Lt. Harold L. Harris, the Army Air Service’s chief test pilot, was flying simulated combat, trying out the experimental ailerons on a single-wing Loening Pursuit plane. With full power on, the Loening Pursuit hung on the tail of a Morse MB-3 at speeds approaching 150 mph, but suddenly the monoplane’s ailerons whipped up and down, rippling the ribs and spars. Harris fought the stick as it slashed back and forth, but there was no control—only out! He unsnapped his safety belt, and the windblast scooped him out of the cockpit as the Loening Pursuit went into an uncontrolled vertical dive.

Harris grabbed a ring on his chute and pulled. Once. Twice. Nothing happened. Harris frantically jerked a third time, finally reaching the ring for the ripcord. There was a rush of white silk, a snap, and Harris hung gently 500 feet above the ground. October 1922, Lt. Harris, the man who had almost decided not to wear a chute that day, made history by completing America’s first military emergency bailout.

At the time, the parachute was still optional equipment, and it had never really been proven in an emergency. Guy Ball, the “father of the American parachute” tested his first backpack type in 1919. In 1924 Ball convinced an Army Major of the merits of the parachute, at which time all Army aircraft personnel were ordered to wear one.

In 1928, a six-man machine gun team jumping from a six-plane formation made the first paradrop, demonstrating the parachute’s combat potential. Today, parachutes—from personal backpacks to canopies for re-entry vehicles—are standard equipment in manned and unmanned air and space operations.