WWI, German Pilot Being Fitted with Parachute

WWI, German Pilot Being Fitted with Parachute

In 1918 the German air service introduced a parachute designed by Unteroffizier Otto Heinecke, an airship ground crewman, and thus became the world's first, and at the time only, air service to introduce a standard parachute. Despite Germany equipping their pilots with parachutes, their efficiency was relatively poor. As a result, many pilots died while using them. 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 the airframe of their spinning aircraft or because of harness failure. High as the failure rate was, carrying a Heinecke parachute certainly beat the alternative and the general effectiveness of the Heinecke parachute can be gauged by the fact that the French, British, American and Italian air services later based their first parachute designs on the Heinecke parachute to varying extents.

Album / Science Source / New York Public Library

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2700 x 4060 px | 31.4 MB

22.9 x 34.4 cm | 9.0 x 13.5 in (300 dpi)