Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1919-04-12
PAGE EIGHT

The artlcle appearing Doio" "' clipped from the Aerial Age. It tells of life saving device invented by a Kingman man and is also of inter est,to Mohave County people. because of their interest in things pertaining to airplanes and flying.
 With the wonderful progress and development in aircraft in general and the application of scientific study i and inventive genius to perfect relia- ble power engines, necessary control instruments and safer wing structure under stimulus of war needs, there IS now an, increasing demand for con sidation of a reliable, practical life saving method in case of accident to aeroplanes in flight.
 This problem begins and ends with man-carrying parachutes which have now been developed to a degree of reliability, but a parachute carried on an aeroplane in flight is of no use whatever unless means are provided to successfully launch it instantly when needed and in such manner that parachute and suspension ropes can not be fouled by the aeroplane and prevented from successfully launching with it's passenger. No method of launching a parachute from contain CT by the jumping out of the passen- ger from a aeroplane falling out of control will be dependable, for reason that the aeroplane would be falling as fast or faster than the passenger after jumping out, and as the para chute and suspension rtpes is fully 70 feet in strung-out length, there is small chance of parachute not being fouled, especially as when opening the parachute and passenger jattachec must slow up in rate of dsScent and when fully opened out the parachute is fully 35 feet in diameter, thus mak. ing an object of such size as to be un' likely to escape being fouled by, tht falling aeroplane. These facts are e* ident and require that some means b< provided to launch the parachute b, pulling it out of the container instant ly by an applied force other thai gravity of falling passenger. A re cent invention of Henry M. Crowther M. E., of Arizona, provides a system of instantly launching, automaticall! a parachute from a carrying cas' mounted permanently within the fuse lage space and accomplishes the rapit launching of parachute by the firlnt of light shell from gun loade' with light charge of powder and t the shell or projectile is attached short tow line, the opposite end o which being previously attached t the top of the parachute, and the toy line is provided with a shock absorbe in form of a number of elastic rubbe ribbons, to absorb the shock of merit of rapidly launching the parachut from its case. This shock absorbe section of the tow line is fastene to the top of the parachute. Ther is also provided means of cutting tn tow line and it's attached shell or prt jectile free from the parachute a soon as the parachute and it's susper sion ropes are fully launched in su! pended, fully strung out, collapse condition above the aeroplane, read to open out
 The cutting loose device consists small triangular knife that sevel the tow line anchorage rope automat cally at proper moment when par chute is fully drawn out of it's ca. and in the air ready to open out. IT aviator wears a shoulder harness al the end of the parachute suspensit ropes is attached to the aviator's ha ness, by snap hook, before beginnir flight. The parachute is launched
 fully strung out and collapsed cond tion by the tow line drawn by the fl ed shell, pulling the parachute out
 it's case, top end first, and fully lau ched in such condition the tow line al