Bail out and parachutes

[parahist]

Many allied pilots and aircrew members need to bail out and use parachutes over German side. What happened to those parachutes?
What was their continued use? Did Luftwaffe use allied parachutes or not?

Photo source: Google

[ju55dk]

LW did not use allied parachutes.
Junker

[parahist]

Thanks. Do you know what they did for those parachutes?

[Sheldrake]

Recycled into lingerie?

[Felix C]

Were parachutes always silk? I imagine that was a material difficult to source in the european Axis.

[parahist]

At the beginning of the war parachutes was made mously silk. Later there was also other material.

[LineDoggie]

Thanks. Do you know what they did for those parachutes?

Would depend if the canopies were damaged

And could they be modified to German harnesses and packs

and would it even be economically worth it to recycle as parachutes for the number recovered undamaged

[parahist]

[/quote]Would depend if the canopies were damaged

And could they be modified to German harnesses and packs

and would it even be economically worth it to recycle as parachutes for the number recovered undamaged
[/quote]

I also belive that Germans used those parachutes. There are no sense if all of those go to "black market". It was really more economically to use those.

[Empiricist]

At the beginning of the war parachutes was made mously silk. Later there was also other material.

Before WWII parachutes all over the world were made of silk, mainly Japanese. For the USA Japanese silk was embargoed immediately after Pearl Harbor. In the USA during WWII silk was replaced by nylon for parachute manufacturing.

In the other wartime states parachutes were made of silk and percale.

[ShindenKai]

Parachute tech is actually quite interesting. Fun fact: modern skydiving is actually FAR SAFER than driving a car everyday.