On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 4:46:21 PM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
Ever heard of a Mae West?Â* That's when you get a line over the top of a
round canopy.Â* There are many malfunctions you can have with either type
of canopy, most are recoverable.

You don't have to "fly" an emergency ram air chute.Â* The developer of
mine told me that, during testing, he landed under the canopy hands
off.Â* I would still have a grip on the steering/braking toggles.Â* Flying
the chute is trivial; easier than flying the glider, and you fly the
same traffic pattern with the same altitudes at your turn points.Â* It
only has a steeper glide angle than the glider and much better forward
speed than a round canopy.Â* It's far more controllable than a round
canopy, too.

I took the ground school at the local jump club and only intended to
make one jump (solo).Â* It was so much fun that I did seven jumps before
deciding that I'd spent enough money that could have been used for tows.

Like they used to say - Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

On 6/22/2018 5:32 PM, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Three years ago when I got back into soaring I talked to serveral riggers about a round vs square chute. The riggers, including Allen Silver, all talked me out of a square for safety reasons. If you are seriously considering a square rig, I highly recommend you speak with a qualified rigger and discuss your needs and experience. For me, with a round chute, if you exit the aircraft and pull the rip cord, the chute will open and bring you to earth. With a square you have to fly and it can deploy in a stated where it is already in a death spiral. I figure if I am under silk I am done flying for the day.

--
Dan, 5J

Thanks for making this a separate thread.

After thinking it insane to be putting on a round chute on a wave day, I bought a square rig. Experience was 22 jumps, 2 of them solo square jumps, plus a couple of hundred paraglider landings. The early jumps were round parachutes: Tern, LL and 7TU. Looking back with square experience, they weren't very controllable.
The square makes a lot of sense. If you do not unlock the toggles, it does not accelerate to best L/D, in my case 3.5:1. Using the toggles it is extremely steerable and maneuverable. Stand up landings where you want to land are easy.

The photo of where YO landed is a great example of the places you could easily end up under a round canopy and can avoid with a square.

As Dan points out, there are various malfunction modes of parachutes.
On our first jump day, my friend had a line over / Mae West (looks like a bra instead of one large canopy) on a 28' Tern. Fortunately it was still large enough for her to do a PLF without hurting herself. Not the same with a big guy and a 22' or 24' round at any elevation.
Jim