Leslie Irvin (parachutist)
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Leslie Leroy Irvin (September 10, 1895 – October 9, 1966) was a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry. Flying in balloons, he performed using trapeze acrobatics and
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
descents. For the 1914 film ''Sky High,'' Irvin made his first jump out of an airplane while flying at 1,000 feet above the ground. In 1918, he developed his own life-saving
static line A static line is a fixed cord attached to a large, stable object. It is used to open parachutes automatically for paratroopers and novice parachutists. Design and use A static line is a cord attached at one end to the aircraft and at the oth ...
parachute, jumping with it several times and promoting it to the US Army. Irvin joined the
Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial warf ...
's parachute research team at
McCook Field McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named fo ...
near
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
where he made the first premeditated free-fall jump with the modern
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
on April 28, 1919.


Biography

Leslie Leroy Irvin was born on September 10, 1895, in Los Angeles, California. A protégé of
Charles Broadwick Charles Broadwick (born John Murray) was an American pioneering parachutist and inventor. Speaking about Broadwick, an executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association, Ed Scott, said "just about all modern parachute systems" use ideas Broadw ...
, the adventurous and athletic Irvin made his first parachute jump at age 16. In 1914, he first jumped from an airplane at 1,000 feet above the ground in a stunt for the movie ''Sky High.'' Irvin, while working for the
Curtiss Aeroplane Company Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decades ...
in Buffalo, developed a 32-foot diameter free-fall parachute, tested it with dummies dropped from Curtis airplanes and applied for a US patent. While in Buffalo, his designs moved from cotton to light weight silk with the help of silk merchant and business partner George Waite. Irvin joined the
Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial warf ...
's parachute research team at
McCook Field McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named fo ...
near
Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
which developed the first modern
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
. After the WWI Armistice, Major E. L. Hoffman of the Army Air Service led an effort to develop an improved parachute for exiting airplanes by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants included Irvin and
James Floyd Smith James Floyd Smith (17 October 1884 – 18 April 1956) was an inventor, aviation pioneer, and parachute manufacturer. With borrowed money, he built, then taught himself to fly his own airplane. He worked as a flight instructor and test pi ...
. The team tested 17 parachute configurations using test dummies. The results favored Smith's parachute design which his company, the Floyd Smith Aerial Equipment Company of San Diego, California, filed a patent for on July 27, 1918. Smith's design was further improved and eventually created the airplane parachute Type-A. The Type A parachute incorporated three key elements: * storing the parachute in a soft pack worn on the
back The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column run ...
, as demonstrated by
Charles Broadwick Charles Broadwick (born John Murray) was an American pioneering parachutist and inventor. Speaking about Broadwick, an executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association, Ed Scott, said "just about all modern parachute systems" use ideas Broadw ...
in 1906; * a ripcord for manually deploying the parachute at a safe distance from the airplane, from a design by Albert Leo Stevens; and * a
pilot chute A pilot chute is a small auxiliary parachute used to deploy the main or reserve parachute. The pilot chute is connected by a bridle to the deployment bag containing the parachute. Pilot chutes are a critical component of all modern skydiving and B ...
that draws the main canopy from the pack. On April 28, 1919, using the "Type A" 28 foot backpack parachute, volunteer Leslie Irvin, flying in a Smith piloted
de Havilland DH9 The Airco DH.9 (from de Havilland 9) – also known after 1920 as the de Havilland DH.9 – was a British single-engined biplane bomber developed and deployed during the First World War. The DH.9 was a development of Airco's earlier successfu ...
biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
at 100 mph and 1500 feet above the ground, jumped (with a backup chute strapped to his chest) and manually pulled the ripcord fully deploying his chute at 1000 feet. Irvin became the first American to jump from an airplane and manually open a parachute in midair. The new chute performed flawlessly, though Irvin broke his ankle on landing. Floyd Smith filed the Type A patent No. 1,462,456 on the same day. The Parachute Board determined the backpack chute was crowding the cockpit, a redesign moved the parachute down the pilots back becoming the "seat style" chute. The McCook Field team tested the Type A parachute with over 1000 jumps. These successful tests resulted in the Army requiring parachute use on all Air Service flights. Less than two months after Irvin's first freefall jump, the Irving Air Chute Company was formed in
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...
, the world's first parachute designer and manufacturer. Legend has it that 'Irvin' was inadvertently changed to 'Irving' by a secretary who mistakenly tacked a 'g' on the end of the name, and the company never bothered to correct the mistake until 1970. Major Hoffman wrote the US Army specifications for the Type A parachute and the Army Air Service placed an order for 300 parachutes from the lowest bidder: Irvin's Irving Air Chute Company. After Irvin lost a patent dispute with zero compensation to Floyd Smith, the US Government compensated Smith with $3500 to transfer his patent to Irvin's company. The original 1919 ripcord parachute is on display at the Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio. An early brochure of the Irving Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor August 24, 1920, at McCook Field as the first person to be saved by an Irving parachute, yet this was unrecognized. On October 20, 1922, Lieutenant Harold R. Harris, chief of the McCook Field Flying Station, jumped from a disabled
Loening Loening Aeronautical Engineering Corporation was founded 1917 by Grover Loening and Henry M. Crane produced early aircraft and amphibious aircraft beginning in 1917. When it merged with Keystone Aircraft Corporation in 1928, some of its enginee ...
PW-2A high wing monoplane fighter. Harris' lifesaving chute was mounted on the wall of McCook's parachute lab where the ''
Dayton Herald The ''Dayton Daily News'' (''DDN'') is a daily newspaper published in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It is owned by Cox Enterprises, Inc., a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately ...
's'' aviation editor Maurice Hutton and photographer Verne Timmerman, predicting more jumps in future, suggested that a club should be formed. Two years later, Irvin's company instituted the
Caterpillar Club The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lape ...
, awarding a gold pin to pilots who successfully bailed out of disabled aircraft using an Irving parachute. In 1922 Leslie Irvin agreed to give a gold pin to every person whose life was saved by one of his parachutes. At the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the number of members with the Irvin pins had grown to over 34,000 though the total of people saved by Irvin parachutes is estimated to be 100,000. The successor to the original Irvin company still provides pins to people who have made a jump. In addition to the Irvin Air Chute Company, other parachute manufacturers have also issued caterpillar pins for successful jumps. GC Parachutes formed their Gold Club in 1940. The Switlik Parachute Company of Trenton, New Jersey issued both gold and silver caterpillar pins. Irving Air Chute had become the largest parachute manufacturer in the world. By 1939, 45 foreign countries were using Irving parachutes, including Germany, which had confiscated an Irving plant and bought its patents in 1936. As aircraft flew at ever increasing altitudes, pilots and aircrew were subject to ever lower temperatures, and Irvin designed and manufactured the classic sheepskin
flying jacket A flight jacket is a casual jacket that was originally created for pilots and eventually became part of popular culture and apparel. It has evolved into various styles and silhouettes, including the "letterman" jacket and the fashionable "bomber ...
to meet aviators' special requirements. Later the company also made car seat belts, slings for cargo handling, and even canning machinery. In 1970, the company finally removed the misnomic 'g' from its name, becoming Irvin Air Chute, and in 1996, changed its name again to Irvin Aerospace Inc. In addition to parachutes, the company (now Airborne Systems) specializes in a diverse range of products for global aerospace and military markets. Leslie Irvin died in Los Angeles on October 9, 1966.


See also

* Albert Leo Stevens * Hilder Florentina Youngberg *
Charles Broadwick Charles Broadwick (born John Murray) was an American pioneering parachutist and inventor. Speaking about Broadwick, an executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association, Ed Scott, said "just about all modern parachute systems" use ideas Broadw ...
*
Hilder Florentina Smith Hilder Florentina Youngberg Smith (August 10, 1890 – January 11, 1977) was an aerial acrobat, parachutist, and pioneer aviator. She was one of California's first female pilots and the first woman to fly an airplane from LAX. Hilder was a m ...
* Edward L. Hoffman *
Collier Trophy The Robert J. Collier Trophy is an annual aviation award administered by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association (NAA), presented to those who have made "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to im ...
*
Gleb Kotelnikov Gleb Yevgeniyevich Kotelnikov (Russian: ''Глеб Евгеньевич Котельников'', – November 22, 1944), was the Russian-Soviet inventor of the knapsack parachute (first in the hard casing and then in the soft pack), and brakin ...


References


Bibliography

* Hearn, Peter. ''Sky High Irvin: The Story of a Parachute Pioneer''. London : R. Hale, 1983.


External links

*
Airborne Systems
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irvin, Leslie American skydivers American stunt performers American manufacturing businesspeople Businesspeople from Dayton, Ohio Paratroopers 1966 deaths 1895 births 1919 in aviation American inventors Aviation history of the United States Aviation pioneers People from Los Angeles 20th-century American businesspeople