Franz Reichelt

✶October 16, 1878

†February 4, 1912

2 candles burning, 8 lit in all

About their life

Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, was an Austro-Hungarian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor. He is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design, a device that today might be called a wingsuit. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft in mid-air. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

Austro-Hungarian-born French parachuting pioneer

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Biography from the article Franz Reichelt on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.