INTO SPACE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 39, 9 May 1927, Page 11

INTO SPACE

Parachute Thrills KEEPING COOL RULES FOR BEGINNERS A note on the thrills of parachuting is contained in an article published in the “Melbourne Herald” from its London correspondent. There are men who prefer to go down to the sea in submarines. There are men, who, of their own volition, will spend their lives constantly facing the perils of a mine—and scoff at any other form of livelihood. There are men like Count Zberowski, Dario Resta, Parry Thomas and dozens more now killed whose desire for the thrill of the motordrome was insatiable. It is so with airmen—always hungering, so it seems, for se’nsations which to most of us come as the most terrible of nightmares! Who will say that men living these lives are not abnormal? Who will say that by ordinary standards is to be judged a man, who having been borne by an airplane to a height of some miles, climbs over the side and in a cool and collected fashion drops into space, his life depending on his ability at a precise moment when hurtling downwards at a speed increasing with every second, to pull a cord which will release a parachute from a sort of cushion on his back? Safety in Theory Not that his safety depends solely upon that. He has committed the first act of a would-be suicide. Whether he is to be alive or dead at the end of the next ten or fifteen seconds depends as much on the mechanical perfection of the parachute as his ability to pull the release cord at the right moment.

He has the theoretical but none too certain practical assurance that the small pilot parachute will draw the main parachute from its case, that its bellowing folds will fill with air without bursting under the tremendous pressure; that his harness will hold—that his projectile-like velocity earthwards will be sufficiently arrested to prevent a violent impact with the ground.

There are few who served on the Western Front who have not seen men drop to ? their deaths from immense heights. There would be an aerial “dog-fight,” and from the cqmet’s tail of black smoke from a burning airplane would fall first one and then another of its occupants. There were no parachutes for pilots in those days. Inventor's Tragedy

Men who saw these things did not put much faith in parachutes, nor did the authorities. But the popular outcry that an airman, either in peace or war, should be provided with some means of escape when in difficulties in the air had its effect. One of the tragedies of invention is provided by Mr. Everard Calthrop, who in the closing stages of the war spent his private fortune of £25,000, won by breeding polo ponies, in developing a type of parachute which, although infallible in its opening, was for a number of reasons rejected by the authorities.

For one thing, Mr. Calthrop’s parachute did not provide for what is undoubtedly an essential feature in modern aerial fighting—the ability of the parachute jumper to open his safety device at any desired moment when falling through the air. The practice of this gentle air exercise is known as the “delayed drop.” “Delayed” Drop

Men consoled themselves to some extent when, seeing airmen driven to cast themselves from their machines, in the belief that the terrible rush downwards was sufficient to render these poor men insensible long before they reached the ground—to rebound.

shattered w*recks. from the sun-baked earth, or driven deep into the shellploughed mud.

The “delayed drop” has exploded this belief. We know now, from the experience which ended in the fatal accident recently to Corporal East, of the Royal Air Force, that a man may fall 5,000 feet unchecked, and yet within 70 feet of the ground have sufficient control over himself to release his parachute—as East was seen to do by expert observers. Air Force Type Upon this type of self-contained, de-layed-acting parachute the British Air Force has decided, because it gives the airman a chance to get well away from his stricken machine, and well out of the way of the combat in all probability proceeding at a hot pace around him. Furthermore, it enables the escaping airman to beat an aerial adversary in a race for safety and the ground—should that adversary be unsporting enough to follow him down, firing all the time with his incendiary bullets. “Jump, count five,” says the book of rules, “and then pull the cord.” Beginners' Feelings The airplane you have just jumped from,” says one member of the Air Force’s ‘parachute circus/ “flies up from you as if shot out of a catapult. The earth bounds towards you, sometimes from beneath, sometimes from above, just as you happen to be turning head-over-heels. The wind whistles in an increasing crescendo as you gather speed All you have to do is to keep your head. “Suddenly you remember to pull the bang. There is a tug on the harness The earth smooths itself out, and you go drifting along. It is exhilarating—there is nothing quite like it.” Indubitably!