Читать книгу The Romance of Aircraft - Laurence Yard Smith - Страница 6

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The story of the parachute is inevitably linked in memory with that of the balloon. Those who look back a few years can remember when exhibition balloons were in their heyday, and the sensation the parachutist used to create as he leapt from on high and came flying recklessly through the air. For a breathless moment or two the parachute remained folded, and when, finally, its umbrella-like form spread out protectingly above the hero, a thrill of relief ran through the anxious crowd of spectators.

In the early days of ballooning the parachute was looked on as a sort of life belt the aeronaut might don in the event of a serious accident to his craft in mid-air. Many experimenters gave their attention to developing it for this purpose; but when it was found that the balloonist actually needed no protection, since the balloon itself would “parachute” to earth after an explosion, interest in the matter waned.

To-day the parachute has come once more into prominence because of the heroic work it performed in connection with the kite balloon and with the airplane in the war, and so our concern in it has revived. Many stories reached us from the front, of artillery spotters who jumped to safety when their observation balloons were unexpectedly attacked by enemy airplanes. It has actually become the “life-belt of the air.”

More often in the early days of ballooning it was a source of grave danger to the plucky aeronaut who sought to try it out and improve it, and its history includes the record of several sad accidents.

It was in the very year that the balloon was invented that a Frenchman, M. Le Normand began experimenting with a contrivance resembling an umbrella, with which he jumped from the branches of a tree, and sank gently to earth, the parachute saving him from injury. Successful as his first attempt was it seems that he afterward lost his nerve, and later attempts were made with animals placed in a basket below the parachute and dropped to earth from a considerable height.

Blanchard, the famous balloonist, became interested in the idea of the parachute, and made a number of very interesting experiments. While making a public ascent in a balloon at Strasbourg, he dropped over the side of his balloon a dog with a parachute attached to him. The spectators were greatly pleased when the little creature came to earth quite unharmed, and public interest in the contrivance as a means of saving life was aroused.

In 1793 Blanchard himself undertook to make a parachute descent. He was not wholly successful, for before he reached the earth the apparatus gave way and he crashed down heavily, fortunately escaping with nothing worse than a broken leg. In spite of his injury he did not give up the idea of the parachute as a “life belt” for the aeronaut, and looked forward to the time when it should be so improved that it could be relied upon to bring the aeronaut to earth uninjured if any accident should make it necessary for him to escape from his balloon in mid-air.

However it was again a Frenchman, M. André Garnerin who accomplished the first descent by parachute from a great height without injury. His parachute was attached to a balloon. At a height of several thousand feet in the air, he freed himself and descended gradually, alighting gently upon the earth. That was in 1797 and five years later he gave a public demonstration of his parachute in England. This time he was not so successful, for his apparatus broke before he reached the ground and he received a number of injuries by his fall.

The parachute actually saved a life, however, in 1808, when the aeronaut R. Jordarki Kuparanto, whose balloon caught fire in mid-air during a demonstration at Warsaw, leapt over the side with his parachute and came to earth unharmed.