Packing Parachutes

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 19

Packing Parachutes

To the sensitive fingers, of a young and pretty woman working in a London factory many of Britain's most famous fliers trust their lives. For it is the' job of Mrs. Isobel Watiing to fold the parachutes made by the British Eussell Parachute Company at Stanmore Hill, N.W. states the "Sunday Dispatch." There are 60 to 70 yards of the finest silk in a parachute, and if the slightest wrinkle was permitted during the packing the parachute might become "fouled" in opening, And disaster would follow. "I watched Mrs. Watiing fold the 24 silken panels of a parachute and meticulously stow the shrouds in the webbing case," states a correspondent. "Then she fixed the rip-wire, and the job was done—in twelve minutes. " 'Would you like to sco it operate ?' she asked. "I nodded, and an assistant tugged at the handle attached to the rip-wire. Out tumbled the silken cascade, undoing the packer's work in one and twofifths seconds. "Mrs. Watiing has packed the chutes worn by Mrs. Amy Mollison, John Tranum, Frank Hawkes (the "Human Bullet"), and .Will Hay, the comedian-astronomer-airman."