"SKI-PARACHUTING"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 78, 24 December 1937, Page 6

"SKI-PARACHUTING"

Our Own Coriesponaent.*

Cloak to Steady the Runner AUSTRIAN INVENTION

cFrom

LONDON, Nov. 20.0 .With the first heavy snowfalls in the Austrian Alps comes the news that an Austrian invention, which promises a new development in slci-ing, is to be put into practice at various winta» sport centres. The sport which is to developed from this new invention, of which there were a few private trials at the end of last season, has been called "aero dynamic ski-ing," or more popularlv ' ' ski-parachuting. ' ' Professor Hans Thirring, of Vienna Dniversity, who is an experieneed skier, is the inventor of ' ' ski-parachut-ing. " It was the strong air resistanee, which gives the skier the feeling that he is supported by' an air eushion, while he is running "Schuss" — full speed down-hill — that gave Professo>Thirring his idea The only apparatus required is a klrd of cloak of light wind-proof material, the sleeves of which are attached throughout their length' to the back of tho cloak. The bottom of the cloak is joined by straps to the ankles of the runner. When a sufficient speed is attamed, the skier extends his arms and the cloak balloons out behind him, forming a tkree-cornered sail of 12 or 13 square feet in extent. The invention will never make a bad skier into a moderate skier, as it comes into action only at a speed of 2fJ m.p.h., which a nervous beginner rarely allows himself to attained. But the increased stability and control which the . slciparachute gives at over this speed, it is claimed, quickly transforms a moderate into a very good skier. By altering the position of his arms the skier can acquire increased security against taking a toss forwards or backwards, and the wind eushion created carries him easily over inequalities of surface.