bail out or bale out For escape by parachute my copy of Chambers Dictionary authorizes both spellings equally I am British I am more familiar with the spelling bale out Perhaps this is yet another case where usual UK and USA spellings differ First bailing water is never spelt baling water and I doubt you d find that in Chambers For the parachute bailing we use British English almost exclusively for the most part in Australia too yet I ve never once seen this use of bale as in bale out of an aircraft although it is evidently an alternate spelling of bail But since bail out of an aircraft is the way it s spelt at least 50 of the time in Britain and close to 100 of the time elsewhere according to this WorldWideWords article don t you think this information should go at the Bail disambig page on Wikipedia and there is already a link to this from Bale