Invention: Wearable parachute Country: France Died: 1912 Now widely referred to as the Flying Tailor, Franz Reichelt's tale has to be one of the bravest entries on this list. Reichelt has become legendary in history for jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing out a wearable parachute created by himself. Reichelt became obsessed with his idea that aviators could wear a special suit that transformed into a parachute, allowing them to survive a long fall in case of emergency. Reichelt had several successful tests with dummies launched from the top of his apartment building, but later designs proved to be unsuccessful. Reichelt felt that the reason for the later failures was due to the launch platform not being high up enough, and was eventually granted permission to test from the Eiffel Tower. However, one the day, he surprised everyone by declaring that he himself would be testing out the suit, rather than one of his dummies. The parachute failed to deploy, and Reichelt crashed into the ground at the base of the tower, killed on impact.
Invention: Wearable parachute Country: France Died: 1912 Now widely referred to as the Flying Tailor, Franz Reichelt's tale has to be one of the bravest entries on this list. Reichelt has become legendary in history for jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing out a wearable parachute created by himself. Reichelt became obsessed with his idea that aviators could wear a special suit that transformed into a parachute, allowing them to survive a long fall in case of emergency. Reichelt had several successful tests with dummies launched from the top of his apartment building, but later designs proved to be unsuccessful. Reichelt felt that the reason for the later failures was due to the launch platform not being high up enough, and was eventually granted permission to test from the Eiffel Tower. However, one the day, he surprised everyone by declaring that he himself would be testing out the suit, rather than one of his dummies. The parachute failed to deploy, and Reichelt crashed into the ground at the base of the tower, killed on impact.