It Still Didn’t Work

With the invention of the aeroplane, came the inevitable problem of what to do in the event of a failure of said aeroplane. In those days, there was no way for aviators to safely abandon their plane, and that could be a serious problem. Franz Reichelt was an Austrian-Hungarian tailor who wanted to find a solution. So, the inventor in him began to design a suit that could work as what we now know to be a parachute.

Franz Reichelt was born was born on October 16, 1878, in Wegstädtl, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (today it is Štetí, Czech Republic). He moved to Paris, France, in 1898, and obtained French nationality in 1909. At that point, he adopted the first name François, which was the French equivalent of the Germanic “Franz.”

Reichelt began to develop a “parachute-suit” from July 1910. The suit was not much bulkier than one normally worn by an aviator, but it had a few key additions, like a few rods, a silk canopy, and a small amount of rubber that allowed it to fold out to become what Reichelt hoped would be a practical and efficient parachute. Now, all that remained was to test, prove, and introduce his invention.

There had been other parachute successes, such as those of Louis-Sébastien Lenormand and Jean-Pierre Blanchard, but they were a fixed canopy and were only suitable at low altitudes. Jumping from an aeroplane would be impossible with an open-canopy parachute, and André-Jacques Garnerin had invented a frameless parachute suitable for use from high altitudes, but by 1910 there was still no parachute suitable for use in jumping from a plane or at low altitude. Reichelt became interested in parachute design after hearing some of the stories of fatal accidents among the early aeronauts and aviators. As Reichelt began his testing, the early tests were successful as he dropped dummies equipped with foldable silk “wings” that allowed them to touch down lightly when dropped from five floors. It was promising, but the process of converting the prototypes into a wearable “suit” proved difficult.

Originally, the conversion used 65 square feet of material and weighed around 150 pounds. That was not really feasible or practical. Nevertheless, he presented his design to the leading aeronautic organization, La Ligue Aérienne at the Aéro-Club de France, hoping that they would test it. They rejected his designs on the grounds that the construction of the canopy was too weak and tried to discourage him from spending further time on development. Not willing to give up, Reichelt persevered and conducted experimental drops with dummies from the courtyard of his building at rue Gaillon. None of his tests proved successful, but Reichelt would not quit. He designed a suit he thought would work and since he couldn’t get anyone to test it, he decided to test it himself, thinking that it just needed a little more altitude to open. Reichelt donned the suit, climbed to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower and jumped. Sadly, the parachute again failed to open, and he fell 187 feet to his death. The test was filmed and recorded what amounted to Reichelt’s unplanned suicide. He must have been absolutely stunned when he realized what was coming.