THE STORY OF FRANZ REICHELT, THE FLYING TAILOR WITH A TRAGIC END

Did you know that the Flying Tailor, who plummeted 57 metres (187 ft) to his death from the Eiffel Tower on 4 February 1912, was supposed to use a dummy while testing a wearable parachute of his own design?

Franz Reichelt (Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt) born 16 October 1878, was an Austro-Hungarian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, popularly referred to as the Flying Tailor. Before his tragic death, Reichelt in 1911 had personally jumped from a height of 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) at Joinville; the attempt failed but a pile of straw helped him escape injury. Also, an attempt at Nogent from a height of 8 metres (26 ft) resulted in a broken leg. Reichelt also made at least two apparently inconclusive tests with dummies from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower during 1911.

The dawn of the aviation age brought inevitable accidents coupled with a growing interest in safety measures, most notably in the development of an effective parachute. Early parachuting successes, such as those of Louis-Sébastien Lenormand and Jean-Pierre Blanchard, had successfully used fixed-canopy parachutes (already "open" before the jump began), and André-Jacques Garnerin had invented a frameless parachute suitable for use from high altitudes, but by 1910 there was still no parachute suitable for use in jumping from a plane or at low altitude.

Reichelt seems to have become interested in parachute design after hearing some of the stories of fatal accidents among the early aeronauts and aviators. His early tests were successful: dummies equipped with foldable silk "wings" touched down lightly when dropped from five floors, but converting the prototypes into a wearable "suit" proved difficult. His original design used 6 square metres (65 sq ft) of material and weighed around 70 kilograms (150 lb).

Reichelt attributed the previous failures of his designs at least in part to the short drop distances over which he had conducted his tests. Believing that a suitably high test platform would prove his invention's efficacy, Reichelt repeatedly petitioned the Parisian Prefecture of Police for permission to conduct a test from the Eiffel Tower. He finally received permission in 1912. There had been other tests from the tower during 1910 and 1911; Gaston Hervieu, who employed a dummy aircraft and mannequins in his experiments, was attempting to perfect a parachute design to ensure the safe landing of a pilot with all or part of a damaged aircraft.

On Sunday, 4 February, at 7:00 a.m., Reichelt arrived at the tower by car with two friends. He was already wearing his parachute suit. The news footage of his jump shows him modelling his invention in its folded form. The suit did not restrict the wearer's movements when the parachute was packed, and Le Petit Parisien (a prominent French newspaper during the Third Republic published between 1876 and 1944) described the method of deploying the parachute as being as simple as extending the arms out to form a cross with the body.

From his arrival at the tower, however, Reichelt made it clear that he intended to jump himself. According to a later interview with one of the friends who accompanied him up the tower, this was a surprise to everybody, as Reichelt had concealed his intention until the last moment. His friends tried to persuade him to use dummies in the experiment, assuring him that he would have other opportunities to make the jump himself. 

When this failed to make an impression on him, they pointed to the strength of the wind and said he should call off the test on safety grounds, or at least delay until the wind dropped. They were unable to shake his resolve. Seemingly undeterred by the failure of his previous tests, he told journalists from Le Petit Journal that he was totally convinced that his apparatus would work, and work well. When questioned as to whether he planned to take any additional precautions, such as using a safety rope, he replied that he would not, since he intended to trust his life entirely to his parachute.

Hervieu, who was present to witness the demonstration, also attempted to dissuade Reichelt from making the jump. He was concerned that the parachute needed longer to fully open than the few seconds the drop from the first platform would allow, and he also presented other technical objections to which Reichelt could not provide a satisfactory response.

Despite attempts to dissuade him, he jumped from the first platform of the tower wearing his invention. The parachute failed to deploy and he plummeted 57 metres (187 ft) to his death. Le Petit Parisien reported that Reichelt's right leg and arm were crushed, his skull and spine broken, and that he was bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears. Le Figaro (a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826) noted that his eyes were wide open and dilated. He was already dead by the time onlookers rushed to his body, but he was taken to the Necker Hospital where he was officially pronounced, and then on to a police station in the rue Amélie before being returned to his home in rue Gaillon. Édouard Launet, writing in the Summer supplement of Libération in 2009, mentioned that an autopsy concluded that Reichelt had died of a heart attack during his fall.