Da Vinci's Parachute

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most well known Renaissance men due to his brilliance in art, mathematics, architecture, and engineering. He created fantastic art, such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but he was also an accomplished scientist. Da Vinci was an inventor far ahead of his time; the technology required for some of his designs was unavailable until hundreds of years after he originally sketched them. He designed the preliminary versions of some of the technology we use today, including scuba diving gear, machine guns, and parachutes (McNamara).

Da Vinci's Parachute Sketch
(Carrington)

Leonardo da Vinci was preoccupied with flight from an early age. He designed flying machines inspired by the flight of birds, and he sketched the earliest version of a helicopter (Weingardt). He created models of the wings of birds and bats in an attempt to better understand the mechanics of flight. He even experimented with different materials on these models to determine which would make the best wings for a human sized flying machine. However, da Vinci’s designs for a flying machine are nowhere near possible; without some kind of external energy source, humans simply don’t have enough physical power to propel themselves forward and upward, especially with a design as heavy as da Vinci’s (White).

Although his aspirations for human flight failed, da Vinci was considerably more successful designing an apparatus that allows the passenger to control their descent from a large height rather than one that allows them to propel themselves upward (White). He designed a parachute with a triangular wooden frame covered with canvas; the opening measured about 23 feet by 23 feet. Although considerably less ambitious, the parachute was much closer to becoming a reality than the flying machine (McNamara).

While his design for a parachute was much more feasible than his flying machine, experts said that da Vinci’s parachute design would not actually work. They predicted it would spin or lean during the descent, providing a quick, less than desirable fall for the passenger, or that it would fall apart all together. These predictions were based on theory; no one made a prototype and tested it until 2000, when a British skydiver decided to test da Vinci’s design himself (Hartley-Brewer).

On June 26, 2000, Adrian Nicholas jumped out of a hot air balloon at an altitude of 10,000 feet to test a model of da Vinci’s parachute based on the original sketch. The model was made by Katarina Ollikainen, who made the parachute as authentic as possible by using materials and tools that were available in the fifteenth century whenever possible. Apart from using some balloon tape to keep the canvas from ripping, Ollikainen created da Vinci’s design as it would have been during his time (Hartley-Brewer). The prototype was made out of wood and linen; modern parachutes consist of materials such as nylon and kevlar. These materials are designed to be strong while also being very lightweight, and they have the added benefit of not losing their strength when heated (Peterson). Because Ollikainen avoided using modern materials, the model of da Vinci’s parachute weighed 187 pounds. In order to avoid being crushed by the parachute when he reached the ground, Nicholas cut da Vinci’s parachute loose when he was 2,000 ft above the ground and finished the descent with a modern parachute (Carrington).

Da Vinci’s parachute worked much better than experts predicted it would. Not only did it hold together for the duration of the fall, allowing Nicholas to land safely, but it may have actually worked better than modern parachutes during its descent. The model didn’t suddenly plunge or swing like modern parachutes, and the parachutists accompanying Nicholas for safety reasons had to break a couple times because the model fell more slowly than present day parachutes. Of course, the parachute’s large weight does somewhat nullify its impressively smooth fall, but considering it was predicted that the parachute wouldn’t work at all, the trial was a success (Hartley-Brewer).

Leonardo da Vinci predicted many modern inventions in addition to the parachute, including the helicopter and scuba gear. His brilliant designs were so far ahead of his time that many of them weren’t possible for centuries after he drew them. Others, such as the parachute, were written off as impossible until someone deigned to test a prototype. Because of his contributions to science and the arts, students in history classes all over the world continue to study da Vinci; his influence has long outlived him, and will continue to do so (McNamara).

Works Cited

Carrington, D. (2000, June 27). Da Vinci’s Parachute Flies. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/808246.stm

Hartley-Brewer, J. (2000, June 27). Skydiver Proves da Vinci Chute Works. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/28/juliahartleybrewer

McNamara, C. (2015). Leonardo da Vinci. Inventors' Digest, 31(11), 10.

Peterson, C.W. & Johnson, D.W.. (1987). Parachute materials.

Weingardt, R. G. (2010). Leonardo da Vinci. Leadership & Management In Engineering, 10(1), 43-48. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)LM.1943-5630.0000040

White, G. (2001). Flights of Fancy. Odyssey, 10(8), 28.