Gleb Kotelnikov
Gleb Yevgeniyevich Kotelnikov (Котельников, Глеб Евгеньевич in Russian, January 30 [O.S. January 18] 1872 – November 22, 1944), was the Russian-Soviet inventor of the knapsack parachute.
In 1894, Kotelnikov graduated from the Kiev Military School. In 1911, he created his first parachute RK-1 (which stands for Rantseviy (knapsack) Kotelnikova (by Kotelnikov), 1st model), that was successfully employed in 1914 during the World War I. Later on, Kotelnikov significantly improved the design of his parachute, creating new models, including RK-2 with a softer knapsack, RK-3, and a few cargo parachutes, all of which would be adopted by the Soviet Air Force.
Having witnessed the death of a talented Russian pilot Lev Matsivich and been shocked by it, he became really obsessed with the idea of constructing a parachute, to which he devoted several years of his life as well as all his personal savings. In 1911 he applied for a patent to the Committee on Inventions granted to him in France under the number 438612. That is how he summarized the working principle of his parachute:" The working principle of the apparatus is as follows: in case of emergency a pilot, wearing it on its back, could throw himself out of an aircraft, opening a knapsack by pulling a cord attached to its lock. In case of an unexpected fall the device can work quite automatically. For that purpose the lock of the parapack is connected with a carriage of an aircraft by means of a cord which would open the lock of a parapack being stretched under the weight of a falling man ". At first G.Kotelnikov called his invention a safety apparatus, a knapsack-parachute and later on it got the name of RK-1 (Russian, Kotelnikov, Model 1).