Page 24 - August 2019

The Irvin Air Chutes Story

by Will Chabun

One day in 1919, a young man Into the club’s files over the years went letters of thanks
named Leslie Irvin made history from aviation notables ranging from Charles Lindbergh to
over McCook Field, the U.S. Army Germany’s Ernest Udet and Lord Douglas Hamilton to
Air Service’s experimental station Jimmy Doolittle and the father of actor Michael J. Fox.
near Dayton, Ohio. Tens of thousands of names now appear on the list, which
is maintained at the firm’s Belleville facility. (“Caterpillar”
had a clever double meaning.
As speaker Greg Campbell told the CAHS’s 2009 First, it referred to the silkworms that made the silk that
conference, Irvin — a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in the 1920s formed parachute canopies; as well, a little
— had voluntarily parachuted from a perfectly good research showed the caterpillar briefly became airborne
aeroplane, and that was historic. Daring young men had — much like the parachuting aviators themselves.)
voluntarily parachuted from balloons for decades and Despite his 300 parachute jumps, Irvin received only an
during the First World War; some aviators had honorary membership in his own club because he never
parachuted from damaged aircraft of the Imperial had to abandon an aircraft in order to save his life.
German Air Service. But parachuting from a flyable
A notable development in 1932 was the creation of a firm
aircraft was rare indeed in 1919.
called GQ Parachutes by Britons James Gregory and Sir
Irvin broke an ankle upon landing, but even before he’d Raymond Quilter. By 1933, Irvin’s gear was being worn by
received medical treatment he is reported to have the pilots of no fewer than 37 air forces.
excitedly announced he wanted to form a company to
develop and sell the parachute he’d just used. And thus In 1940, the two firms collaborated to create a new X-
type parachute that was opened by a static line attached
did “Sky High” Irvin come to set up the Irving Air Chute
to an aircraft’s structure rather than by the hand of the
Co. (a typographical error added a “g” to the firm’s
name!) in Buffalo, N.Y., said Campbell, the business wearer.
development manager of Airborne Systems Canada, the
Canadian arm of the company that evolved out of Irvin
Air Chutes. (The “Irvin” name was restored to the
company’s letterhead in the early 1940s.) The RAF gave
Irvin’s firm a contract for parachutes in 1925, causing it
to set up a plant in Hertfordshire the next year.
Around the same time, at the urging of some pilots
who’d used the firm’s parachutes to escape from aircraft
in distress, Irvin set up the “Caterpillar Club” to record
their names and stories.