IT'S NOT JUST FOR STUNT MEN ANYMORE. Every pilot may eventually need a whole-airplane parachute. Dino Moline did last August when the wing of his RANS S-9 aerobatic airplane snapped off during a performance in Argentina. With no way to eject as his craft spun out of control, he popped the big chute. Strapped in his seat, he floated to the earth, then walked away. The idea's been around for a while. In 1929, Hollywood stunt pilot Roscoe Turner deployed a whole-airplane parachute for kicks before 15,000 spectators in Santa Ana, California, and landed softly in his 2,800-pound Lockheed Air Express. In 1948, pilot and parachutist Bob Fronius twice deployed a chute from a JR-V Robin sailplane near San Diego, and several times the following year from a J-3 Piper Cub. "He would climb, shut the engine down, open the chute, play around with it, then release the chute and dive to start the engine," says Fronius' son Doug. Bob Fronius never commercialized his parachute. "He was a better experimenter than a businessman," says Doug. "He considered the job done once he accomplished the experimental part.
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