Story time.......
I was CD'ing a contest at Air Sailing and caught a 1-26 driver
climbing in without a chute. Where's your chute, I asked? Don't use
them, was his reply. You do in this contest, its
regulations..............he was retired military and I knew he
wouldn't argue with that. You can guess where this is going, come
evening, everybody's back cept the 1-26 driver. Nothing on the radio
and nobody'd heard anything in the air, so we launched a search
vehicle, AKA, tow plane. Found him about an hour later, he'd done a
one-turn spin, turning final to a dirt road about 20 miles west of
home plate. That 1-26 hit near vertical and he broke both legs and
messed up his feet something awful!
Alone in the desert, loosing blood and going into shock, he was
between a rock and a hard place. Then he remembered the chute I made
him wear. Popped that puppy and wrapped both legs and himself with the
canopy. The chute probably saved his life and not by its intended
purpose.
One could write a book about the use of a parachute other than for a
nylon descent.
JJ