page_title: Flying trapeze
section_title: Safety
hierarchical_section_title: Flying trapeze / Safety
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Jules Léotard in Kleidung, die seinen Namen trägt. English: An image of Jules Léotard in the garment that bears his name. Jules Léotard - The Daring Young man on the Flying Trapeze. Jules Léotard, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, performed his aerial act at the Alhambra. Jules Léotard, inventor of the flying trapeze.===Notes on current image=== I took the image from the original and adjusted the contrast, removed the spots, blurred the back ground and to some extent Jules himself. I hope this is an improvement. Iain 07:54, 29 June 2006 (UTC) Notes on older image Note: Image processing operations concentrated on increasing detail and contrast in the tonal range occupied by the leotard, whilst attempting to keep the overall tonal balance of the image reasonable. The image was then scaled down to 50% of original size using bicubic interpolation, to average out a global increase in noise and coarse quantization caused by repeated passes of unsharp masking and curve filtering.
context_page_description: The flying trapeze is a specific form of the trapeze in which a performer jumps from a platform with the trapeze so that gravity makes the trapeze swing.
  The performance was invented in 1859 by a Frenchman named Jules Léotard, who connected a bar to some ventilator cords above the swimming pool in his father's gymnasium in Toulouse, France. After practicing tricks above the pool, Leotard performed his act in the Cirque Napoleon. The traditional flier's costume, the leotard, is named after him.
context_section_description: In the early years of young Mr. Leotard's performances, the flying trapeze did not have the safety net as is typically seen today.  He would perform over a series of mattresses on a raised runway to give the audience a better view of his tricks, or "passes".   
  Most modern flyers start out wearing a safety harness, while a trainer on the ground controls the lines and would pull them if the flyer is in a dangerous situation.  Pulling on the lines will suspend the flyer in the air, and letting go of the lines slowly will bring the flyer to the ground safely.  Once a flyer has mastered a particular trick, they will take off the safety harness.  Every safe flying trapeze rig has a large net underneath the rig.  Many flyers in the circus do not start out using safety belts. Those flyers who are not wearing safety harnesses learn how to fall safely into the net in case they miss a catch or unexpectedly fall off the bar or off the catcher.
  Several risky flying trapeze acts have been performed without safety nets in earlier circus days, but it would be rare to find this kind of act today, as most flying trapeze acts are performed between 20 and 40 feet above the ground.
caption: Jules Léotard, inventor of the flying trapeze
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