Katharina Paulus

Katharina "Käthe" Paulus (22 December 1868 – 26 July 1935) was a German exhibition parachute jumper and the inventor of the first collapsible parachute. At the time, 1910, the parachute was named "rescue apparatus for aeronauts". The previous parachutes were not able to fit in a case like apparatus worn on the back, thus Paulus' invention became of paramount importance for the Germans in the First World War and she produced about 7,000 parachutes for the German forces. During the First World War, Paulus created approximately 125 parachutes a week. She was also credited with inventing the "drag 'chute", an intentional breakaway system where one small parachute opens to pull out the main parachute.

Paulus was an avid aeronaut herself and logged over 510 balloon flights and over 165 parachute jumps in her lifetime. She was the first German to be a professional air pilot and the first German woman aerial acrobat.

Despite the fact that hot air balloons are currently known as a sort of tourist attraction, during the final decades of the 19th century these hot air balloons were on the cutting edge of technology, and were popular before the invention of airplane. Provided by Wikipedia