Naw, no bugs.
The
Caterpiller Club is only open to people who have had their lives saved by a parachute, after they were forced to jump from a disabled plane.
The pins, membership cards and certificates, are awarded by the companies that make the chutes, primarily Irvin and Switlik.
Switlik says;
Quote:
The Caterpillar Club was originated at Dayton, Ohio between October 20, 1922 and November 11, 1922 by Messrs Hutton, Verne Timmerman, J. Mumma and Milton H. St. Clair. This world-wide club is for aviators, military and commercial, who have saved their lives with a parachute in an emergency.
It all started with a young army test pilot named Harold Harris. On October 20, 1922 he was flying a Loening W-2A monoplane fighter in a mock dogfight with a friend. His plane had been equipped the day before with experimental aerodynamically balanced airlerons. After taking off from the test center at McCook field, Dayton near where the Wright brothers tested their plane, his plane suddenly rocked violently and Harris found he could not control it. He had to bail out.
Two reporters from the Dayton Herald, discussing the event, suggested that since there would be more jumps with the chute, a club should be formed to embrace these intrepid airmen. They considered several names for the organization and selected the Caterpillar Club. The reasoning was simple - the parachute main sail and shroud lines were woven from the finest silk. The lowly caterpillar worm spins a cocoon and crawls out and flies away from certain death.
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Irvin says;
Quote:
The Irvin Air Chute Co. started the Caterpillar Club in 1922 and the practice of awarding the tiny gold Caterpillar Pin to anyone who saved his life by parachuting from a disabled or flaming aircraft. Each recipient of the Caterpillar Pin is living testimony to the life saving ability of the Irvin Type Air Chute. The Caterpillar is symbolic of the silk worm, which lets itself descend gently to earth from heights by spinning a silky thread to hang from. Parachutes in the early days were made from pure silk.
In 1919 Leslie Irvin, a 24-year-old stunt man from California, demonstrated the first "free drop" parachute. He had made the chute himself on a borrowed sewing machine. Flying safety experts were so impressed that the American Air Force and British R.A.F. promptly adopted the parachute as standard equipment. Later the same year, Irvin established his first factory for the mass production of parachutes in Buffalo, New York. In 1926 the first European factory was established in Letchworth, England.
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The club is gathering about 10 members a year, in the 21st century.
Skydivers and sport parachutists are not eligible because, as my Dad (82nd Airborne) would say, the damn fools jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.
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