Silk elevator is a vivid piece of aviation and military slang for a parachute. The name is perfectly descriptive: when deployed, a parachute billows open like a great silk canopy and gently carries the jumper toward the ground — the silk doing the work of an elevator, controlling descent rather than ascent. The term has a romantic, old-school quality and is most associated with the era when parachutes really were made of silk rather than nylon.
The pilot calmly reached for the ejection handle, trusting his life to the silk elevator and whatever luck he had left.
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(aviation, military slang) A parachute.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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