Powered Parachute - History

History

In 1930, a cover article in Modern Mechanics, October issue, described the project of Buddy Bushmeyer for powered parachute. On October 1, 1964, Domina Jalbert applied for patent for his new "Multi-Cell Wing" named "Parafoil" (also known as a "Ram-Air" wing), which was a new parachute design. His ideas finally were registered as U.S. patent 3,285,546 on November 15, 1966. However a first motorized version by Nicolaides had already flown in 1964.

Finally in March 1981, the P–1 was created by Steve Snyder, Adrian Vandenberg and Daniel Thompson. The first flight lasted only 25–30 seconds mainly because the paraglider suffered from torque problems. It took 2 years to fix these problems, but in 1983 the ParaPlane corporation was organized under Snyder's leadership to produce the first commercial paragliders. Australian powered parachute (Robbert De Groot) obtain the first SLSA powered parachute certificate in Australia 2011

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