Reading the letter from Ronald Willis to honour the late Maurice Smith (July 22) I read, in the final paragraph of Mr Willis’s letter, that Mr Smith was a member of the Caterpillar Club. I thought I would explain what the club was all about.

Prior to Leslie Irvin, an American, developing his parachute in 1922, the lives of pilots and other aviators was quite parlous as they didn’t have the type of (wearable), parachute he developed.

Following a successful descent by an American pilot from a crashing plane, using one of Irvin’s parachutes, two reporters from the Dayton Herald suggested forming the club, the name being chosen to reflect the fact that parachutes (then) were made from silk and the silk was produced by a caterpillar.

Criteria for being a member of the club were very strict. One example of membership being refused was when RAF Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade bailed out of his stricken Lancaster over Germany during the Second World War without his parachute. He was refused membership, even though he survived the many thousands of feet drop by landing in a deep snowdrift, because he didn’t “descend” by parachute.

There is a similar club called the Goldfish Club for people who parachuted into water.

Phil Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge.