Do Not Skydive Without An Emergency Parachute

By Stephanie Jones


Man first noticed that air resistance slowed down the movement of an object falling down from the sky. This was about four thousand years ago. There is folklore that an individual once was pursued by an angry father and climb on top of a structure. With nowhere else to go the person grabbed to large bamboo hats and jumped to safety. Today pilots would be foolhardy not to own an emergency parachute.

Civilization began to prosper and grew in relation to tool making and usufruct. Some primates particularly the chimpanzee uses stick to tickle insects out of tree barks or fruits and only for that. Some birds take stones from the ground and drop then on sea shells to break it, but only for that. Hominids are different. It makes use of sticks in various ways and the same applies with the stone.

Early hominid tools were simple but were used in everyday life. Sharpened wooden staves were utilized as weapons as spears. Life was simple then and things were not as fast paced as it is at present. Wooden branches were used as levers to move heavy objects and animal skins were trimmed becoming the first missile launcher as a sling.

The explorer inside a person can never be extinguished. Adventurism is innate to a man as with eating. Hovering in the air and sky has been dreamt of by every human explorer. To this end, devices were made stimulating bird movement and shapes but to no avail. Gravity was too much of a force to get away from by just using human muscles.

Later on when it was acknowledge that the human anatomy itself was not designed for flying, other means of power were invented that could be used to make flying achievable. The internal combustions engine development along with oil exploration complemented the raw engineering designs of rudimentary airplanes. These were made of wood and fabric and had to be light.

It was not until the start of this century that powered flight became possible. The invention of the engine showed promise in that it had enough power for sustained flight. Old designs used to emulate the shape of the bird copiously imitating the wings. Technology and engineering soon solved the riddle of air flow against surface that resulted in airplane wings.

As aircraft technology improved, the airplane was utilized for civilian and military applications. Armies began to create air forces to observe and harass enemy positions. But unlike cars that drove in the land, airplanes had no available hangars in the sky. If something went wrong it would crash and along with it the pilot.

The modern chute was invented in the eighteenth century when an individual made the first recorded jump. This was followed years later by another who jumped off from a hot air balloon to prove the point that it was good as a safety device. The device was made of wood and designed very much like an umbrella. The cloth that was used was linen.

Sport activities that originate from the sky are very dangerous. Skydiving and cliff jumping is very popular among new athletes. Human formations jumped off huge airplane to do difficult maneuvers forming hand to hand links that baffle the imagination. These feats could not have been done without the aid a safety device that is the parachute.




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