History of Skydiving

The history of skydiving takes us back to China in the 1100’s where people found natural formations where they could jump from and float through the air as there obviously were no aeroplanes at the time. However many believe that skydiving only began in 1797 when Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first successful parachute jumps from a hot air balloon. What is more, Leonardo Da Vinci created a design of a parachute that was in a wooden frame in a pyramid shape. This shows that skydiving is a lot older than many people may believe it do be.

With regards to the history of skydiving as a sport, this definitely has a more recent start. Many people think that when Andre-Jacques Garnerin jumped out of the hot air balloon in 1797 that that was the beginning g the sport. Woman however only joined in the sport in 1900’s with Kathe Paulus who parachuted in Germany. However, all of the above did not involve aeroplanes and it was only after their invention that the sport of skydiving became as popular as it is now. However it is important to note that the term “skydiving” was applied to the sport in the mid 1950’s by Raymond Young as before hand it was called parachuting.

After World War 2 grew in popularity as a result of the armies using skydiving as a tactical move during the war. Apparently in World War 1, the pilots of planes were not given parachutes and were told to land their planes rather than bail out of them in times of danger. However, after it had be proven that pilots could bail out of their planes successfully, this became the norm in World War 2. The first successful bail out from a plan occurred in 1922. It was after this that skydiving became more popular as the pilots after the war often participated in competitions. As you can see, there is long and fruitful history of skydiving.