When this failed to make an impression on him, they pointed to the strength of the wind and said he should call off the test on safety grounds, or at least delay until the wind dropped. His friends tried to persuade him to use dummies in the experiment, assuring him that he would have other opportunities to make the jump himself. According to a later interview with one of the friends who accompanied him up the tower, this was a surprise to everybody, as Reichelt had concealed his intention until the last moment. The weather was cold, with temperatures below 0 ☌ (32 ☏), and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the Champ de Mars.įrom his arrival at the tower, however, Reichelt made it clear that he intended to jump himself. La Croix claimed that the suit may have weighed as little as 9 kilograms (20 lb). L’Action Française reported that Reichelt stated the surface area of the final design to be 30 square metres (320 sq ft) with a canopy height of 5 metres (16 ft), while Le Figaro judged the surface area might have reached 32 square metres (340 sq ft). Once extended, the outfit resembled “a sort of cloak fitted with a vast hood of silk” (“une sorte de manteau, muni d’un très vaste capuchon de soie”) according to Le Temps. The suit did not restrict the wearer’s movements when the parachute was packed, and Le Petit Parisien described the method of deploying the parachute as being as simple as extending the arms out to form a cross with the body. The news footage of his jump shows him modelling his invention in its folded form, which Le Gaulois described as “… only a little more voluminous than ordinary clothing …” (“… un peu plus volumineuse qu’un vêtement ordinaire …”). He was already wearing his parachute suit. On Sunday, February 4, at 7 am, he arrived at the tower by car with two friends. Reichelt showed off the suit at the foot of theĮiffel Tower shortly before his fatal fall. Reichelt announced to the press in early February 1912 that he had finally received permission and would shortly conduct an experiment from the Eiffel Tower to prove the value of his invention. The next day, newspapers were full of the story of the reckless inventor and his fatal jump – many included pictures of the fall taken by press photographers who had gathered to witness Reichelt’s experiment – and a film documenting the jump appeared in newsreels. Although it was clear that the fall had killed him, he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. The parachute failed to deploy and he crashed into the icy ground at the foot of the tower. Despite attempts by his friends and spectators to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. He was finally granted permission in early 1912, but when he arrived at the tower on February 4 he made it clear that he intended to jump himself rather than conduct an experiment with dummies. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.īelieving that the lack of a suitably high test platform was partially to blame for his failures, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt (1879 – February 4, 1912), was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design.
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