INTO THE SKY 4 Nancy Koreen felt a little nervous No wonder she was about to jump out of a plane Nancy had skydived many times but this time was special She was part of a team of women preparing to do a group skydive There were 63 of them all together in three different planes In a few moments the doors of the planes would open and the women would jump Then they would try to join hands as they dove down at 160 miles 257 5 kilometers per hour If they did it they would set a world record in skydiving To succeed everyone had to be perfectly synchronized at the same time They had less than a minute to get it right The door opened and the howling wind hit Nancy’s body It was loud and cold She didn’t care though The clock was ticking It was time to make history She took a deep breath and jumped into the sky
GETTING STARTED In the late 1700s Andre-Jacques Garnerin did not have much to do He had been captured during the French Revolution Now he was stuck in prison To pass the time he dreamed of making a parachute In 1797 after he got out of prison he set to work He made a parachute out of a big piece of Andre-Jacques Garnerin 1769 1823 white canvas more than 20 feet 6 meters across Then he attached a basket to it He rode in a balloon to take him high above the ground and took his parachute with 6
him When he reached 3,200 feet 975 meters he floated down in a basket as the parachute opened above him People liked this new way of flying They used balloons to parachute all through the 1800s A new sport was born 7 Inspired Leonardo da Vinci was a famous artist and scientist in the 1400s He drew a sketch of a parachute but never built it In 2000 a skydiver named Adrian Nichols decided he would make da Vinci’s parachute It was made from canvas wooden poles and rope Then Nichols tested it It worked
