It’s go take a flying leap day

The days are getting shorter, the nights are colder, and even the sun seems farther away. There can be no doubt that summer is done. Yet, there is no point in being sullen. Today is October 22. Today is go take a flying leap day. It was on this very day, way back in 1797, that André-Jacques Garnerin made the first jump with a parachute. The French were true pioneers when it came to getting off the ground. They basically invented the hot air balloon, and were the first to fly them with any real success. It only stands to reason, then, that a Paris inventor would also come up with the first useful frameless parachute. Garnerin’s early experiments were based on umbrella-shaped devices. The umbrella did work well in the movies for Mary Poppins, but not quite as well for my uncle, who landed in the lawn with a heap trying to sail off the garage when he was a boy. He eventually went to work in Silicon Valley in California, where I always assumed he made miniature robots, or bombs, or robots with miniature bombs. I never did learn the truth, because eventually my uncle’s boss told him to go take a flying leap. Garnerin made his first leap with a silk parachute, jumping from a hot air balloon while floating over a park in Paris. After a descent of almost a kilometre, he landed without injury in front of an admiring crowd. His wife Jeanne-Geneviève was the first successful female parachutist. According to historians, Chinese texts described a primitive form of parachute 15 centuries ago. In the 9th century, a daredevil named Ali Ben Isa created one of the earliest versions of a parachute, described as a huge winglike cloak to break his fall when he decided to fly off a tower. The visionary Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid style parachute in the 1400s. It was intended as an escape device to allow people to jump from burning buildings. The older style parachutes were little more than cloth and sticks, while modern varieties are often nylon and quite maneuverable, much like a glider. Folding a parachute requires a high degree of skill, and an improperly folded parachute will not deploy, which is never a good thing. Over time, parachutes need to be replaced as they do deteriorate. Failing to replace your chute in time is never a good thing. If you are considering making your own parachute to celebrate go take a flying leap day, be aware that designs have improved since André-Jacques pioneering days. Garnerin did invent the vented parachute as well, which improved the stability of his falls. Continual improvements have been made over the years, and this is a good thing. Exact numbers are difficult to estimate, but approximately 1 in 1000 main parachute openings malfunction. This means you could go take a flying leap every day for about three years, and not likely encounter a problem. Most skydivers feel those odds just aren’t good enough, and that’s why the “reserve chute” was invented. The average fatality rate is considered to be about one in 80,000 jumps, so be sure to quit while you’re ahead. You don’t want to end up like Garnerin either, who died while making a balloon in Paris. He was hit by a beam.