Leonardo and the Parachute
The great Renaissance genius also invented the parachute
He was so far ahead of his time that he devised a parachute.
Leonardo's parachute is made of cloth coated to prevent air from passing through it, and has the shape of a rigid pyramid. He said that using this devise a man could jump with absolute safety from any height whatsoever. He was not so advanced as to realize that the air pressure would hold the parachute open itself, and employed a frame to do so. Once again Leonardo’s genius was centuries ahead of his time, but his conclusions although astonishing are just short of the later developments.
The parachute is a footnote to his flying experiments which were discontinued around 1490 when he seems to have realized that human muscle power was insufficient to produce a working flying machine. He returns briefly to flying in 1496 with considerations of the power of a leaf spring to enable machines to fly. Thus becoming the first man to propose powered heavier than air flight.
Although Leonardo never achieved even gliding flight so far as we are aware of, he had a better understanding of the science of flight than men would have again for almost 400 years. When one remembers that Leonardo was also a Master artist and anatomist, as well as a civil and military engineer, with inventions rivaling or anticipating the future in so many areas the scope and depth of this man’s work and genius becomes awe inspiring.
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