Rickster PowellDeland, Fla.Years on Job: 21 Jumping out of an airplane is one thing; doing it with an unproven parachute is something else entirely. But for sport canopy companies like Performance Designs, in DeLand, Fla., someone has to go first–which is where Rickster Powell comes in. The 41-year-old has 20,000 jumps under his belt, and of the 50 chutes he’s tested, nine–like the steep-turning Velocity and speedy Stiletto–reached production. Most tests are safe, he says, even when a new design leads to unstable flight. Still, Powell once got tangled in a fellow tester’s canopy when it deployed too close to him. “Luckily, he released the chute,” Powell says. “But the scars from the nylon burns remind me to be careful.“Rickster Powell interview on The Popular Mechanics ShowInterview starts at 30:00.Right click here and click “Save link as” to save this podcast to your hard drive.Subscribe to the Popular Mechanics Show: Media Platforms Design Team Media Platforms Design TeamRELATED STORIES* TECH WATCH: CPU-Guided Parachutes Resupply Army in Afghanistan* PODCAST: Meet the High-Tech Chute Tester
Media Platforms Design Team
RELATED STORIES* TECH WATCH: CPU-Guided Parachutes Resupply Army in Afghanistan* PODCAST: Meet the High-Tech Chute Tester
