Parachute

I first discovered parachutes when I was about six. Actually they had been rattling around in the corners of my brain for a while before that. Planting the seeds of curiosity that would eventually lead to a day to remember.

The Apollo missions were in full swing at the time. Capsules falling out of the clear blue sky hanging from their three red and white NASA parachutes were a common sight just about everywhere you turned. We were going to the moon! This was big news. An inescapable presence.

And what kid hasn’t seen a skydiver and thought "That’s cool!" I think that if you actually had me in a parachute, up in a plane and tried to get me to jump you would find that it would be like trying to put a cat in a bathtub. Fourteen arms and legs would magically appear, strength would increase and all bones would turn to rubber. Ensuring that it became essentially impossible to achieve. When I’m sitting on the couch though, it seems like a good idea. Bungee jumping strikes me the same way, but I digress.

Watching drag racing on TV was when it finally clicked for me. Parachutes are brakes! Duh. They slow down or stop things. Things like cars. Or expensive spacecraft. Or people. Or spacecraft with people. Nothing like using yourself to drill a hole in something to ruin your day. So.. Use a parachute!

It was so simple. And so appealing. I had a bicycle. I liked to go fast. There was a hill right at the end of my street. I often needed to stop. Time for experimentation.

Parachutes seemed to be made of some kind of fabric. Hmm.. My mom used to do a lot of sewing and kept a good stock of supplies. I didn’t think she would mind if I appropriated some cloth in the name of science. Oh, and some grommets left over from making some tarps. And some nice nylon rope that happened to be conveniently accessible. If all this stuff was already committed for other purposes so what. This was important!

So I cut up what of course was the nicest, most expensive piece of material my mom had into a rough circle a little bit bigger across than I was tall. I then used the grommet tool to put six or eight grommets roughly spaced around the perimeter. And finally attached nice long pieces of rope to each grommet and tied the other ends together in a big knot. Ta Da! Parachute.

Now came the tricky part of attaching it to my bike. I had noticed that parachutes came in some kind of pouch or bag. My old back pack would do nicely. I put my parachute in the backpack and hung it on the back of my bike. Good to go.

That is until I went blasting down the hill, deployed my parachute and it fell off the back of my bike. Not so good. A few moments of thought later and I realized my error. I retrieved my backpack and parachute and went back to my house to improve the design.

I cut a hole in the back of the backpack, carefully pulled the end knot of rope through it and then tied it to the sissy bar on the back of my bike. Looping the straps of the pack over the top of the sissy bar held it in place and I was good to go again.

The first few attempts were disappointing because every time I deployed my ‘chute it would fail to open and just drag along behind me. Or tangle in the rear wheel. Which sucked.

Then it worked. I was pretty much just going through the motions by then and it completely surprised me. There was a sudden jerk and the bike just suspended its motion for a moment. Of course I didn’t. About the time I was getting an extreme close up of the handlebars and front wheel the bike started moving again. Which was good. I was doing a serious high speed wobble and on the verge of losing control when I realized something was amiss. Which was bad.

My bike was the typical bike of that era with a banana seat. When my parachute actually deployed correctly it put a huge shock load on the light weight tubing sissy bar I had tied it to and caused it to fail. Literally pulling it off the bike. This of course left the back of the banana seat unsupported and it fell onto the rear tire. Which is where I ended up after the bike started moving again.

Do you remember the opening of the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV show? Where the aircraft crash lands and just tumbles into a big dust ball and cloud of debris? That’s what I felt like.

I picked myself up and assessed the damaged. A skinned knee through a fresh hole in my pants. Both palms scraped. And a few other minor scuffs.

Then I gathered up the pieces of my bike and parachute and walked back up the hill to home. And put everything away.

The parachute had worked too well.

I never did try it on myself off of the second story deck.