Since ancient times, human beings have looked at the sky and have wished to fly .The Greeks have already told us about Dedalo and his son Icaro , that some wings were made to furrow the skies.Icarus approached too much to the sun and the wax that held the feathers of his wings melted. Franz Reichel t, the man who invented the parachute and died trying it , like a modern Icaro, I try to jump from the Eiffel Tower and descend slowly.
The man who invented the parachute and died trying it
Franz Reichelt, born in 1878 in what is now the Czech Republic.In 1900 he moved to Paris where he practiced his tailoring profession quite successfully., which was nationalized French and from that moment was called Francois, I was worried about the accidents that were continually happening in the fledgling world of aviation .At that time, began to devise parachute systems to save life of the pilots when there were problems.Great admirer of Leonardo da Vinci , I remember the sketches of this one and, in addition, I study the shape of the wings and the flight of the bat to create a parachute prototype .
In 1910 he started to make a parachute suit made of cloth and rubber convinced that it would work. First tests he did them with mannequins in the courtyard of the house where he had his workshop and they were a failure .Later it was launched from 10 meters , in the local Joinville, failing again .On this occasion, he took the precaution of placing a large amount of straw on the ground to dampen the fall if the invention did not work, that came out practically unharmed.
Despite the failures, Franz was convinced that his invention had to work.The Le Petit Journal, in 1911, echoed a test in the one that the tailor threw a mannequin from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The parachute suit did not dampen the fall of the doll, but Franz declared that the result was inconclusive , since the mannequin could not open his arms.
Willing to prove definitive As his invention worked, asked permission to jump it from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower .Apparently the authorities granted it, but to make an official test with another mannequin , not to skip the same .On Sunday February 4, 1912 , after writing his will, at 7 in the morning he appeared at the foot of the Torre.There were police keeping order among the public, but none were interested in the fact that Franz arrived without a mannequin. At 8'22 of that cold winter day, before numerous public and journalists and after about 40 seconds of hesitation, Franz threw himself into a vacuum wrapped in his parachute suit .It was a jump from 57 meters ; At the beginning it seemed that the suit was ajar , but then a free fall that ended against the ground began .Where the body fell there was a subsidence of the land of about 20 cm.It was speculated that perhaps he suffered a heart attack at the time of the jump and that is why he could not open the suit well, but the doctor who performed the autopsy did not see signs of it.
Thus died the Poor Frantz Reichelt , a brave man who devised a parachute that did not work.Here we leave you the terrible video of his jump, that someone, anonymously, filmed.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8U51cI4VIY
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