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KF5JRV > TODAY 22.10.18 12:27l 33 Lines 1629 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 23488_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Oct 22
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<AB0AF<VA7RBP<KF5JRV
Sent: 181022/1122Z 23488@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16
The first parachute jump of note is made by André-Jacques Garnerin from
a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet above Paris.
Leonardo da Vinci conceived the idea of the parachute in his writings,
and the Frenchman Louis-Sebastien Lenormand fashioned a kind of
parachute out of two umbrellas and jumped from a tree in 1783, but
André-Jacques Garnerin was the first to design and test parachutes
capable of slowing a man’s fall from a high altitude.
Garnerin first conceived of the possibility of using air resistance to
slow an individual’s fall from a high altitude while a prisoner during
the French Revolution. Although he never employed a parachute to escape
from the high ramparts of the Hungarian prison where he spent three
years, Garnerin never lost interest in the concept of the parachute. In
1797, he completed his first parachute, a canopy 23 feet in diameter and
attached to a basket with suspension lines.
On October 22, 1797, Garnerin attached the parachute to a hydrogen
balloon and ascended to an altitude of 3,200 feet. He then clambered
into the basket and severed the parachute from the balloon. As he failed
to include an air vent at the top of the prototype, Garnerin oscillated
wildly in his descent, but he landed shaken but unhurt half a mile from
the balloon’s takeoff site. In 1799, Garnerin’s wife, Jeanne-Genevieve,
became the first female parachutist. In 1802, Garnerin made a
spectacular jump from 8,000 feet during an exhibition in England. He
died in a balloon accident in 1823 while preparing to test a new
parachute.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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