Parachutes for pilots

[euking]

With a class of 15yr olds today we were preparing for a trip to the Somme next week. On the subject of aviators the question of parachutes came up. We see from the site that some pilots had parachutes but some met their death when it didn't open.
Did all pilots have parachutes? Weren't they bulky? Just how easy was it to escape from a falling plane?

[Barrett]

Only the Germans issued parachutes to pilots, and then only from early 1918. All combatants gave chutes to balloon observers.

IIRC roughly 1/3 of German fliers who attempted bailouts were killed.

[Gregvan]

Hi,

Yes, Barrett is correct. Except for balloon observers, only German airmen had parachutes in the final 6-7 months of the war; the first were issued to fighter pilots in April/May 1918, and later two-seater crews were issued them as well.

At first, pilots were skeptical of parachutes, and some declined to wear them - not without reason. They were indeed bulky, and the pilot had to wear a large leather "Heinecke" harness as well.It wasn't until several successful jumps had been made that most German pilots began to wear them for all front flights; there might be a limited number of them available in a given unit, as well. There were a number of failures, either due to the harness failing (breaking) under stress, or of the parachute cords getting snagged on some part of the airplane as the pilot jumped, or the canopy simply failing to open.

There were a number of official and unofficial modifications made to the Heinecke harnesses to strengthen them (with thicker leg straps, etc) and in September 1918 a total of 130 successful parachute descents were made, many of them by fighter pilots using the Heinecke harness.

Allied authorities never intoduced the use of parachutes by their aircraft crews during the war. One reason often given is, they believed that having access to parachutes would encourage the crews to jump from a damaged aircraft that could possibly be landed, thus "wasting" the government's money. I do not know how true this is !

Greg VanWyngarden

Heh, me either. but what if the person jumps outta the plane and the chute opens and he gets shot? owie.

[Zeppelin]

We did have a thread on parachutes some months ago. I had always questioned that old excuse about not giving the pilots 'chutes to encourage them to save the planes, but felt that the logic behind that was untenable after Bloody April and the horrendous RAF losses. Fortunately for forumites, we had a parachute expert, Dan-San Abbot, who could give us some well-informed words. You might want to look up that thread again, believe it was in the OTHER WW1 heading in summer or fall 2003. Afterwards, I did a little more looking around the literature and found references to how horribly bulky the early chutes were, and that they needed a static line to work, and were definitely unuseable in aircraft.

Watching the "making of" for the NASA Spirit Rover Mission brought a lot of this to my mind again... they had problems with their parachute design before launch, finally resolving it by making the air escape hole at the center of the chute somewhat smaller in diameter. I just read that the data indicates it opened about a mile lower than it was expected to - so parachutes aren't perfected even today!


Best Regards,
Zeppelin

Originally posted by Gregvan@Jan 14 2004, 10:46 PM
[b]
At first, pilots were skeptical of parachutes

Opium für die Piloten

[Rick]

Originally posted by duckman@Jan 15 2004, 05:18 PM
[b]

Come to that - did pilots get trained in parachute jumps, or was it just "strap this on. If you have to jump out, pull this cord...."

AFAIK, there was no training. It was dangerous enough to have to do it when the time came. And to correct a slight mis-conception, there was no 'cord' to pull. Just jump - the parachute was attached by a static line which pulled it (the 'chute) out of the seat pack. R.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Greg:
Most of the Heinecke harnesses were hemp webbing 50 mm wide. I am surprised that the fatality rate was so low, a design study iI did years ago showed the Heinecke Parachute was marginal at 100 mph at best.
Parachute design had to wait until around 1950 before the design strengths could be acturately predicted. We benefitted by the German designers came here after WW2. WW1 parachutes were designed by trail and error. Make a test chute, test it, modify it until it stayed together.
The modern parachute, used in ejection seats will stay together up to about 300 mph, it is here were the failures will start to occur. At 350 mph @ 2000 ft., you can kiss your a-- goodbye!
Blue skies,
Dan-San