Hello All
All of you would know of Leonardo da Vinci's parachute, designed in the 1480s.
It was little more than a quick sketch, with a brief description given to it. Recently, two 'replicas' made of it have been made. The first one was constructed in 2000 and was built with a solid timber frame and a linen canopy, as per Leonardo's notes. The replica was dropped from a hot-air balloon and for safety reasons, the parachutist, Adrian Nicholas, cut away from the replica when it was about 600m up, and he deployed a reserve parachute for the rest of his journey downwards. A BBC report on the project can be found
here.
In April this year, another replica was made, this time using modern-day materials and eschewing the solid framing. A Swiss parachutist called Olivier Vietti-Teppa launched himself from a helicopter and made a flawless descent down to the ground. (It's a nice touch that a modern-day version of another of Leonardo's inventions was used to make this parachute jump a reality.) Here is a recent news article about the
jump
While doing some searching for info about this lastest replica, I came upon this site:
De Havilland Watches - Parachute. It contains two dozen photos, and one
very impressive video showing the whole flight. The 2 minute video is well worth watching. The connection to between the watch company and the parachute is that they sponsored the project and so had their logos on the parachute.
Cheers,
Paul
22 June 2008, 11:40 PM
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