Definition
A parachute deployed from the rear of certain aircraft after touchdown to create high aerodynamic drag and shorten the landing roll. It supplements wheel braking, especially on short, contaminated, or high-speed runways.
Plain English
A parachute that pops out behind the aircraft after landing to help slow it down faster than the brakes alone could.
Context Anchor
Seen in aircraft landing, stopping-distance, and aircraft-specific operating procedure discussions, especially for high-performance or military aircraft.
Derivation
Drag here means aerodynamic resistance, the force that slows an object moving through air. Chute is short for parachute, from the French para- (against) and chute (fall). So a drag chute is literally a parachute used to drag against the air and slow the aircraft.
Why Pilots Care
Enables safe stopping on shorter runways, reduces brake wear, and improves stopping performance on wet or icy surfaces where wheel brakes alone are less effective.
Intuition Check
Do not read “chute” here as a cargo chute or a normal emergency parachute. A drag chute is used to slow the aircraft by adding air resistance behind it.
Example Sentence 1
After touchdown on the short runway, the pilot deployed the drag chute to reduce the landing roll.
Example Sentence 2
On an icy runway the crew waited until the nose wheel was down before releasing the drag chute to avoid directional control problems.