HOW PARACHUTES WORK

There's much more to this essential piece of flight safety equipment than a simple tug on a rip cord

- AILSA HARVEY

Whether they're being used for recreational skydiving, emergency escapes from aircraft or military supplies and troop deployment, parachutes are engineered to serve the same role: to safely lower people or objects from the skies to the ground. Parachutes work by counteracting the force of gravity pulling objects through the air to the ground by increasing air resistance. These apparatus consist of large, strong and light canopies that, when deployed, catch air as a skydiver falls to slow their descent. The faster the parachute is falling, the more drag it creates, which resists the downward movement and pushes the parachute up. As a result, the person attached to the parachute can gently float the remaining distance that separates their feet from the earth.

Without a parachute, a free-falling person will gain speed as they move towards the ground by around ten metres per second. After around 12 seconds, this speed steadies and remains consistent. This is called terminal velocity. Skydivers generally deploy their parachutes between 900 and 1,500 metres from the ground. As a result, using a parachute reduces a person's terminal velocity by 90 per cent, transporting them to the ground in a controlled way that means they can land safely on their feet.