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The Caterpillar Club originated in October 1922 at Wright Field, Ohio, when a suggestion was made to start a club composed only of persons whose lives were saved by the use of the parachute when forced to leave an aircraft in flight. The name comes from the fact that parachutes were made from silk, produced from the caterpillar cocoon. By 1940 there were some 700 members of the Caterpillar Club, including such noteworthy members as Charles Lindbergh

 Identifier

NASM.XXXX.0576

Creator

Caterpillar Club

Date

1922-1940

Provenance

Falk Harmel, gift, 1967, XXXX-0576, unknown

Extent

1.35 Cubic feet ((3 legal document boxes))

Archival Repository

National Air and Space Museum Archives

Scope and Contents

This collection includes photographs of most of the members, and some of their aircraft and crash sites. There are also detailed reports of each of the 700 documented emergency parachute jumps as well as newspaper articles and correspondence about the Caterpillar Club and Lt. Col. Falk Harmel, who maintained this collection.

Rights

Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests

Restrictions

No restrictions on access

Topics

Aeronautics

Aircraft accidents

Parachutes

Aircraft survival equipment

Periodicals

Type

Collection descriptions

Archival materials

Correspondence

Photographs

Publications