Fatal Firsts In Aviation History

[muqawwee123]

Re: Fatal Firsts In Aviation History

@devilish_angel

Robert Cocking

http://i1.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/parachute-e1375914260601.jpg?resize=632%2C474

Early balloonists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries tinkered with parachutes. Some workable designs were produced, but they remained a novelty, and experimentation continued. Robert Cocking, a 61-year-old painter, was inspired when he witnessed André-Jacques Garnerin perform the first successful parachute jump in 1802. Cocking made his own parachute: linen stretched over a cone-shaped framework with an attached wicker basket.
A couple of professional aeronauts with a balloon agreed to help him test his new device. After making a mile-high ascent at Vauxhall Gardens, Cocking jumped. His parachute broke apart, and he fell to his death.

There was a General (probably someone Akhtar) in Zia’s era, who died like this. Read about him in Nimra Bucha’s husband’s novel ‘A case of exploding mangoes’