Misplaced Pages

#444555

83-541: The MW-1 was designed so that different types of submunitions may be loaded into its 112 tubes. The MIFF , MUSA and MUSPA mines are parachute dropped, and upon reaching the ground self-right and arm. The mines are blast-resistant and are reported to self-destruct within less than forty days from deployment. (Kleinbombe 44) : Bomblets for use against unarmored and light armored targets such as vehicles and airplanes, etc. (Startbahnbombe) : Bomb to destroy runways . The first shaped charge explodes on impact, creating

166-420: A "British Parachute" and the "Guardian Angel" parachute. As part of an investigation into Calthrop's design, on 13 January 1917, test pilot Clive Franklyn Collett successfully jumped from a Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2c flying over Orford Ness Experimental Station at 180 metres (590 ft). He repeated the experiment several days later. Following on from Collett, balloon officer Thomas Orde-Lees , known as

249-575: A boat with five sets of parallel cranks which are all joined to a single power source by one connecting rod ; the idea is also taken up by his compatriot Francesco di Giorgio . Rotary grindstone with treadle Evidence for rotary grindstones operated by a crank handle goes back to the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter . Around 1480, the crank mechanism is further mechanized by adding a treadle . Geared hand-mill The geared hand-mill, operated either with one or two cranks, appears in

332-717: A bridge nearby, or from St Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava . Various publications incorrectly claimed the event was documented some thirty years later by John Wilkins , one of the founders of, and secretary of, the Royal Society in London , in his book Mathematical Magick or, the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry , published in London in 1648. However, Wilkins wrote about flying, not parachutes, and does not mention Veranzio,

415-407: A channel under the surface. An additional charge creates an explosion under the concrete runway to make a crater with heaved sides (large jagged, uprooted edges), making it much more difficult to repair than a simple crater because the large jagged pieces have to be broken off, removed, and edges smoothed before a temporary or permanent repair can be effected. (Mine-Flach-Flach) : Anti-tank mine with

498-505: A considerably faster forward speed than, say, a modified military canopy. And due to controllable rear-facing vents in the canopy's sides, they also have much snappier turning capabilities, though they are decidedly low-performance compared to today's ram-air rigs. From about the mid-1960s to the late-1970s, this was the most popular parachute design type for sport parachuting (prior to this period, modified military 'rounds' were generally used and after, ram-air 'squares' became common). Note that

581-408: A controlled descent to collapse on impact with the ground. Round parachutes are purely a drag device (that is, unlike the ram-air types, they provide no lift ) and are used in military, emergency and cargo applications (e.g. airdrops ). Most have large dome-shaped canopies made from a single layer of triangular cloth gores . Some skydivers call them "jellyfish 'chutes" because of the resemblance to

664-400: A crossbar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps run from the ends of the rods to a waist belt. Around 1485, a more advanced parachute was sketched by the polymath Leonardo da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus (fol. 381v), which he scales in a more favorable proportion to the weight of the jumper. Leonardo's canopy was held open by a square wooden frame, altering

747-430: A device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or aerodynamic lift . A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who can exit from an aircraft at height and descend safely to earth. A parachute is usually made of a light, strong fabric. Early parachutes were made of silk . The most common fabric today is nylon . A parachute's canopy

830-425: A dog as the passenger, he later claimed to have had the opportunity to try it himself in 1793 when his hot air balloon ruptured, and he used a parachute to descend. (This event was not witnessed by others.) On 12 October 1799, Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin ascended in a gondola attached to a balloon. At 900 meters she detached the gondola from the balloon and descended in the gondola by parachute. In doing so, she became

913-487: A lower glide ratio . Renaissance technology Renaissance technology was the set of European artifacts and inventions which spread through the Renaissance period, roughly the 14th century through the 16th century. The era is marked by profound technical advancements such as the printing press , linear perspective in drawing , patent law , double shell domes and bastion fortresses . Sketchbooks from artisans of

SECTION 10

#1733086136445

996-516: A magnetic field sensor. The MIFF mine is an anti-tank mine . The mine has a seismic sensor, as well as a magnetic influence sensor that it uses to determine the optimum detonation point. It uses two back-to-back Misznay-Schardin effect shaped charges to penetrate the hulls of armoured vehicles, and 38 secondary bowl shapes that produce secondary fragments. The MUSA and MUSPA mines are identical in external appearance but have different fuses that allow them to perform different functions. When triggered,

1079-460: A man parachuting from a tower, presumably St Mark's Campanile in Venice , appeared in his book on mechanics, Machinae Novae ("New Machines", published in 1615 or 1616), alongside a number of other devices and technical concepts. It was once widely believed that in 1617, Veranzio, then aged 65 and seriously ill, implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from St Mark's Campanile, from

1162-655: A modern "agent of change" in the transformation of medieval society. The mechanical device consists of a screw press modified for printing purposes which can produce 3,600 pages per workday, allowing the mass production of printed books on a proto-industrial scale. By the start of the 16th century, printing presses are operating in over 200 cities in a dozen European countries, producing more than twenty million volumes. By 1600, their output had risen tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies, while Gutenberg book printing spread from Europe further afield . The relatively free flow of information transcends borders and induced

1245-463: A more sophisticated parachute was sketched by the polymath Leonardo da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus (fol. 381v) dated to c.  1485 . Here, the scale of the parachute is in a more favorable proportion to the weight of the jumper. A square wooden frame, which alters the shape of the parachute from conical to pyramidal, held open Leonardo's canopy. It is not known whether the Italian inventor

1328-564: A number which rises in the 17th-century Theatrum Machinarum Novum by Georg Andreas Böckler to forty-five. Printing press The introduction of the mechanical movable type printing press by the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (1398–1468) is widely regarded as the single most important event of the second millennium, and is one of the defining moments of the Renaissance. The Printing Revolution which it sparks throughout Europe works as

1411-477: A parachute jump, or any event in 1617. Doubts about this test, which include a lack of written evidence, suggest it never occurred, and was instead a misreading of historical notes. The modern parachute was invented in the late 18th century by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in France , who made the first recorded public jump in 1783. Lenormand also sketched his device beforehand. Two years later, in 1785, Lenormand coined

1494-455: A parachute stored or housed in a cone-shaped casing under the airplane and attached to a harness on the jumper's body. Štefan Banič patented an umbrella-like design in 1914, and sold (or donated) the patent to the United States military, which later modified his design, resulting in the first military parachute. Banič had been the first person to patent the parachute, and his design was

1577-541: A parachute with a quick release buckle, known as the "Mears parachute", which was in common use from then onwards. The experience with parachutes during the war highlighted the need to develop a design that could be reliably used to exit a disabled airplane. For instance, tethered parachutes did not work well when the aircraft was spinning. After the war, Major Edward L. Hoffman of the United States Army led an effort to develop an improved parachute by bringing together

1660-526: A parachute would be too large for a pilot not wearing one. This is why the German type was stowed in the fuselage, rather than being of the "backpack" type. Weight was – at the very beginning – also a consideration since planes had limited load capacity. Carrying a parachute impeded performance and reduced the useful offensive and fuel load. In the UK, Everard Calthrop , a railway engineer and breeder of Arab horses, invented and marketed through his Aerial Patents Company

1743-458: A revolutionary quick-release mechanism – the ripcord – that allowed a falling aviator to expand the canopy only when safely away from the disabled aircraft. Otto Heinecke, a German airship ground crewman, designed a parachute which the German air service introduced in 1918, becoming the world's first air service to introduce a standard parachute. Schroeder company of Berlin manufactured Heinecke's design. The first successful use of this parachute

SECTION 20

#1733086136445

1826-519: A ring-shaped canopy, often with a large hole in the centre to release the pressure. Sometimes the ring is broken into ribbons connected by ropes to leak air even more. These large leaks lower the stress on the parachute so it does not burst or shred when it opens. Ribbon parachutes made of Kevlar are used on nuclear bombs, such as the B61 and B83 . The principle of the Ram-Air Multicell Airfoil

1909-550: A rising demand for up-to-date information which can not be covered effectively by the circulating hand-written newssheets . For "gaining time" from the slow copying process, Johann Carolus of Strassburg is the first to publish his German-language Relation by using a printing press (1605). In rapid succession, further German newspapers are established in Wolfenbüttel ( Avisa Relation oder Zeitung ), Basel, Frankfurt and Berlin. From 1618 onwards, enterprising Dutch printers take up

1992-571: A sharp rise in Renaissance literacy, learning and education; the circulation of (revolutionary) ideas among the rising middle classes, but also the peasants, threatens the traditional power monopoly of the ruling nobility and is a key factor in the rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation . The dawn of the Gutenberg Galaxy , the era of mass communication, is instrumental in fostering the gradual democratization of knowledge which sees for

2075-580: A ship flanked by two large floating trestles, forming a roof above the vessel. The ship is pulled in an upright position by a number of ropes attached to the superstructure. Lifting tower A lifting tower was used to great effect by Domenico Fontana to relocate the monolithic Vatican obelisk in Rome. Its weight of 361 t was far greater than any of the blocks the Romans are known to have lifted by cranes. Mining, machinery and chemistry A standard reference for

2158-448: A slightly tapered shape to their leading and/or trailing edges when viewed in plan form, and are known as ellipticals. Sometimes all the taper is on the leading edge (front), and sometimes in the trailing edge (tail). Ellipticals are usually used only by sport parachutists. They often have smaller, more numerous fabric cells and are shallower in profile. Their canopies can be anywhere from slightly elliptical to highly elliptical, indicating

2241-401: A variety of technical devices, many of which appeared for the first time in history on paper. However, these designs were not always intended to be put into practice, and often practical limitations impeded the application of the revolutionary designs. For example, da Vinci's ideas on the conical parachute or the winged flying machine were only applied much later. While earlier scholars showed

2324-467: A waist belt. Although the surface area of the parachute design appears to be too small to offer effective air resistance and the wooden base-frame is superfluous and potentially harmful, the basic concept of a working parachute is apparent. The design is a marked improvement over another folio (189v), which depicts a man trying to break the force of his fall using two long cloth streamers fastened to two bars, which he grips with his hands. Shortly after,

2407-463: Is designed to have an average rate of descent 14% slower than the T-10D, thus resulting in lower landing injury rates for jumpers. The decline in the rate of descent will reduce the impact energy by almost 25% to lessen the potential for injury. A variation on the round parachute is the pull-down apex parachute, invented by a Frenchman named Pierre-Marcel Lemoigne. The first widely used canopy of this type

2490-723: Is found in a miniature of c. 1425 in the German Hausbuch of the Mendel Foundation . Paddle wheel boat powered by crank and connecting rod mechanism While paddle wheel boats powered by manually turned crankshafts were already conceived of by earlier writers such as Guido da Vigevano and the Anonymous Author of the Hussite Wars , the Italian Roberto Valturio much improves on the design in 1463 by devising

2573-554: Is typically dome-shaped, but some are rectangles, inverted domes, and other shapes. A variety of loads are attached to parachutes, including people, food, equipment, space capsules , and bombs . In 852, in Córdoba, Spain , the Moorish man Armen Firman attempted unsuccessfully to fly by jumping from a tower while wearing a large cloak. It was recorded that "there was enough air in the folds of his cloak to prevent great injury when he reached

MW-1 - Misplaced Pages Continue

2656-512: The Portsmouth navy base . Floating dock The earliest known description of a floating dock comes from a small Italian book printed in Venice in 1560, titled Descrittione dell'artifitiosa machina . In the booklet, an unknown author asks for the privilege of using a new method for the salvaging of a grounded ship and then proceeds to describe and illustrate his approach. The included woodcut shows

2739-692: The Rogallo wing , among other shapes and forms. These were usually an attempt to increase the forward speed and reduce the landing speed offered by the other options at the time. The ram-air parachute's development and the subsequent introduction of the sail slider to slow deployment reduced the level of experimentation in the sport parachuting community. The parachutes are also hard to build. Ribbon and ring parachutes have similarities to annular designs. They are frequently designed to deploy at supersonic speeds. A conventional parachute would instantly burst upon opening and be shredded at such speeds. Ribbon parachutes have

2822-556: The musket . The technologies that developed in Europe during the second half of the 15th century were commonly associated by authorities of the time with a key theme in Renaissance thought: the rivalry of the Moderns and the Ancients. Three inventions in particular — the printing press , firearms , and the nautical compass — were indeed seen as evidence that the Moderns could not only compete with

2905-578: The "Mad Major", successfully jumped from Tower Bridge in London, which led to the balloonists of the Royal Flying Corps using parachutes, though they were issued for use in aircraft. In 1911, Solomon Lee Van Meter, Jr. of Lexington, Kentucky, submitted an application for, and in July 1916 received, a patent for a backpack style parachute – the Aviatory Life Buoy. His self-contained device featured

2988-519: The 15th century. Grenade musket Two 16th-century German grenade muskets working with a wheellock mechanism are on display in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum , Munich. The revived scientific spirit of the age can perhaps be best exemplified by the voluminous corpus of technical drawings which the artist-engineers left behind, reflecting the wide variety of interests the Renaissance homo universalis pursued. The establishment of

3071-433: The Ancients, but had surpassed them, for these three inventions allowed modern people to communicate, exercise power, and finally travel at distances unimaginable in earlier times. Crank and connecting rod The crank and connecting rod mechanism which converts circular into reciprocal motion is of utmost importance for the mechanization of work processes; it is first attested for Roman water-powered sawmills . During

3154-458: The Germans, where the bag was stored in a compartment directly behind the pilot. In many instances where it did not work the shroud lines became entangled with the spinning aircraft. Although this type of parachute saved a number of famous German fighter pilots, including Hermann Göring , no parachutes were issued to the crews of Allied " heavier-than-air " aircraft. It has been claimed that the reason

3237-605: The Renaissance, its use is greatly diversified and mechanically refined; now connecting-rods are also applied to double compound cranks, while the flywheel is employed to get these cranks over the 'dead-spot'. Early evidence of such machines appears, among other things, in the works of the 15th-century engineers Anonymous of the Hussite Wars and Taccola . From then on, cranks and connecting rods become an integral part of machine design and are applied in ever more elaborate ways: Agostino Ramelli 's The Diverse and Artifactitious Machines of 1588 depicts eighteen different applications,

3320-474: The United States Army T-10 static-line parachute. A round parachute with no holes in it is more prone to oscillate and is not considered to be steerable. Some parachutes have inverted dome-shaped canopies. These are primarily used for dropping non-human payloads due to their faster rate of descent. Forward speed (5–13  km/h) and steering can be achieved by cuts in various sections (gores) across

3403-470: The United States Army as it replaces its older T-10 parachutes with T-11 parachutes under a program called Advanced Tactical Parachute System (ATPS). The ATPS canopy is a highly modified version of a cross/ cruciform platform and is square in appearance. The ATPS system will reduce the rate of descent by 30 percent from 21 feet per second (6.4 m/s) to 15.75 feet per second (4.80 m/s). The T-11

MW-1 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3486-510: The airframe of their spinning aircraft or because of harness failure, a problem fixed in later versions. The French, British, American and Italian air services later based their first parachute designs on the Heinecke parachute to varying extents. In the UK, Sir Frank Mears , who was serving as a Major in the Royal Flying Corps in France (Kite Balloon section), registered a patent in July 1918 for

3569-566: The amount of taper in the canopy design, which is often an indicator of the responsiveness of the canopy to control input for a given wing loading, and of the level of experience required to pilot the canopy safely. The rectangular parachute designs tend to look like square, inflatable air mattresses with open front ends. They are generally safer to operate because they are less prone to dive rapidly with relatively small control inputs, they are usually flown with lower wing loadings per square foot of area, and they glide more slowly. They typically have

3652-453: The apex closer to the load, distorting the round shape into a somewhat flattened or lenticular shape when viewed from the side. And while called rounds , they generally have an elliptical shape when viewed from above or below, with the sides bulging out more than the for'd-and-aft dimension, the chord (see the lower photo to the right and you likely can ascertain the difference). Due to their lenticular shape and appropriate venting, they have

3735-667: The awarding of the Robert J. Collier Trophy to Major Edward L. Hoffman in 1926. Irvin became the first person to make a premeditated free-fall parachute jump from an airplane. An early brochure of the Irvin Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor as having become, on 24 August 1920, at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio , the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute. Test pilot Lt. Harold R. Harris made another life-saving jump at McCook Field on 20 October 1922. Shortly after Harris' jump, two Dayton newspaper reporters suggested

3818-405: The back, or by cutting four lines in the back, thereby modifying the canopy shape to allow air to escape from the back of the canopy, providing limited forward speed. Other modifications sometimes used are cuts in various gores to cause some of the skirt to bow out. Turning is accomplished by forming the edges of the modifications, giving the parachute more speed from one side of the modification than

3901-483: The best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants in the effort included Leslie Irvin and James Floyd Smith . The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A. This incorporated three key elements: In 1919, Irvin successfully tested the parachute by jumping from an airplane. The Type-A parachute was put into production and over time saved a number of lives. The effort was recognized by

3984-558: The braking effects of a parachute by accelerating a Russo-Balt automobile to its top speed and then opening a parachute attached to the back seat, thus also inventing the drogue parachute . On 1 March 1912, U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry made the first (attached-type) parachute jump in the United States from a fixed-wing aircraft , a Benoist pusher, while flying above Jefferson Barracks , St. Louis, Missouri . The jump utilized

4067-431: The canopy an annular geometry. This hole can be very pronounced in some designs, taking up more 'space' than the parachute. They also have decreased horizontal drag due to their flatter shape and, when combined with rear-facing vents, can have considerable forward speed. Truly annular designs - with a hole large enough that the canopy can be classified as ring-shaped - are uncommon. Sport parachuting has experimented with

4150-487: The creation of the Caterpillar Club for successful parachute jumps from disabled aircraft. Beginning with Italy in 1927, several countries experimented with using parachutes to drop soldiers behind enemy lines . The regular Soviet Airborne Troops were established as early as 1931 after a number of experimental military mass jumps starting from 2 August 1930. Earlier the same year, the first Soviet mass jumps led to

4233-551: The development of the parachuting sport in the Soviet Union . By the time of World War II , large airborne forces were trained and used in surprise attacks, as in the battles for Fort Eben-Emael and The Hague , the first large-scale, opposed landings of paratroopers in military history, by the Germans. This was followed later in the war by airborne assaults on a larger scale, such as the Battle of Crete and Operation Market Garden ,

SECTION 50

#1733086136445

4316-467: The first descent of a "frameless" parachute covered in silk. In 1804, Jérôme Lalande introduced a vent in the canopy to eliminate violent oscillations. In 1887, Park Van Tassel and Thomas Scott Baldwin invented a parachute in San Francisco, California, with Baldwin making the first successful parachute jump in the western United States. In 1907 Charles Broadwick demonstrated two key advances in

4399-552: The first jump using a nylon parachute in June 1942, the industry switched to nylon. Today's modern parachutes are classified into two categories – ascending and descending canopies. All ascending canopies refer to paragliders , built specifically to ascend and stay aloft as long as possible. Other parachutes, including ram-air non-elliptical, are classified as descending canopies by manufacturers. Some modern parachutes are classified as semi-rigid wings, which are maneuverable and can make

4482-421: The first time modern media phenomena such as the press or bestsellers emerging. The prized incunables , which are testimony to the aesthetic taste and high proficient competence of Renaissance book printers, are one lasting legacy of the 15th century. Parachute The earliest known parachute design appears in an anonymous manuscript from 1470s Renaissance Italy ; it depicts a free-hanging man clutching

4565-666: The first to properly function in the 20th century. On June 21, 1913, Georgia Broadwick became the first woman to parachute-jump from a moving aircraft, doing so over Los Angeles, California . In 1914, while doing demonstrations for the U.S. Army , Broadwick deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump free-fall . The first military use of the parachute was by artillery observers on tethered observation balloons in World War I . These were tempting targets for enemy fighter aircraft , though difficult to destroy, due to their heavy anti-aircraft defenses. Because it

4648-444: The first woman to parachute. She went on to complete many ascents and parachute descents in towns across France and Europe. Subsequent development of the parachute focused on it becoming more compact. While the early parachutes were made of linen stretched over a wooden frame, in the late 1790s, Blanchard began making parachutes from folded silk , taking advantage of silk's strength and light weight . In 1797, André Garnerin made

4731-409: The ground." The earliest evidence for the true parachute dates back to the Renaissance period. The oldest parachute design appears in a manuscript from the 1470s attributed to Francesco di Giorgio Martini (British Library, Add MS 34113, fol. 200v), showing a free-hanging man clutching a crossbar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps ran from the ends of the rods to

4814-603: The latter being the largest airborne military operation ever. Aircraft crew were routinely equipped with parachutes for emergencies as well. In 1937, drag chutes were used in aviation for the first time, by Soviet airplanes in the Arctic that were providing support for the polar expeditions of the era, such as the first drifting ice station , North Pole-1 . The drag chute allowed airplanes to land safely on smaller ice floes . Most parachutes were made of silk until World War II cut off supplies from Japan. After Adeline Gray made

4897-441: The laws of linear perspective by Brunelleschi gave his successors, such as Taccola , Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Leonardo da Vinci , a powerful instrument to depict mechanical devices for the first time in a realistic manner. The extant sketch books give modern historians of science invaluable insights into the standards of technology of the time. Renaissance engineers showed a strong proclivity to experimental study, drawing

4980-692: The leading edge of the airfoil. The fabric is shaped and the parachute lines trimmed under load such that the ballooning fabric inflates into an airfoil shape. This airfoil is sometimes maintained by use of fabric one-way valves called airlocks . "The first jump of this canopy (a Jalbert Parafoil) was made by International Skydiving Hall of Fame member Paul 'Pop' Poppenhager." Personal ram-air parachutes are loosely divided into two varieties – rectangular or tapered – commonly called "squares" or "ellipticals", respectively. Medium-performance canopies (reserve-, BASE -, canopy formation-, and accuracy-type) are usually rectangular. High-performance, ram-air parachutes have

5063-495: The main parachute. When the balloon crew jumped the main part of the parachute was pulled from the bag by the crew's waist harness, first the shroud lines, followed by the main canopy. This type of parachute was first adopted on a large scale for their observation balloon crews by the Germans, and then later by the British and French. While this type of unit worked well from balloons, it had mixed results when used on fixed-wing aircraft by

SECTION 60

#1733086136445

5146-411: The marine organisms. Modern sports parachutists rarely use this type. The first round parachutes were simple, flat circulars. These early parachutes suffered from instability caused by oscillations. A hole in the apex helped to vent some air and reduce the oscillations. Many military applications adopted conical, i.e., cone-shaped, or parabolic (a flat circular canopy with an extended skirt) shapes, such as

5229-400: The mine scatters 2,100 steel pellets to an effective radius of 100 meters. The MUSA mine has a simple delay fuse which triggers the mine after a pre-set interval to prevent clearance operations. The MUSPA mine, officially classified as an anti-aircraft mine, has an acoustic sensor which triggers the mine when the right acoustic signature is detected. Parachute A parachute is

5312-411: The origin of "the parachute as we know it." The Croatian polymath and inventor Fausto Veranzio , or Faust Vrančić (1551–1617), examined da Vinci's parachute sketch and kept the square frame but replaced the canopy with a bulging sail-like piece of cloth that he came to realize decelerates a fall more effectively. A now-famous depiction of a parachute that he dubbed Homo Volans (Flying Man), showing

5395-471: The other. This gives the jumpers the ability to steer the parachute (such as the United States Army MC series parachutes), enabling them to avoid obstacles and to turn into the wind to minimize horizontal speed at landing . The unique design characteristics of cruciform parachutes decrease oscillation (its user swinging back and forth) and violent turns during descent. This technology will be used by

5478-528: The parachute he used to jump from hot air balloons at fairs : he folded his parachute into a backpack , and the parachute was pulled from the pack by a static line attached to the balloon. When Broadwick jumped from the balloon, the static line became taut, pulled the parachute from the pack, and then snapped. In 1911 a successful test took place with a dummy at the Eiffel Tower in Paris . The puppet's weight

5561-480: The period ( Taccola and Leonardo da Vinci , for example) give a deep insight into the mechanical technology then known and applied. Renaissance science spawned the Scientific Revolution ; science and technology began a cycle of mutual advancement. Some important Renaissance technologies, including both innovations and improvements on existing techniques: Some of the technologies were the arquebus and

5644-450: The pipe by treading. Cranked reel In the textile industry, cranked reels for winding skeins of yarn were introduced in the early 15th century. Brace The earliest carpenter's braces equipped with a U-shaped grip, that is with a compound crank , appears between 1420 and 1430 in Flanders . Cranked well-hoist The earliest evidence for the fitting of a well-hoist with cranks

5727-723: The practice and begin to provide the English and French market with translated news. By the mid-17th century it is estimated that political newspapers which enjoyed the widest popularity reach up to 250,000 readers in the Holy Roman Empire, around one quarter of the literate population. Air-gun In 1607 Bartolomeo Crescentio described an air gun equipped with a powerful spiral spring, a device so complex that it must have had predecessors. In 1610 Mersenne spoke in detail of "sclopeti pneumatici constructio", and four years later Wilkins wrote enthusiastically of "that late ingenious invention

5810-434: The shape of the parachute from conical to pyramidal. The Venetian inventor Fausto Veranzio (1551–1617) modifies da Vinci's parachute sketch by keeping the square frame, but replacing the canopy with a bulging sail-like piece of cloth. This he realized decelerates the fall more effectively. Claims that Veranzio successfully tested his parachute design in 1617 by jumping from a tower in Venice cannot be substantiated; since he

5893-402: The state of mechanical arts during the Renaissance is given in the mining engineering treatise De re metallica (1556), which also contains sections on geology, mining and chemistry. De re metallica was the standard chemistry reference for the next 180 years. Newspaper The newspaper is an application of the printing press from which the press derives its name. The 16th century sees

5976-436: The use of the word elliptical for these 'round' parachutes is somewhat dated and may cause slight confusion, since some 'squares' (i.e. ram-airs) are elliptical nowadays, too. Some designs with a pull-down apex have the fabric removed from the apex to open a hole through which air can exit (most, if not all, round canopies have at least a small hole to allow easier tie-down for packing - these aren't considered annular), giving

6059-539: The wind-gun" as being "almost equall to our powder-guns". In the 1650s Otto von Guericke, famed for his experiments with vacua and pressures, built the Madeburger Windbuchse , one of the technical wonders of its time. Cranked Archimedes' screw The German engineer Konrad Kyeser equips in his Bellifortis (1405) the Archimedes' screw with a crank mechanism which soon replaces the ancient practice of working

6142-497: The word "parachute" by hybridizing an Italian prefix para , an imperative form of parare = to avert, defend, resist, guard, shield or shroud, from paro = to parry, and chute , the French word for fall , to describe the aeronautical device's real function. Also in 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a means of safely disembarking from a hot-air balloon . While Blanchard's first parachute demonstrations were conducted with

6225-463: Was 75 kg (165 lb); the parachute's weight was 21 kg (46 lb). The cables between the puppet and the parachute were 9 m (30 ft) long. On February 4, 1912, Franz Reichelt jumped to his death from the tower during initial testing of his wearable parachute. Also in 1911, Grant Morton made the first parachute jump from an airplane , a Wright Model B piloted by Phil Parmalee , at Venice Beach , California . Morton's device

6308-588: Was around 65 years old at the time. Mariner's astrolabe The earliest recorded uses of the astrolabe for navigational purposes are by the Portuguese explorers Diogo de Azambuja (1481), Bartholomew Diaz (1487/88) and Vasco da Gama (1497–98) during their sea voyages around Africa . Dry dock While dry docks were already known in Hellenistic shipbuilding, these facilities were reintroduced in 1495/96, when Henry VII of England ordered one to be built at

6391-421: Was by Leutnant Helmut Steinbrecher of Jagdstaffel 46 , who bailed on 27 June 1918 from his stricken fighter airplane to become the first pilot in history to successfully do so. Although many pilots were saved by the Heinecke design, their efficacy was relatively poor. Out of the first 70 German airmen to bail out, around a third died, These fatalities were mostly due to the chute or ripcord becoming entangled in

6474-519: Was called the Para-Commander (made by the Pioneer Parachute Co.), although there are many other canopies with a pull-down apex produced in the years thereafter - these had minor differences in attempts to make a higher performance rig, such as different venting configurations. They are all considered 'round' parachutes, but with suspension lines to the canopy apex that apply load there and pull

6557-432: Was conceived in 1963 by Canadian Domina "Dom" C. Jalbert, but serious problems had to be solved before a ram-air canopy could be marketed to the sport parachuting community. Ram-air parafoils are steerable (as are most canopies used for sport parachuting), and have two layers of fabric—top and bottom—connected by airfoil-shaped fabric ribs to form "cells". The cells fill with higher-pressure air from vents that face forward on

6640-414: Was difficult to escape from them, and dangerous when on fire due to their hydrogen inflation, observers would abandon them and descend by parachute as soon as enemy aircraft were seen. The ground crew would then attempt to retrieve and deflate the balloon as quickly as possible. The main part of the parachute was in a bag suspended from the balloon with the pilot wearing only a simple waist harness attached to

6723-595: Was influenced by the earlier design, but he may have learned about the idea through the intensive oral communication among artist-engineers of the time . The feasibility of Leonardo's pyramidal design was successfully tested in 2000 by Briton Adrian Nicholas and again in 2008 by the Swiss skydiver Olivier Vietti-Teppa. According to historian of technology Lynn White , these conical and pyramidal designs, much more elaborate than early artistic jumps with rigid parasols in Asia, mark

6806-499: Was of the "throw-out" type where he held the parachute in his arms as he left the aircraft. In the same year (1911), Russian Gleb Kotelnikov invented the first knapsack parachute, although Hermann Lattemann and his wife Käthe Paulus had been jumping with bagged parachutes in the last decade of the 19th century. In 1912, on a road near Tsarskoye Selo , years before it became part of St. Petersburg , Kotelnikov successfully demonstrated

6889-461: Was to avoid pilots jumping from the plane when hit rather than trying to save the aircraft, but Air Vice Marshall Arthur Gould Lee , himself a pilot during the war, examined the British War Office files after the war and found no evidence of such claim. Airplane cockpits at that time also were not large enough to accommodate a pilot and a parachute, since a seat that would fit a pilot wearing

#444555