Parks College Parachute Research Group
Articles of Interest to Grade School, High School, and College Students
The Parks College Parachute Research Group has created this section of our web site for
the high school and college student doing basic research on the aerodynamics of parachutes.
We hope that it will become a valuble source of information for students interested in the
technical aspects of parachutes. Contributors will include college professors, parachute
reseachers, and other people associated with parachuting and the skydiving industry.
- Parachute Inflation
- This text, which has been extracted from the McGraw-Hill 1998 Yearbook on Science
and Technology, describes the basic processes involved in parachute inflation, the types
of parachutes, their opening stages, and reefing systems.
- Calculating the Descent of a Round Parachute
- This article describes the calculations for determining the descent of a round parachute.
Calculating the Descent of a Round Parachute, PDF version
- Building a Model Rocket Parachute Recovery System
- This text describes the very basic calculations for determining the size of a small round
parachute used for recovering model rockets.
Building a Model Rocket Parachute Recovery System, PDF version
- Science Projects with Toy Parachutes
- This article describes a series of simple experiments in which a parachute's
descent speed is studied against changes in payload weight, parachute size,
geometric porosity, suspension line length, etc.
