The first military use of the parachute was by [[artillery observer]]s on tethered [[observation balloons]] in [[World War I]]. These were tempting targets for enemy [[fighter aircraft]], though difficult to destroy, due to their heavy [[anti-aircraft]] defenses. Because it was difficult to escape from them, and dangerous when on fire due to their hydrogen inflation, observers would abandon them and descend by parachute as soon as enemy aircraft were seen. The ground crew would then attempt to retrieve and deflate the balloon as quickly as possible. The main part of the parachute was in a bag suspended from the balloon with the pilot wearing only a simple waist harness attached to the main parachute. When the balloon crew jumped the main part of the parachute was pulled from the bag by the crew's waist harness, first the shroud lines, followed by the main canopy. This type of parachute was first adopted on a large scale for their observation balloon crews by the Germans, and then later by the British and French. While this type of unit worked well from balloons, it had mixed results when used on fixed-wing aircraft by the Germans, where the bag was stored in a compartment directly behind the pilot. In many instances where it did not work the shroud lines became entangled with the spinning aircraft. Although this type of parachute saved a number of famous German fighter pilots, including [[Hermann Göring]],<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=n-MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA809 May 1931, ''Popular Mechanics''] photo of observation balloon gondola with external bag parachutes used by British Royal Navy</ref> no parachutes were issued to the crews of Allied "[[heavier-than-air]]" aircraft. It has been claimed that the reason was to avoid pilots jumping from the plane when hit rather than trying to save the aircraft, but Air Vice Marshall [[Arthur Gould Lee]], himself a pilot during the war, examined the British War Office files after the war and found no evidence of such claim.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Steven T. |first1=Tom |title=First to Fight: An American Volunteer in the French Foreign Legion and the Lafayette Escadrille in World War I |date=2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=9780811768108 |page=105 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GRajDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105 |access-date=8 April 2023}}</ref>
 
Airplane cockpits at that time also were not large enough to accommodate a pilot and a parachute, since a seat that would fit a pilot wearing a parachute would be too large for a pilot not wearing one. This is why the German type was stowed in the fuselage, rather than being of the "backpack" type. Weight was – at the very beginning – also a consideration since planes had limited load capacity. Carrying a parachute impeded performance and reduced the useful offensive and fuel load.

In the UK, [[Everard Calthrop]], a railway engineer and breeder of Arab horses, invented and marketed through his Aerial Patents Company a "British Parachute" and the "Guardian Angel" parachute. As part of an investigation into Calthrop's design, on 13 January 1917, test pilot [[Clive Franklyn Collett]] successfully jumped from a [[Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2]]c flying over Orford Ness Experimental Station at {{convert|180|m|ft}}.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Yarwood |first=Vaughan |title=Leap of Faith |magazine=[[New Zealand Geographic]] |volume=173 |date=January 2022 |url=https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/leap-of-faith/?source=homepage}}</ref><ref name= Mackersey>{{cite book |last=Mackersey |first=Ian |title=No Empty Chairs: The Short and Heroic Lives of the Young Aviators Who Fought and Died in the First World War |location=London |publisher=[[Hachette UK]] |date=2012 |type=Paperback |isbn=9780753828137}}</ref> He repeated the experiment several days later.

Following on from Collett, balloon officer [[Thomas Orde-Lees]], known as the "Mad Major", successfully jumped from Tower Bridge in London,<ref name="ant2005">{{cite journal |url=http://www.antarctic.org.nz/pdf/Antarctic/Antarctic.V23.4.2005.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160121220349/http://antarctic.org.nz/pdf/Antarctic/Antarctic.V23.4.2005.pdf |archive-date=21 January 2016 |title=Testing the Limits at Cape Hallett |journal=The Journal of the [[New Zealand Antarctic Society]] |volume=23 |issue=4 |year=2005 |page=68}}</ref><ref>[http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-37-Seminar-Flight%20Safety.pdf "Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal, #37"], 2006, Page 28</ref> which led to the balloonists of the [[Royal Flying Corps]] using parachutes, though they were issued for use in aircraft.

In 1911, [[Solomon Lee Van Meter, Jr.]] of Lexington, Kentucky, submitted an application for, and in July 1916 received, a patent for a backpack style parachute – the Aviatory Life Buoy.<ref>Aviatory Life Buoy, {{US patent|1192479}}, July 25, 1916, awarded to inventor Solomon Lee Van Meter, Jr.</ref> His self-contained device featured a revolutionary quick-release mechanism – the [[Ripcord (skydiving)|ripcord]] – that allowed a falling aviator to expand the canopy only when safely away from the disabled aircraft.<ref name=ket>{{cite web |url=http://www.ket.org/trips/aviation/vanmeter.htm |title=Solomon Lee Van Meter Jr. (1888–1937) |year=2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100706200110/http://www.ket.org/trips/aviation/vanmeter.htm |archive-date=6 July 2010 |publisher=[[Kentucky Educational Television]] |access-date=5 December 2022}}</ref>

Otto Heinecke, a German airship ground crewman, designed a parachute which the German air service introduced in 1918, becoming the world's first air service to introduce a standard parachute. Schroeder company of Berlin manufactured Heinecke's design.<ref name= Mackersey/> The first successful use of this parachute was by Leutnant [[Helmut Steinbrecher]] of [[Jagdstaffel 46]], who bailed on 27 June 1918 from his stricken fighter airplane to become the first pilot in history to successfully do so.<ref name= Mackersey/> Although many pilots were saved by the Heinecke design, their efficacy was relatively poor. Out of the first 70 German airmen to bail out, around a third died,<ref name=MilHistMagHeinecke>{{cite magazine |last=Guttman |first=Jon |title=Heinecke Parachute: A Leap of Faith for WWI German Airmen |magazine=Military History Magazine |date=May 2012 |page=23 |url=http://www.historynet.com/heinecke-parachute-a-leap-of-faith-for-wwi-german-airmen.htm}}</ref> These fatalities were mostly due to the chute or ripcord becoming entangled in the airframe of their spinning aircraft or because of harness failure, a problem fixed in later versions.<ref name="MilHistMagHeinecke"/>

The French, British, American and Italian air services later based their first parachute designs on the Heinecke parachute to varying extents.<ref name=SMilHistJournal>{{cite journal |last=Mahncke |first=J O E O |title=Early Parachutes, An evaluation of the use of parachutes, with special emphasis on the Royal Flying Corps and the German Lufstreitkräfte, until 1918 |journal=South African Military History Journal |date=December 2000 |volume=11 |issue=6 |url=http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol116jm.html}}</ref>

In the UK, Sir [[Frank Mears]], who was serving as a Major in the [[Royal Flying Corps]] in France (Kite Balloon section), registered a patent in July 1918 for a parachute with a quick release buckle, known as the "Mears parachute", which was in common use from then onwards.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C2987551 |title=The Discovery Service |first=The National |last=Archives |author-link=The National Archives (United Kingdom)}}</ref>

===Post-World War I===
[[File:Ben Turner making a parachute jump 1938.jpg|thumb|Ben Turner making a parachute jump from a plane at Camden, Sydney, 14 August 1938.]]
The experience with parachutes during the war highlighted the need to develop a design that could be reliably used to exit a disabled airplane. For instance, tethered parachutes did not work well when the aircraft was spinning. After the war, Major Edward L. Hoffman of the [[United States Army]] led an effort to develop an improved parachute by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants in the effort included [[Leslie Irvin (parachutist)|Leslie Irvin]] and [[James Floyd Smith]]. The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A. This incorporated three key elements:
* storing the parachute in a soft pack worn on the back, as demonstrated by [[Charles Broadwick]] in 1906;
* a [[Ripcord (skydiving)|ripcord]] for manually deploying the parachute at a safe distance from the airplane, from a design by [[Albert Leo Stevens]]; and 
* a [[pilot chute]] that draws the main canopy from the pack.

In 1919, Irvin successfully tested the parachute by jumping from an airplane. The Type-A parachute was put into production and over time saved a number of lives.<ref name="airspace2010"/> The effort was recognized by the awarding of the [[Robert J. Collier Trophy]] to Major Edward L. Hoffman in 1926.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://naa.aero/awards/awards-and-trophies/collier-trophy/collier-1920-1929-winners |title=Collier 1920–1929 Recipients |website=[[National Aeronautic Association]]}}</ref>

Irvin became the first person to make a premeditated free-fall parachute jump from an airplane. An early brochure of the Irvin Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor as having become, on 24 August 1920, at [[McCook Field]] near [[Dayton, Ohio]], the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute.<ref>{{cite web |first=Ralph S. |last=Cooper |url=http://home.earthlink.net/~ralphcooper/pimagz17.htm |title=The Irvin Parachute, 1924 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030830123556/http://home.earthlink.net/~ralphcooper/pimagz17.htm |archive-date=30 August 2003 |via=[[Earthlink.net]] |access-date=22 October 2013}}</ref> Test pilot Lt. [[Harold R. Harris]] made another life-saving jump at McCook Field on 20 October 1922. Shortly after Harris' jump, two Dayton newspaper reporters suggested the creation of the [[Caterpillar Club]] for successful parachute jumps from disabled aircraft.

Beginning with [[Italy]] in 1927, several countries experimented with using parachutes to [[paratroopers|drop soldiers behind enemy lines]]. The regular [[Soviet Airborne Troops]] were established as early as 1931 after a number of experimental military mass jumps starting from 2 August 1930.<ref name="history"/> Earlier the same year, the first Soviet mass jumps led to the development of the parachuting sport in the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=" history"/> By the time of [[World War II]], large [[airborne forces]] were trained and used in surprise attacks, as in the battles for [[Battle of Fort Eben-Emael|Fort Eben-Emael]] and [[Battle for The Hague|The Hague]], the first large-scale, opposed landings of paratroopers in military history, by the Germans.<ref>Dr L. de Jong, 'Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog', (Dutch language) part 3, RIOD, Amsterdam, 1969</ref> This was followed later in the war by airborne assaults on a larger scale, such as the [[Battle of Crete]] and [[Operation Market Garden]], the latter being the largest airborne military operation ever.<ref>Dr L. de Jong, 'Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog', (Dutch language) part 10a-II, RIOD, Amsterdam, 1980</ref> Aircraft crew were routinely equipped with parachutes for emergencies as well.<ref>Airborne Equipment: A History of Its Development, John Weeks (1976), ISBN 0715371177</ref>

In 1937, [[drag chute]]s were used in aviation for the first time, by [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] airplanes in the [[Arctic]] that were providing support for the polar expeditions of the era, such as the first [[drifting ice station]], [[North Pole-1]]. The drag chute allowed airplanes to land safely on smaller [[drift ice|ice floes]].<ref name="history"/>

Most parachutes were made of silk until World War II cut off supplies from Japan. After [[Adeline Gray (parachutist)|Adeline Gray]] made the first jump using a nylon parachute in June 1942, the industry switched to nylon.<ref>{{cite web |title=obit-adeline-gray |url=http://www.oxford-historical-society.org/adeline/obit-adeline-gray.html |access-date=28 March 2021 |website=www.oxford-historical-society.org}}</ref>