Leslie Irvin (parachutist)
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Leslie Leroy Irvin (10 September 1895 — 9 October 1966) made the first free-fall parachute jump in 1919. Irvin was born in Los Angeles. He became a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry, for which he had to perform acrobatics on trapezes from balloons and then make descents using a parachute. In those days parachutes were stored in canisters rather than in packs on the pilots' backs. Irvin made his first jump when aged fourteen. For a film called Sky High, he first jumped from an aircraft from 1,000 feet in 1914. He developed his own static line parachute as a life-saving device in 1918 and jumped with it several times.
He joined the Army Air Service's parachute research team and at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio on 19 April 1919, Irvin made the first premeditated free-fall parachute descent, though he broke his ankle on landing. The parachute that was used was designed by Floyd Smith and made by Major EC Hoffman from the U.S. Air Service Engineering Division. What was notable was that the parachute was deployed from a back-pack using a 'rip cord' rather from a canister attached to the aircraft. This invention was made by Polish inventor Theodore Moscicki.[citation needed] This is safer because a spinning aircraft could interfere with the deployment of the earlier chutes. Floyd Smith also flew the plane. Less than two months later The Irving Air Chute Company was formed in Buffalo, New York.
An early brochure [1] of the Irvin Air Chute Company credits William O'Connor 24 August 1920 at McCook Field as the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute.
Two years later, Irvin's company instituted the award of a gold pin to pilots who successfully bailed out of disabled aircraft using an Irvin parachute (see Caterpillar Club). By the 1930s his parachutes were in used by forty air forces. During the Second World War, Irvin parachutes alone saved over 10,000 lives.
As aircraft flew at ever increasing altitudes, pilots and aircrew were subject to ever lowering temperatures, Irvin also designed and manufactured the classic sheepskin flying jacket to meet their requirements.
Later the company also made car seat belts, slings for cargo handling and even canning machinery. Today the company is known as Irvin Aerospace Inc. and specializes in parachutes and inflatable life-saving equipment.
