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Jan 8

Parachute Museum Announces New Acquisition

Major Donation of Aircraft Ejection Seats: The Aviation Trail Parachute Museum is in the process of acquiring a large collection of Aircraft Ejection Seats to add to the museum’s permanent collections. Parachute expert and ejection seat collector Dr. Jean Potvin, a research physicist at St. Louis University and accomplished skydiver and parachute rigger, is in the process of donating his large collection of ejection seats to the museum, along with all the parachutes and acces

Dec 21, 2022

Parachute Museum Theater

Perseverance Rover Parachute Landing on Mars: #8 in a series of videos featured by the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum Presented by NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA Video As part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission the Perseverance Rover landed by parachute descent in the Jezero crater on Mars. It was launched on July 30, 2020 and landed on February 18, 2021. It has since been collecting samples and testing the environment, providing information for future missions. This video dramatically foll

Dec 16, 2022

Parachute Museum Receives Airworthy Donation

First test flight scheduled for this week: Just inside the door to the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum is a donation box where visitors can deposit coins and bills to help support the mission of the museum. When counting the contents at a recent board meeting the Aviation Trail treasurer noticed a special object among the donations. It was a dollar bill folded into a paper airplane. The craft features meticulous design, graceful symmetry, and precise folding techniques. This

Oct 19, 2022

October in Aviation History

100th Anniversary of First Emergency Free Fall: October 20, 2022 represents the 100th anniversary of the first emergency bailout from an aircraft using a freefall parachute. Lt. Harold Harris, Chief of McCook Field Flying Section, whose Loening PW-2A Monoplane was disabled while testing new ailerons in combat practice was forced to jump. He landed in a grape arbor in the backyard of a house on Troy Street in Dayton, while his plane crashed nearby on Valley Street. Near the en

Oct 18, 2022

Parachute Museum in the News

WDTN News story features the Parachute Museum for the 100th anniversary of the first emergency bailout from an aircraft using a freefall parachute. For the October 20, 2022 Centennial of the event Channel 2 News visited the Parachute Museum and produced a story for the October 17 newscast. See https://www.wdtn.com/news/100th-anniversary-of-first-parachute-rescue-in-dayton/ for the story by reporter Neydja PetitHomme. The broadcast also included an interview with with Parachu

Aug 22, 2022

New Exhibit Opens at Parachute Museum

Joint Precision Air Drop System (JPADS) The Aviation Trail Parachute Museum has introduced a new exhibit as of August, 2022. On display is a fully rigged heavy payload shown as it would be prepared for an airdrop using the Joint Precision Air Drop System. The Joint Precision Air Drop system (JPADS) is an American military air drop system which uses the Global Positioning System (GPS), steerable parachutes, and an onboard computer to steer loads to a designated point of impact

Aug 16, 2022

WPAFB Engineers Tour Parachute Museum

On Friday, August 12, 2022 a group of engineers and engineering students/interns from Air Force Research Laboratory and various other departments at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base visited the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum for a presentation and tour. Parachute expert Dr. Jean Potvin, a physicist at St. Louis University (seen in the photo seated at the right), and Randy Zuercher, Curator of the Parachute Museum (standing by the lectern) conducted an introductory session and

Jul 29, 2022

Army Golden Knights Tour the Parachute Museum

The Aviation Trail Parachute Museum hosted team members on July 27, 2022 SSG Jason Bauder and SGT Nick Corozco, two members of the Army Golden Knights, the elite Army parachute demonstration team visited the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum on Wednesday , July 27, 2022. They were in Dayton preparing for the team's performance at the CenterPoint Energy Dayton Air Show on the subsequent weekend at the Dayton International Airport. (SSG Bauder on left, SGT Corozco on right in pho

Jul 27, 2022

Aviation Trail Parachute Museum meets the Army Golden Knights

2:00 pm, July 27, 2022 - the Army Golden Knights Parachute team members will be touring the Parachute Museum Update: As first announced on July 15 (below), members of the Army Golden Knight will be touring the Parachute Museum on July 27. The time for the tour has been announced as 2:00 PM. 07/15/2022 - The Army Golden Knights, the elite Army parachute demonstration team will be performing at the CenterPoint Energy Dayton Air Show on July 30 & 31, 2022 at the Dayton Internati

Jul 19, 2022

Parachute Museum Photos from Armstrong Air & Space Event

Photos from July 16 at Armstrong Air & Space Museum The Aviation Trail Parachute Museum was one of the featured displays at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum which celebrated its 50th Anniversary in conjunction with the Wapakoneta Summer Moon Festival community event. As seen in the photos below, visitors to the display could try on a parachute, listen to presentations on parachute history, see demonstrations of parachute aerodynamics, learn about different types of parachutes

Jul 1, 2022

Parachute Museum to Display at Wapakoneta Event

Sat. July 16 & Sun. July 17, 2022 • 10 am to 5 pm at Armstrong Air & Space Museum The Armstrong Air & Space Museum celebrates its 50th Anniversary in conjunction with the Wapakoneta Summer Moon Festival community event. The Aviation Trail Parachute Museum will be one of the featured attractions on the weekend of the event. Among the features that will be presented at the Parachute Museum booth: • Presentations on parachute history • Try on a parachute • Demonstrations of para

May 24, 2022

Parachute Museum Theater

C-47 Fly-In and Paratrooper Jump at NMUSAF #7 in a series of videos featured by the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum Presented by the National Museum of the United States Air Force National Museum of the United States Air Force video Free parachute demonstrations & static displays were held at the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Wednesday, April 27, 2022. Two historic C-47's, Tico Belle and Placid Lassie, were on hand to drop the volunteer paratroopers and re

Mar 25, 2022

Inventor of Modern Parachute to be Inducted

Floyd Smith in 2022 National Inventors Hall of Fame: A former trapeze artist turned aviator and test pilot, Floyd Smith holds US Patent Nos. 1,340,423; 1,462,456 for the first successful free-fall parachute. Near the end of WWI the US Army put together a parachute research group that came under the Engineering Division at McCook Field in Dayton. Their job was to develop a practical parachute for in-flight escape from fixed wing aircraft. They drafted requirements and tested

Mar 23, 2022

Recommended Reading

The Parachute Museum Recommends: For fascinating information on parachuting, the Parachute Museum recommends parachute.com, the website of the United States Parachute Association. The site offers industry news, articles on safety, and many other features. While on the website, check out the official magazine of the USPA - "Parachutist" for some interesting articles. You can click on the current March 2022 issue, and also on back issues to leaf through page by page for more ar

Jan 5, 2022

Parachute Museum Theater

Jumping From Space! #6 in a series of videos featured by the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum Red Bull Stratos Project space dive 2012 presented by BBC Studios Presented by BBC Studios In 2012 Austrian Felix Baumgartner successfully broke Joe Kittinger's record for the world’s highest parachute jump that was set in 1960 (see video #3 in the Parachute Museum Theater series). Baumgartner dropped from an unofficial altitude of 128,000 feet - about 1.5 miles higher than expected.

Jul 20, 2021

Special Guest at the Parachute Museum

Research physicist and parachute expert, Dr. Jean Potvin, visited the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum on July 16. As a friend and supporter of the museum, Dr. Jean Potvin, a physicist at St. Louis University, has been a regular contributor to the Aviation Trail Parachute Museum twitter feed. For his first in-person visit to the museum, he drove in from St. Louis with several crates full of parachute related materials from his personal collection to share with the committee. H

Mar 13, 2021

The Caterpillar Club

Aviation Trail Parachute Museum Report: Dayton McCook Field was the flight test center for the Army Air Service and did research and development of the parachute. Lt. Harold R. Harris was the first person to save himself by freefalling from a disabled airplane. He was also the first person inducted into the Caterpillar Club, for those aviators who save themselves from a disabled airplane by parachuting out of it. The Caterpillar Club is named for the insects that spun the sil

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