First Reserve Parachute

[flyinmedic 0]

Hey everyone,

I'm writing a speech that I will be giving in a public speaking course. I am trying to get a rough date that the reserve parachute was introduced into our sport.

Thanks,

Herschel

[winsor 187]

Quote

Hey everyone,

I'm writing a speech that I will be giving in a public speaking course. I am trying to get a rough date that the reserve parachute was introduced into our sport.

The reserve parachute was a reality before parachuting became a sport as such.

Despite the continued use of single parachutes for intentional jumps by barnstormers and paratroopers, the TR Type chest-mounted reserve came into use in 1924.

It was only in the post-WWII era that people used surplus equipment to parachute as a sport in any significant numbers. By then the use of a reserve was the norm for intentional jumps.

In the early '70s the reserve migrated aft, finding a home atop the main. in the later '70s the ramair reserve became a reality, and by the end of the '80s it was the norm.

About the only times a second parachute is not used are for very low altitude, such as combat airborne insertion and BASE, or emergency parachutes, where its duty is that of reserve from the outset - the aircraft serves as the main.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[mjosparky 3]

When jumping from airplanes first became a "sport" they used 2 canopies. At first they were both "reserves". They would take an emergency "back type" system and mount a QAC, "chest type" to the front, thus giving them a main and a reserve.

This was first done by military test jumpers when testing a new system.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[skypuppy 1]

A jumper who did his first jump in Toronto in the 1930's and did 50-60 jumps over the next 20 years or so remembers jumping at the Canadian National Exhibition Airshow before the war without a reserve. It seems their club only had so many canopies, and if they used any for reserves it meant that they would have less jumpers on the exhibition jumps...

He is still around today.


The first jump from an airplane by a Canadian over Canada was done by Frank Ellis in 1919 without a reserve (pic of system attached - the things around his belly are old aviation inner tubes for flotation in water landings). He was a pilot who flew for some test jumps for Irving Industries. He bandit-jumped a proto-type canopy that Leslie Irvin was testing after Irvin had to return to the states and left the canopy to dry for a couple of days. He and his partner packed it up from memory of how they remembered Irvin's test jumper doing it, and drew straws to see who would be the lucky one.

In 1979 Bill Cole did a re-enactment of Ellis' jump from a Tiger Moth, but he wore a reserve.

Many barnstormers and professional parachute jumpers did not use reserves well into the 1950's (see Valentin's book 'Birdman').
Of course other jumpers did intentional cutaways with several parachutes (I read of one Chief Whitefeather or something, who attempted to use 10 different chutes on one jump, deploying and cutting away, but ran out of time and bounced. This would be in the 30's.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[skypuppy 1]

When jumping from airplanes first became a "sport" they used 2 canopies. At first they were both "reserves". They would take an emergency "back type" system and mount a QAC, "chest type" to the front, thus giving them a main and a reserve.

This was first done by military test jumpers when testing a new system.

Sparky
__________________________________________________

The first actual 'save' I remember reading about was a British military test jumper (Bowen?) who came to McCook Field to demonstrate the Guardian Angel (a static line deployed parachute) to the team developing the military emergency chute for the US air force in 1919. They would not let him go up without a reserve (he didn't have one), so he was made to strap on one of the Irvin freefall chutes. Sure enough, the s/l caught on the plane and broke and the jumper ended up deploying his Irvin reserve. The Brits did not make the sale.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[fenceline 0]

Can u call your main anything but a reserve when its your only chute??


Sorry, comic relief.

[skr 1]

>rough date that the reserve parachute was introduced into our sport.

I started in 1962 and the idea of wearing a reserve
was widespread by then, maybe even universal in
the United States. I don't know about other countries.

But the guys who taught me the most, Jack Pryor
who put me out on my first jump and Bob Sinclair
who I ran into a couple years later, both started
with just a seat pack.

I know a number of people who jumped in the 50s
with no reserve, but I've also seen pictures of of
jumpers in the 20s and 30s who did have them.

Skr

[slug 1]

Skr

Your still the man!

IMO seat packs, pilot rigs, Bailout rigs, were by their very function Reserve chutes.

even todays figher pilots only have one chute. The picture's that i've seen of the German paratroopers during WW2 exiting the plane only had a main.

I've heard that american solders when making a combat jump 2-300ft reserves are optional (i believe it)

But when the WW2 american parartrooper were making their practice jumps in the US at 1000' were they wearing Reserves?

Any really old farts (like older than dirt) remember what the trained with. A army historian or reenactor would do in a pinch.

Skr we're just old farts "older than dirt" is really really old[
R.I.P.

[riggerrob 558]

Let's see if I can set the record straight about (static-line) paratroopers using reserves during the Second World War.

There were basically two streams of development.
The fascist line started in Italy and was copied by the Germans. Fascists did not use reserves. Their peculiar harnesses have not been used since the war.

The other line (French, Russian, British, Japanese, American, etc.)development continued from Irvin, GQ, etc. freefall pilot emergency parachutes.
During the 1930s, both the French and the Russians trained thousands of sport jumpers to do freefall jumps, while wearing two parachutes (including chest-mounted reserves), so that is how they equipped their paratroopers at the start of the war. There is even archival evidence of Russian, Japanese and French para-troopers using these two-canopy rigs in battle.
At the start of the war, the British and American paratroopers tried desperately to catch up with the Germans.
The British Army school started with single ripcord-deployed chutes, but John Quilter soon invented the direct deployment bag, which increased reliability so much that reserves became just so much excess baggage. British paratroopers did not adopt reserves until the 1950s or 1960s.
American paratroopers used static-lines and it is a good thing they were issued with reserves, because their mains did not become reliable until (they adopted a couple of British inventions) the 1960s.

Modern paratroopers still wear reserves when doing training jums from 1,000', but when AAA force pilots below 500', reserves get traded for more ammunition.

M/Cpl (ret'd) Rob Warner, CD, BA and a bunch of other letters
Canadian Army Basic Parachutist Wings
West German Army Bronze Parachutist Wings