THRILLS IN MID-AIR.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 May 1919, Page 7

THRILLS IN MID-AIR.

GIRL WITH A PARACHUTE. A scries of thrilling paracliuts experiments were made recently by a yonnd woman at a height of a thousand feet above Richmond Park, London.

The parachutist was Aliss Sylvia Boyden. who was carrying out expeiime'nts with apparatus designed to prove that parachutes are suitable fOi women in civilian flying. This was one of.the black parachutes used during the war to drop agents behind the German lines.

Miss Hoyden is the first woman to make a descent with a “packed parachute, such as is used for aeroplanes. Other descents made by women have been with open type parachutes, which were suspended ready for immediate release beneath the balloon basket. Miss Boyden, a cheerful little party, who was dressed in flying kit, with a fur lined helmet, made these descents during th( day “for the love of the

experience. • “I did not feel in the least bit nercous,” said Miss Boyden. “I sat on the edge of the basket, and could see the people like ants beneath me ,in the park. Somebody behind me said, ‘ Ready, go!!'* and I just slipped into space. Looking up I saw the black tapes coming out of the parachute case, which was tied like a largo muffin to one of the balloon stays just above the basket. Then the black silk parachute gradually swelled out. For a moment the aid rushed past; then I just floated downwards as in a swing. “When I reached the earth there was no greater ’shock than jumping from, say. a mautlepieee. I kept my knees bent, and so came down on all fours, as light as a feather. ”1 have been promised to be allowed to jump from an aeroplane in a few days, and I think :h\3 will be much more thrilling. The earth looks just the same from a balloon as from an aeroplane, and it is no harder to jump from 5000 feet than it is from 1000 feet.’ ’