Domina Jalbert (1904-1991[1]) invented the ram-air inflated flexible wing often called the "Jalbert parafoil".
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Settling into Boca Raton, Florida,[2] after arriving from Quebec, Canada, he established his business Aerology.
Jalbert received a US pilots' license in 1927. In the 1930s he was active in kiting - using large kites for advertising purposes. He was hired to help protect the coastline of the western United States during war with the design and making of barrage balloons; he worked for the United States Rubber Company in Naugatuk, Connecticut, USA.[3]
He filed a patent in 1944 patent for a combination of a balloon with a stiffened flexible wing forming what is now known as a "kytoon".
The 1944 patent by Domina Jalbert presaged the flexible-winged hang gliders that latterly flowed from Francis Rogallo's NASA leadership; the mechanical stiffened flexible wing was already evident in Jalbert's earlier kite balloon patent filed on April 15 1944.
In 1957, Jalbert invented the ram-air airfoil and began testing and formalizing the design.[4]
In January 1963 he formally confirmed his discovery and invention of the ram-air double-surfaced fully flexible airfoil that would severely change kiting, parachuting, skydiving, hang gliding, paragliding, sport flying, power kiting, and more. All parafoils and today owe their roots to Domina Jalbert's invention.
In 1964, he filed a patent titled "Multi-cell Wing Type Aerial Device" This would become key to paragliding, sky diving, powered paragliding, landboarding, kite surfing and cargo-ship kite tugging.[5]
Domina Jalbert was first to teach of the robust airfoil formed by the ram-air principle. Every contemporary ram-air airfoil sport and utility wing began with Domina Jalbert's invention. <-- this section is about parafoils and parachutes and not about Jalbert When the parafoil is used as a gliding parachute, thus opening after the payload or human has been in free-fall, the opening of the parafoil can be very fast; the fast opening and the consequential related shock has to be damped; devices invented by others are used to slow down the opening of the parafoil. One such invention is the slider. When the parafoil is used in hang gliding as a paraglider, the parafoil is kited open before the human leaves the ground; in such cases a slider is not necessary. -->
Domina Jalbert invented his filed-for January 10, 1963 US Patent 3131894 the Parafoil which had sectioned cells in an aerofoil shape; an open leading edge and a closed trailing edge, inflated by passage through the air – the ram-air design.[6]