History
The first aircraft evacuation slide was developed and produced by Air Cruisers, founded by James F. Boyle, inventor of the World War II life vest, the "Mae West". Prior to inflateables, some passenger aircraft utilized canvas type slides which required the crew to undertake an extensive rigging procedure. Canvas type slides are still found on some Russian aircraft. Australian aviation pioneer Jack Grant (Qantas) developed the first inflatable evacuation slide/raft for aircraft in 1965. Grant's design introduced technology based on the science of pressure and revolutionized air travel safety which is still standard equipment on all major world airlines. The patent for the "Inflatable Escape Chute Assembly" was submitted by Boyle in 1954 and the designs was patented in 1956 under patent number 2,765,131. Today Air Cruisers provides slides for over 65% of the aircraft slide market.
Read more about this topic: Evacuation Slide
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)