Editing Parachute (section)

===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>