After the war skydiving became much more popular as many returning soldiers took it up and had regular competitions, which led to it becoming a national sport in Our Chief Instructor will be able to tell you all about that if you would like to know more!
The highest recorded skydive in history happened recently, on October 14th, , when 43 year old Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner successfully jumped from 39 kilometers, literally jumping from the edge of space.
He is the first person to break the sound barrier without vehicular power on his descent. His achievement was broadcast on national television and entered into the Guinness Book of World Records. What a guy!
He survived a harsh landing. The frameless parachute he used was seven metres across and was his own invention. He changed the world of aviation and saved countless lives.
Read about his innovation j… pic. Read: Daredevil! Meanwhile, at a height, the parachute could carry his weight as he was held in position with a network of complicated cords. Born on 31 January in Paris, France, Garnerin reportedly first came up with the concept of a parachute whilst a prisoner in a Hungarian prison during the French Revolution — he was looking for a means of escape.
He never got to try it out in prison, but the idea never left him. In fact his passion for the air and ballooning only increased his desire to experiment.
An early adopter and student of ballooning, he worked on many designs and ideas for hot air balloons, and was eventually appointed Official Aeronaut of France. In he finally got to complete his first parachute jump. However, it was a very different concept from today's idea of a parachute.
Instead of a nylon mattress shaped parachute packed in a bag and attached to his back with a harness, he developed a 7m-wide parachute that folded up like an umbrella, using rigid ribs in an envelope of silk. Then, he attached the whole lot to hot air balloon.
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