Parachute

A parachute is a soft fabric device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are generally used to slow the descent of a person or object to Earth or another celestial body with an atmosphere. Parachutes are also sometimes used to aid horizontal deceleration of a vehicle (an airplane or space shuttle after touchdown, or a drag racer). The word parachute comes from the French words para, protect or shield, and chute, to fall. Therefore parachute actually means to protect from a fall. Many types of modern parachute are quite maneuverable, and can be flown like gliders.

Safety

A parachute is carefully folded, or "packed" to ensure that it will open reliably. In the U.S. and many developed countries, emergency and reserve parachutes are packed by "riggers" who must be trained and certified according to legal standards. Paratroops and sport skydivers are always trained to pack their own primary "main" parachutes.

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Parachutes can malfunction in several ways. Malfunctions can range from minor problems that can be corrected in-flight and still be landed to catastrophic malfunctions that require the main parachute to be cut away using a modern 3-ring release system and a second parachute called a reserve to be deployed. Most skydivers are also equipped with small barometric computers (known as an AAD or Automatic Activation Devicelike Cypres, FXC or Vigil) that will automatically deploy the reserve parachute if the skydiver himself has not done so at a preset altitude and descent rate.

Related Topics:
3-ring release system - Automatic Activation Device - Cypres

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Exact numbers are difficult to estimate but approximately one in a thousand sports main parachute openings malfunction and must be cut away, although some skydivers have many thousands of jumps and never cut away, (either they pack their mains more carefully than average or they are just lucky). Reserve parachutes are packed and deployed differently, they are also designed more conservatively and built & tested to more exacting standards so they are more reliable than main parachutes, but the real safety advantage comes from the probability of an unlikely main malfunction multiplied by the even less likely probability of a reserve malfunction. This yields an even smaller probability of a double malfunction although the possibility of a main malfunction that cannot be cutaway causing a reserve malfunction is a very real risk. In the U.S., the average fatality rate is considered to be about 1 in 80,000 jumps. Most injuries and fatalities in sport skydiving occur under a fully functional main parachute because the skydiver performed unsafe maneuvers or made an error in judgement while flying their canopy typically resulting in a high speed impact with the ground or other hazards on the ground.

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The average skydiver in the U.S. makes about 150 jumps per year and will leave the sport before the 5th year.

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