A parachute designed by Leonardo da Vinci more than 500 years ago has been used successfully for the first time by a Swiss. The 36-year-old Swiss amateur parachutist said he jumped from a hovering helicopter at 650 metres (2,130 feet) on Saturday and the Leonardo parachute deployed as planned at 600 metres above a Geneva airport. He is the first person to make it safely to the ground using the da Vinci model - Britain’s Adrian Nicholas was forced to pull the ripcord on a modern back-up version to complete his descent safely in 2000. The parachute sketch was among a series of designs which show how much da Vinci was ahead of his time in coming up with ideas that would not be made reality for hundreds of years. read more

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