Deployed her parachute manually by pulling the short unattached line, inventing the ripcord

The Army, reluctant at first to adopt the parachute, watched in 1914 as Tiny Broadwick dropped from the sky. On her fourth demonstration jump, the static line became entangled in the tail assembly of the aircraft, so for her next jump she cut the static line short and did not attach it to the plane. Instead, she deployed her chute manually by pulling the shortened, unattached line while in free-fall in what may have been the first planned free-fall jump from an airplane. This demonstrated that pilots could safely escape aircraft by using what was later called a ripcord.

rip cord

Category:
Aviation - Safety

Completion Status:
yes

Patent Number:
N/A

Co-Inventor:
none