6 june 1942, 1st nylon parachute jump

[piisfish 135]

this article was linked on the french skydiving forum
http://www.lepoint.fr/c-est-arrive-aujourd-hui/6-juin-1942-une-blonde-effectue-le-premier-saut-en-parachute-en-nylon-camel-en-fait-son-egerie-06-06-2012-1469937_494.php

on 6 june 42, Adeline Gray did the 1st nylon parachute demo jump for Pioneer Parachute Company in front of a military delegation.

Camel cigarettes found with her the perfect ambassador of female smokers, opening a "sexy-independant-feminine" market for cigarettes, launching the "Let's smoke, Girls" campaign.

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[piisfish 135]

dang, that's a 70th birthday for nylon parachutes.

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[obelixtim 100]

Can anyone tell me where the term "nylon" came from?.

My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

[piisfish 135]

Now You Lost, Old Nippon

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[obelixtim 100]

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Now You Lost, Old Nippon

Bang on.....that was quick...

My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

[councilman24 36]

"Etymology

In 1940, John W. Eckelberry of DuPont stated that the letters "nyl" were arbitrary and the "on" was copied from the suffixes of other fibers such as cotton and rayon. A later publication by DuPont explained that the name was originally intended to be "No-Run" ("run" meaning "unravel"), but was modified to avoid making such an unjustified claim and to make the word sound better.[8] An apocryphal explanation is that Nylon is a conflation of "New York" and "London". A humorous backronym is "Now You've Lost, Old Nippon" referring to the supposed loss of demand for Japanese silk."

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[nitrochute 2]

70 years for nylon parachutes. AND wuffos STILL refer to them as SILK!

[mjosparky 3]

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Can anyone tell me where the term "nylon" came from?.

It was the name DuPont gave to a synthetic fiber developed by Wallace Carothers in 1935.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[riggerrob 558]

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this article was linked on the french skydiving forum
http://www.lepoint.fr/c-est-arrive-aujourd-hui/6-juin-1942-une-blonde-effectue-le-premier-saut-en-parachute-en-nylon-camel-en-fait-son-egerie-06-06-2012-1469937_494.php

on 6 june 42, Adeline Gray did the 1st nylon parachute demo jump for Pioneer Parachute Company in front of a military delegation.
...

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Given the date, it was under the Vichy Administration and a few German Nazi officers were in the audience.

[ripcord4 0]

Adeline Gray made the first jump by a human with a nylon parachute at Brainard Field in Hartford, Conn, not in France.

[riggerrob 558]

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Adeline Gray made the first jump by a human with a nylon parachute at Brainard Field in Hartford, Conn, not in France.

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That coincides with the notion that North Americans were the first to convert to nylon fabric for parachutes, with Canadian parachute manufacturers converting first, shortly followed by American manufacturers. The difference in dates being primarily due to late American declaration of war (World War Two).

[tonybrogdon 0]

Smitty the Jumper made his first parachute jump in 1922 with a harness amde by a horse harness maker and a silk bedsheet. He designed and bulit it and jumped it before ever seeing another parachute. He broght it to Perris DZ December 15th , 1985 and made a tandem with the Coors Skydiving team. Richard Brooks and I followed them out and watched Smitty in a fetal position as he'd done all those years previous noteven seeing the Coors team. He ws 87 then and died at age 92 a year after making his last jump.

Tony Brogdon
D-12855