Parachutes
Earhart and Noonan picked up two Irvin parachutes in Port Darwin, Australia on June 28, 1937. Last Flight says they left the parachutes behind in Port Darwin, but that may not be correct. A contemporary newspaper account suggests that the parachutes were collected in Darwin. From Finding Amelia:
"The correspondent for the Sydney, Australia, newspaper who was present for the Electra’s arrival in Darwin told a different story: 'The first thing she did after being officially welcomed was to inquire if parachutes, part of the emergency equipment for the Pacific crossing in front of her, had arrived from America. They reached here more than a week ago. . . . Fully tested and ready for immediate use, the parachutes were waiting in Mr. Collins’s office.' (Alan Collins was the civil aviation officer for Darwin.) Earhart made no mention of the parachutes in her press release, but a photograph taken that day shows her and Noonan in front of the Electra’s cabin door with what appears to be a pile of items about to be loaded aboard the airplane. Two parachutes are clearly visible" (65).
Irvin vs. Irving Parachutes
"Irvin did not invent the parachute, but he worked ambitiously on developing a parachute that could be worn by the user and operated by a manual ripcord. When he demonstrated a silk version of his parachute design in April 1919 in Dayton, Ohio, he was awarded a military contract by the U.S. Army. What had begun as a prototype created on a borrowed millinery sewing machine in Buffalo became the "Irving Air Chute Company" in June 1919. (The company name was the result of a typographic error and remained until 1970.)"[1]
