André-Jacques Garnerin (January 31, 1769 – August 18, 1823) was the inventor of the frameless parachute. He was born in Paris.
His early experiments were based on umbrella-shaped devices. He was captured by British troops during the first phase of the Napoleonic Wars 1792–1797, turned over to the Austrians and held a prisoner in Buda in Hungary for three years.
After his release, Garnerin was involved with the flight of hot air balloons. He carried out the first jump with a Silk parachute on October 22, 1797 at Parc Monceau, Paris.[1] Garnerin's first parachute resembled a closed umbrella before he ascended, with a pole running down its center and a rope running through a tube in the pole, which connected it to the balloon.[1] Garnerin rode in a basket attached to the bottom of the parachute; at a height of approximately 3,000 feet (900 m) he severed the rope that connected his parachute to the balloon.[1] The balloon continued skyward while Garnerin, with his basket and parachute, fell.[1] The basket swung during descent, then bumped and scraped when it landed, but Garnerin emerged uninjured.[1] His wife Jeanne-Geneviève was the first female parachutist; as no real material parachute can sustain its entire flight without some positive above-zero glide ratio, then for some, if not almost all of her descent was in a gliding parachute (subset of hang gliders) and thus she was the best candidate for being the first woman hang glider rider.
The couple even toured to England in 1802 during the Peace of Amiens, with André-Jacques ascending in his balloon from the Volunteer Ground in Grosvenor Square and making a parachute descent to a field near St Pancras. This gave rise to the English popular ballad:
He also made his second English balloon ascent with Edward Hawke Locker on 5 July 1802 from Lord's Cricket Ground, travelling the 17 miles from there to Chingford in just over 15 minutes and carrying a letter of introduction signed by the Prince Regent to give to anyone should he crash land.[4][5] However, when the war between France and Great Britain resumed they were forced to pack up and return to the continent where, on October 3–4, 1803, he covered a distance of 245 miles (395 km) between Paris and Clausen with his balloon. Garnerin died in a construction accident while making a balloon in Paris. He was hit by a beam.