Background
He was born in Illinois on October 17, 1884, then his family moved to Union, Oregon.
He was born in Illinois on October 17, 1884, then his family moved to Union, Oregon.
He built and flew his own plane in 1912 and invented the manually operated parachute for the Army in 1918. He was awarded the Aeronautical Club of America Medal or Merit. Their first son, Sylvester, was killed at age 11 by a car in 1919, in Chicago.
They had a second son, Prevost Vedrines (1913–1991) aka Prevost Floyd.
In 1930 the family was living in Morrisville, Buckinghamshire County, Pennsylvania and Floyd was working as an engineer Prevost and Floyd started the Parachute Company at Gillespie Field in San Diego County, California which became the Prevost Parachute Company.
A patent was filed on July 27, 1918 and issued May 18, 1920 for his parachute. The assignee was the Floyd Aerial Equipment Company of San Diego, California.
Floyd with Leslie Leroy Irvin, developed a 28-foot backpack parachute.
On April 28, 1919, Irvin jumped from a de Havilland biplane traveling at 100 miles per hour at an altitude of 1,500 feet. After Irvin bailed out of the airplane and falling free, he manually reached the ripcord handle and pulled it, and the parachute fully deployed at 1,000 feet. Irvin became the first American to jump from an airplane and manually open a parachute in midair.
Floyd"s original 1919 ripcord parachute is on display at the Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio.
