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Show TNAVY ORDERS NEW TYPE RIP-STOP NYLON PARACHUTES A new nylon parachute, which is larger, safer and more efficient than the present Navy model, has been ordered to replace the standard stand-ard parachute used in Naval aviation avia-tion for 25 years. Made of "rip-stop" nylon, a waffle-weave material fashioned with heavy cross threads at quar-ter.inch quar-ter.inch intervals to help prevent tearing, the new parachute has a 28-foot diameter, four feet more than the present model. The new 'rip-stop" nylon fabric weighs one ounce per square yard. Regular nylon parachute silk weighs more than one and a half ounces per square yard. As a result, re-sult, the new 28-foot parachute has approximately the same weight as the 24-foot parachute. Starting this month, the Naval Aircraft Factory at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is using the new fabric in making the larger 28-foot 28-foot parachutes. Under the replacement re-placement program, the 35,000 parachutes used by the Navy will be replaced at a rate of approximately approxi-mately 5,000 a year with the new parachutes. This method was chosen as the most economical since parachutes become overage and are taken from service when they are seven years old. The new parachute has been the subject of three years experimenting experiment-ing by the Bureau of Aeronautics. During this period, approximately 100 "live" jumps and more than 2,000 drop tests have been made to collect data. Most qf the experimental experi-mental dropping was done by the Navy parachute Experimental Unit, which recently moved from Lakehurst. New Jersey, to El Cen-tro, Cen-tro, California. |