Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute as an emergency-air device.
The design appears in the Codex Atlanticus, a major collection of Leonardo’s drawings and notes. It consists of a rigid, pyramid-like wooden frame covered with linen. Leonardo wrote that a person could jump from a great height while enclosed within the structure without being injured.
The idea was radically different from a modern parachute, which uses a flexible canopy that opens into an umbrella-like shape. Leonardo’s design depended on a broad, fixed surface to resist falling air. Its dimensions were approximately 7.2 metres on each side and 7.2 metres high, making it far too large and heavy for practical modern use.
Leonardo did not test the parachute. A modern reconstruction was successfully tested by Adrian Nichols in 2000, although he used a safer backup parachute.