Parachute

Parachute (pronounced par-uh-shoot)

(1) A folding, umbrella-like, fabric device with cords supporting a harness or straps for allowing a person, object, package, etc, safely to float down to safely through the air from a great height, especially from an aircraft, the design rendered effective by the resistance of the air that expands it during the descent and reduces the velocity of the fall.

(2) In certain type of competition cars (drag racing, land-speed vehicles et al) and military (mostly carrier-based) aircraft, a type of air brake deployed horizontally from the rear of the vehicle.  Known as the drogue chute.

(3) In horology, a shock-proofing device for the balance staff of a watch, consisting of a yielding, spring-like support for the bearing at either end.

(4) In industrial relations, a casual term for the aggregate of benefits, given a terminated employee.  Usually called the golden parachute if an especially large sum granted, essentially ex-gratia, to senior but now unwanted staff.

(5) To drop or land or on water (troops, equipment, supplies etc) by parachute.

(6) In democratic politics, a slang term for the practice of bringing in a candidate from outside the electorate, often one imposed by central executives against local wishes.

(7) In franchised sport, a payment made when a team is relegated to a lower division; called the parachute payment.

1785: From the French parachute (that which protects against a fall), the construct being para + chute.  The French imported para (protection against), via the Italian para & parare, from the Latin parō, derived from the primitive Indo-European per (produce, procure, bring onward, bring forth).  It was cognate with pariō (to produce) and properus (ready; to shield), a form which endures in the modern parasol.  Chute (fall) was a refashioning of the Old French cheüe & chue (from the Vulgar Latin caduta) based on cheoite, corresponding to the analogous Vulgar Latin form cadecta, feminine past participle of cheoir, the older form of choir.  The military verbal shorthand, generally adopted, is chute, first used in 1919.  The verb parachute (to descend or convey by or as if by the aid of a parachute) dates from 1807 and was directly from the noun.  In an example of technological determinism affecting language, dictionaries as late as 1906 tagged parachute as "rare".  The related forms are parachuted & parachuting; the noun plural is parachutes.  

Perhaps invented in China

Lindsay Lohan in a Camilla and Marc dress, Aquazzara boots and Balenciaga sunglasses carrying a Bottega Veneta Large Intrecciato Parachute Bag (US$5,900), Bravo Clubhouse, New York City, November 2024.

Sketches (dating from circa 2200 BC) discovered in western China indicate even then people were aware air resistance could be used to slow a man’s fall from a height although there’s nothing to prove the idea was ever put to the test.  The oldest known design for a recognizably modern parachute appears in a manuscript from Renaissance Italy, dated from the 1470s although it was Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) a couple of decades later who produced a technically better design, one which suggests he well understood the relationship between a parachute’s surface area and the weight of whatever was attached.  Leonardo's drawings proved influential among European inventors, the earlier fixed, flat surfaces being replaced by sail-like pieces of cloth which, bulging as they filled with air, increased surface area still further, thereby generating greater friction and resistance.  Although several plans survive from the seventeenth century showing men parachuting from towers, there’s no evidence this was a depiction of an actual experiment and is thought most likely to be an inventor’s speculative illustration.

Lindsay Lohan skydiving (tandem jump) in Dubai, 2018.  She landed safely. 

The first documented test happened in 1783 when French physicist Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757-1837) jumped from the top of the Montpellier observatory.  Surviving this, two years later, Lenormand coined the word parachute, an Italian-French hybrid which translates as "to protect from falling”.  That same year, to demonstrate its utility as a safety device for the new sport of hot-air ballooning, French engineer Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) floated safely to the ground and by the 1790s he was manufacturing parachutes from silk (and some sources claim it was Blanchard who coined the word parachute).  Although not a few pioneering parachutists died as the hobby spread, progress continued and by 1911, the first jump was made from an aircraft; from that time, it was the military which devoted most attention to development, using them, successfully and not, with balloons, airships and aircraft.  By the start World War Two, parachutes were standard issue to aircrew and a novel way of quickly deploying infantry behind enemy lines.  The German army famously used paratroopers in several daring and successful operations although later heavy losses forced the Wehrmacht to abandon the tactic.  Others persevered and paratrooper battalions, brigades and divisions exist today in many military establishments.

A NASA Boeing B-52 Stratofortress research aircraft deploys an experimental drag chute upon landing at Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The test flights, conducted during 1990, were part of the development project for the Space Shuttle’s drag chute.  The B-52 often uses a drag chute when landing, especially in wet weather or if cross-winds are severe.  Parachutes are used to slow the delay of some spacecraft in their final re-entry phase and horizontal (drogue) chutes are deployed to assist the deceleration of some competition cars and aircraft landing on carriers.  The absolute record height for a parachute descent is held by Alan Eustace (b 1957) who on 24 October 2014 jumped from the stratosphere at an altitude of 135,889.108 feet (41,419 m).

AC Shelby Cobra 289 CSX2357 with parachute deployed at the end of test ¼ mile (400 m) run.  In drag racing circles, this is called “dumping the laundry”.

Although the Cobra gained fame for its performance on the road and the circuits, its light weight had obvious potential for drag racing, an event which would be over before speeds were reached where its dubious aerodynamic properties would be much of a limitation.  The factory built six 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Cobras optimized for straight-line, ¼ mile performance and named them the “Dragonsnake”, two of which were run by Shelby American, the others sold to private teams (CSX2357 was the second Dragonsnake made).  Also offered was a “drag package”, a kit with which customers could modify they own Cobras to the functional level of a factory Dragonsnake although one buyer must have thought the configuration too tame so the factory built the one-off CSX2472, a “Stage II Dragonsnake” with the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8.  Ironically, it was never used in drag racing and alternated between being run as a road car (!) and the occasional appearance on the track.

The mean girls, left to right: Penny Wong (b 1968; cabinet minister in the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd governments 2007-2013, ALP senator for South Australia since 2002), Katy Gallagher (b 1970; Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 2011-2014, senator for the ACT 2015-2018 & since 2019) & Kristina Keneally (b 1968; Premier of New South Wales 2009-2011, senator for New South Wales since February 2018).

Kristina Keneally's campaign material in Fowler, 2022; it seemed like a good idea at the time.

In the 2022 Australian general election, two high-profile candidates, were parachuted into two Sydney electorates by the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) head office over the objections of local members.  One succeeded and one failed, Kristina Keneally losing the previously safe seat of Fowler while Andrew Charlton (b 1978) actually improved the ALP’s margin in Parramatta.  Both were seen as improbable ALP candidates with lives far removed from the constituents to who they’d be appealing for voted but Charlton benefited from the head office analysis which concluded the result in Parramatta would be tight and thus resources were allocated and promises made.  The same analysis was applied to Fowler which revealed the ALP would retain the seat regardless of the background so little effort was expended and less money spent.  Applying historic data, the ALP’s analysis was correct but the 2022 election revealed an increasing willingness nationally to move away from the two main parties, illustrated the fact that the ALP could 2022 form a majority government with a primary vote of 32.58% (the ALP’s lowest since 1934); in 1980 they lost an election with a primary of 45.15%.  Keneally is something of a loss to the parliament because she was one of the three “mean girls” in the Senate, associated with the bullying of women who got ideas above their station.