DIVE FROM AEROPLANE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

DIVE FROM AEROPLANE.

AN " UPSIDc DOWN " LEAP. CAPTAIN'S DARING FEAT. TESTING A NEW PARACHUTE. Experts standing on the wind-swept aerodrome at Stag Lane, Edgware, had one of the biggest thrills ever seen in flying, says a London paper.

Captain H. Spencer, an expert parachutist who had made more than 100 leaps from aeroplanes in flight, was seen, a tiny figure, standing in the passenger's seat of a D.H. 9 biplane flying high overhead.

The next moment he dived head-first toward the earth.

Almost instantly there was a flicker of white from a pack which he carried on his back. It was a tiny " pilot " parachute. This drew out another and larger parachute, and the next moment, bellowing out in the wind—which was blowing almost at gale force at that height —there came a third, man-carrying parachute, which bore the airman safely to a field adjoining the aerodrome.

Tho test was the first public " live " drop with a type of parachute which has been developed as a result of 15 years' work by Cot H. S, Holt. By its threefold action it is said to arrest the fall of a parachutist, more smoothly than any oMier type, and it is now claimed that this all-British device is the safest of its kind in the world.

Captain Spencer, after he had alighted, expressed complete satisfaction with the apparatus. '"lt- is my usual method," he sa. ! d, " when making such tests as this, to jump head-first out of the aeroplane. While I am falling head-downwards I can see what happens as the parachutes come out -of their container. " This time I saw the first one como flashing out just past my legls, to be followed instantly by the others. " I can watch what is goitfg on while lam falling. With such a perfected parachute one is only just beginning to experience the bodily sensations set up by falling at the moment when the quickacting apparatus checks one's drop." Captain Spencer himself was too modest to refer to certain thrilling exploits in his career as a parachutist, but those on the aerodrome acquainted with his work declare that one of his most wonderful feats was to try the effect of a drop from an aeroplane which the pilot has deliberately put into a spinning nosedive. ' With the machine tumbling toward the earth Captain Spencer leapt out without hesitation, and made a perfectly good descent, demonstrating that an airman in such an emergency could use a parachute as a life-saver.