The human cannonball act is a performance in which a person who acts as the "cannonball" is ejected from a cylinder that has been specially designed to resemble a cannon. The human cannonball lands on a horizontal net or inflated bag placed at the predicted landing point. Outdoor performances may aim at a body of water.
History
William Leonard Hunt, known in the circus world as "The Great Farini", conceived and designed the basic act in the early 1870s, filing a patent for launching a human projectile in 1871.
Hunt's cannon used rubber springs to launch a person from the cannon, limiting the distance they could be launched. His adopted son, Samuel Wasgate, was the first to perform as the human projectile, dressed in female clothing and billed as "Lulu" in an 1873 act referred to as the "Lulu Leap".
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The first act billed as a "human cannonball", launched in 1877 at the Royal Aquarium in London using the same contraption used for the "Lulu Leap", was the 17-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter, going by the stage name "Zazel". Richter is often erroneously credited with being the first performer of the act.
During World War I, Ildebrando Zacchini proposed using spring-loaded cannons to shoot Italian soldiers across enemy lines, but the Italian government considered the plan too risky. In Cairo in 1922, Zacchini invented a cannon that used compressed air to launch a human. He first tested his new cannon with his son Bruno Zacchini, and after traveling back to Italy, Ringling Brothers scouts invited the Zacchini family to the United States.
Cannon mechanics
The impetus in the cannon is provided either by a spring or jet of pneumatics. This makes the device work more like a catapult, where the cylinder propelling the human stops at the mouth of the cannon.
In a circus performance, gunpowder may be used to provide visual and auditory effects unrelated to the launching mechanism. Fireworks and smoke may also be used to increase the visual effect.
The largest retailer of these human cannons is located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. This supplier provides approximately 80% of all human cannon catapults.
World record
There is a claim that the current world record for the longest human cannonball flight is ,
There is, however, a contradictory claim that Smith's father, David "Cannonball" Smith Sr., set a record of ,
[ Chatting with an aerialist and the human rocket before the Carden Circus comes to LAX on Monday]
Risk
More than 30 human cannonballs have died during the performance of this stunt. Among the latest was that which occurred in Kent, United Kingdom on April 25, 2011, where a human cannonball died as a result of the failure of the safety net.
Special forces
The human cannonball principle is the subject of a patent application by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, whereby a rail-guided chair driven by compressed air is brought to a sudden stop, propelling the special forces member, police officer or firefighter onto the roof of a tall building.
See also
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Frank "Cannonball" Richards
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William Leonard Hunt
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Ildebrando Zacchini
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Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co.
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Cannonball ride – a plot device used for example in the tales about Baron Munchausen and in the 1911 film The Adventures of Pinocchio
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'Human Cannonball' by Butthole Surfers from the album Locust Abortion Technician
Further reading
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Shane Peacock. The Great Farini: The High-Wire Life of William Hunt (1995), .
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Richard Hooper. Flight of the human cannonballs, BBC News Magazine, BBC World Service, 3 September 2013 (with photos).
External links
