New da Vinci parachute drop
p2pnet news | Cool Stuff:- It’s again been demonstrated that a parachute designed by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1485 works.
Tested by Olivier Vietti-Teppa in Switzerland, it, “consists of four equilateral triangles sewn into a pyramid with a square net across the bottom works ,” says Shortnews.
But it’s straight down or nothing because it, “cannot be steered at all,” says the story.
Vietti-Teppa was not, however, the first person to risk a jump using a da Vinci parachute.
Eight years earlier, Adrian Nicholas, a 38-year-old skydiver from London, England, used a far more interesting, and possibly far more authentic, set-up to fulfil his life’s ambition to prove the aerodynamics experts wrong when he used a parachute based on Da Vinci’s design, said DropZone at the time.
“Ignoring warnings that it would never work, he built the 187lb contraption of wooden poles, canvas and ropes from a simple sketch that Da Vinci had scribbled in a notebook in 1485.”
Dropping from a balloon over the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, Nicholas proved in a 7,000ft descent that the design could indeed be looked upon as a prototype for the modern parachute.
Sadly, he died in a skydiving accident in Holland at the age of 43, says the Telegraph.
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.Stumble It!
Shortnews – Leonardo Da Vinci’s Parachute Tested, April 28, 2008
DropZone – Adrian Nicholas Proves Da Vinci Chute Works, July 9, 2000
Telegraph – Adrian Nicholas, September 9, 2005
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