Franz Reichelt

Franz Reichelt

by Liv Published on November 22nd, 2008, 9:50 pm Rift: X

[youtubevideo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKLXEji53xE[/youtubevideo]

Caught a snippet on Franz Reichelt tonight... Found it interesting... Reminds me when I was a kid my bedroom was basically on the third floor of our house, and I had this master plan if the place ever caught on fire, merely grabbing my favorite blankie and using it as a parachute to safely drift to the drive-way below. Luckily I never got the opportunity to test it... but this guy, Franz.... he makes up for all the speculation by jumping from the freaking Eiffel Tower in his custom made trench coat. So is this suicide? Or merely bad fashion?

Reichelt (alias the flying tailor) designed an overcoat to fly or float its wearer gently to the ground like the modern parachute. To demonstrate his invention he made a jump of 60 meters from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, at that time the tallest man-made structure in the world. The parachute failed and Reichelt fell to his death. The jump was recorded by the cameras of the gathered press.

[A Person]

So is this suicide? Or merely bad fashion?

How about a lesson on why engineers do calculations and use models.

It's not as if parachutes hadn't been invented centuries earler - Faust Vrančić jumped from a tower in Venice in 1617 wearing a parachute made of wood and cloth. But he was an engineer, not a tailor

[Liv]

Yes but no one remembers him.... the fame goes to the poor guy who became chewing gum on the pavement....

I'm curious.... if he knew ahead of time... looking at the footage their seemed to be some hesitation right before the jump.